Tangled in Time: Slow Craft and Nature’s Rhythms

Words & Images by Michela Cavagna.

Other Images by Elisabetta Zavoli and L. Mikelle Standbridge

Magazine | Issue 03

Michela Cavagna is an artist with a degree in architecture and a passion for Japan. She lives with her family (plus dog and cat) in a big old house built in 1792 by the woods in a rural village in the Alps, North of Italy. She lived in Indonesia, where she studied different forms of textile and crafts and practiced shibori, sukumo, coiling, and bamboo basketry. Now she is back in Italy, where her life in the small village is really simple and slow, and the daily routine is so different from the crowded Jakarta.

Her day starts at 5:45 AM when she prepares lunch for her daughters for school. After cooking, sometimes she goes around the woods to pick up herbs, bark, and mushrooms, searching for color inspiration. The outside nature is just the set for getting inspiration. She repeats as a Mantra, “We are nature, I am Nature.”

Michela works with yarns and fabrics from the waste of the textile process, or she finds them in old shops or brocantage markets. The slow process of making her works (little brooches, ceramics, upcycled textiles) is deeply connected to the idea that everything around us has beauty in itself and is a balance of old “Savoir-Faire,” simplicity and honesty. The aspect that interests Michela is putting into everything she does, having the right amount of time for practice, enjoying the beauty of the process, and searching for raw materials. Her works speak about life, such as birth, memories, and relationships.

In this photo essay,

The ceramic collection “The Impossible Party” is made by casting porcelain and silk natural dye using the off-loom weaving technique.

The pink fabrics with the flower of the iris printed using the mokuhanga technique (the Japanese wood carving), a collection of old bedsheets from the artist’s grandma's wardrobe, naturally dyed using fruits (blackberry) and green vegetables, then embroidered using the idea of boro that put in evidence the imperfection.

The artist is in the beech forest with the brooches “tangled” in wool and silk, made in coiling (colors inspired by the illustrated guide to Seoul of Icinori) and in her studio.

Image Credits (in order of appearance):

Images 5,6,8 by Michela Cavagna | Images 1,2,3,4,7,9 by Elisabetta Zavoli | Images 10,11 by L. Mikelle Standbridge