Magical Felt in Thai orphanage

In Phrae and to Phatcheburn.

With the wool fibers that amalgamate continents, once again, Ruth Bucci-Baumer from Switzerland, which normally  offers creative felt courses in Italy, spent the winter, as a volunteer, in two orphanages in the North and Center Thailand.
Ruth was supported by DHG Main Street, which generously provided the material necessary for the realization of his project.

"The home and the schools in Phrae and Phatcheburn  managed by a Christian association based in Australia, were the places where I found an excellent base to work as an art-therapist.
I started working with preschool children in Phrae, in which the curiosity about this strange material has been definitely a good start. The contact with water, initially brake for these children, who were taught not to get wet, soon took over the entertainment aspect, it was transformed into a great interest and subsequent involvement.
Soon they showed the desire to create with fun, and day after day they created new felt objects.
Through this way of "making felt" I could teach the younger, as sensory, knowledge of colors, shapes and materials, particularly for Freddy and Ploy, two children with Special Needs, "making felt" it was a therapeutic boon that has helped to improve their motor skills and foster their growth.


In the second structure Phatcheburn, there are about 100 boys of all ages, organized in small families who attend the school adjacent to the institute, built by the Australians with the consent of the Thai state, the school also hosts about 1500 children from across the region .



These children could attend felt classes only in their free time after completing their daily tasks, which consisted of cleaning activities, gardening, work in agriculture, to feed the fish, fishing and helping in the kitchen, etc. etc.
With great pleasure I observed that just enjoyed a bit of time showed a great desire to be a personal item. Having a personal item Felt was seen as a prime location. Boys all wanted the bag or tie, females were creating flowers or light scarf. Often I felt it difficult to postpone the children the next day because the spontaneous participation, but so numerous, kept me from following them. 
I felt, and I confirm at now, that do felt in Thailand, in schools and orphanages, was the ideal vehicle to create contacts in the beautiful space of all ages. The combination of wool fibers, together with the soap and water and warmth mixed contacts between the people and joy for the soul -
In synthesis, I went with the thought and the desire to give many things to these children but the wealth that I brought in is really indescribable. "


Thanks again Ruth for her willingness to share his experience and for the beautiful photos of young artists and their beautiful creations that sent us.

List of finalists out!

Main Street is now conveying the list of the 20 finalists, chosen from 249 participants to the public competition “DHG Art Factory, Prize for contemporary art”, intended to promote contemporary art and strengthen the link between industry and territory , in the name of research and creativity.

 “Quality, research, coherence with the subject, innovation and the state of being contemporary” as indicated in the announcement of public competition, (Article n. 11), were the basic judging critiria to pick out the finalists. The managers of the company declare:  “Just like the strenght of our materials , usable at any latitude, we chose the works with an immediate communicative strenght, able to join textile tradition – that is where we come from – together with our vision of this job, because Dyeinghousegallery is a work in progress that loves different cultural influences. We get convinced and seduced by what is new and different, by original points of view, because we want to develop and change, following new inspirations. It was a difficult selection, but what matters is that, whatever the professional Jury will decide, it will be definitely satisfactory, since each and every work has a strong personality. They were so satisfactory for us as to cherish the idea of proposing future cooperations to many of those artists”

 The 19 projects, selected by the Company, together with Anna Luana Tallarita’s – voted by ondine users, will be judged by a professional Jury, conprised of Gaia Gualtieri (Managing Director  of Main Street Srl) , Francesco Funghi (Director of the Vault Contemporary Art Gallery), Lorenzo Giusti (Curator of EX3 Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Firenze), Livia Savorelli (Editorial Manager of Espoarte Contemporary Art Magazine) and Massimiliano Tonelli (Director of Artribune). By April 24^th they will decide who the winner is. The publication on www.dyeinghousegallery.com/artfactory will have to be considered official .

“DHG Art Factory, Prize for contemporary art” constitutes just the first of a series of initiatives that will make DHG - dyeinghousegallery brand (www.dyeinghousegallery.com) meet the art and culture world, new ideas and possible links between industry and creativity.

The finalists are: Ben Brown, Richard Biancalani, Francesca Bruni, Bunker108, Carlo Colli, Fausto Della Villa, diLo - Eugenia, Di.Segno studio creativo, Daniele Fabiani, Ettore Favini, Giulia Gaccione, Dario Paolo Insabella, Lato Zanetti, Kate McCarthy, Franco Menicagli, Elena Piccolboni, Nicoletta Scilimati, Alessia Silvestrelli, Spogo and Anna Luana Tallarita.

DHG Art Factory Prize Public competition closed - selections are starting

DHG lands in Finland

We cannot avoid to navigate the 7 seas and the 5 continents. We can never disconnect from the world around us if we wish to do our job well and, then, how beautiful it is to travel, know new places and people, dive into other cultures.

Now the DHG BLOG is born and we have the chance to “bring” you with us. A little reportage for each journey. Let’s go!

6-11 December 2011 Finland

6 unique and fantastic days spent in part together with Leena, Piia and Sirpa, big friends and DHG partners. From 2012 they will be, in fact, the DHG testimonials in Finland and we are going to develop new projects with them...

On the left Sirpa, Leena on the right

They came to meet us first. It was last May:  they came to meet us at our Company offices with Eva (Basile) and Cristiana (Di Nardo) even if the weather was terribly hot and damp those days. Maybe just for this reason –tit for tat – (of course, we are joking!) they invited us to Finland... in December!

We had never been to Finland before and we just fell in love with it. You can feel the power of nature in every corner, people are really hospitable.. and also food is excellent! Then how about the healthy and marvellous habit of taking a sauna?

All and all, it was not so cold, even if the snow was not missing, luckily, and believe me, it was amazing to see Santa Claus’ Country under the snow!

Maybe the only problem was to get used to having only a few hours of light per day, as when the sun rises, it’s 10 in the morning and it already sets at 2 pm.

Obviously, it is impossible to see everything in 6 days, but we were on the move all the time. We spent some days in Helsinki, the capital, which is like a little treat of about 600,000 people, overlooking the Gulf of Finland. The first day, the 6^th December, it was National Holiday, so almost all shops and public places were closed, but the next two days we really had fun. The city is very clean, well organized and it is easy to wander around. Helsinki is the world capital of Design for 2012 and it is just ready for the role. We stayed in the Design District  and it was wonderful to go around the beautiful streets full of shops, cafés and art galleries. Prices were not so moderate for us, but sometimes just seeing the beautiful scenery around is enough.

 

We spent another three days in the nice city called Jyväskylä where Leena and Piia’s company, Papiina, is located. Papiina is specialised in the production of clothes made of felt (www.papiina.com). This city is  famous for its universities and because it is the home town of Alvar Alto, the most famous Finnish architect; it is about 600 kilometers from Helsinki. Trains run fast through the infinite countryside and iced lakes and we would have wished to stop at every moment to take some decent photos of the places unfolding before our eyes.

When we arrived, we spent the entire day at Papiina and we were able to see how these two energic women manage their company. It was beautiful to spend some time with them. See how their product are born, learn what their problems are and dream of new adventures. Then, they spoiled me so much: it was wonderful to work having a cup of tea, Christmas sweets and salmon cake in an ambient which I would define Jamaican-like. Total relax!

Another day we met Sirpa too and we visited Jämsä, maybe the “capital” of Finnish felt. Sirpa lives there so we started from there and visited some farms where they work Finnish wool and sell wool products: Christmas decorations, boots, sippers and bags of high design. Design and craftsmanship in a fine mix coming from the same place. It’s fantastic!

Then, in the middle of nowhere, we found ourselves on a wonderful lake where a little rebuilt house made of red bricks houses one of the highest level galleries of handicrafts we have ever seen. It really is worthy of big cities like London or New York. Here you can find felt but also metal and ceramic handicrafts. Amazing  handicrafts that made you want to write a letter to Santa Claus.

What more? We should write more pages, but still it would not be enough. We stop here and give voice to the images. We hope they arrive where our words did not.

DHG Art Factory, Prize for contemporary art!...

New year new office…and there’s no better way to start it than calling a competition  for a new façade for the company… the competition, called “DHG Art Factory, Prize for contemporary art!” will end on the 29^th February and will allow all the artist to put themselves on the test with us. You can view and vote on the works in the competition on the website www.dyeinghousegallery.com and a Jury of art experts and managers of the company will judge them. The winner will receive a work contract for the realization of his/her idea and therefore the possibility to show his/her work on an entire façade!

The competition is still open, so if there is anybody among you who wish to have his/her occasion, we invite you to read the announcement of the public competition on the webpage www.dyeinghousegallery.com/artfactory  and send us your ideas.

Please visit us on Facebook too: www.facebook.com/dhgprize

Over water and colour...

Established in 1954, our company does industrial dyeing on natural, synthetic and plant textile fibers; our plants are located in Tuscany, in the famous textile district of Prato. We realized a few years ago that small manufacturers requested more dyed fibers for their creations made of FELT, therefore we decided to combine our experience with their creativity in order to found a new project called: DYEINGHOUSEGALLERY (DHG).

The COLOUR is for sure the main element of our philosophy but also QUALITY is very important to us. On the Internet, you can find many suppliers of dyed fibers for felting, but we decided to stand out by utilizing high quality fibers in order to improve your hand-made creations in felt, making them look like real jewels.

In order to meet the demands of people working with FELT as well as casual hobbyists , we decided to offer our dyed textiles on an e-commerce website. We deal with many artisans and other customers from all over the world every day and we are very proud of this.

We offer combed and carded fibers, each one available in more than 100 colours, and we have EXTRA FINE MERINO WOOL, MAORI WOOL, BERGSCHAF WOOL, TUSSAH SILK, CASHMERE, SURI ALPACAS WOOL.  

 

We also made a PRE-FELT with our fantastic extra fine merino wool that we are selling by the meter. We have silk (CHIFFON e PONGEE) in various colours as well, made using NUNO FELT technique. Moreover, we introduced a few months ago the INDUSTRIAL THERMOFORMABLE FELT. Everything is 100% made in Italy.

When someone claims that our strength is in colour, though this is undeniably true, we answer that nonetheless the real ace up our sleeve is our passion: the passion for our job, for textile, for tradition of our city Prato, expression of Italian creativity since 1200. But it is also confidence in the future. LET’S COLOUR THE WORLD!!