Artsy Weekend in June part 1: Witching Day and Wallpeople
Published by Nela Dunato on in Art, Personal
Last weekend was filled with various cultural events here in Rijeka, and sadly I couldn’t get to visit all of them, but those I did visit I thoroughly enjoyed.
I’m continuing the tour next weekend, so I’m making this a “part 1” of a series. So far there’s no part 3 in sight, but you never know!
Sadly I was without my camera, so all the photos were taken with my phone.
Witching Day
My dear friend Jasna, who is the founder of The Hauntlings collective (I mentioned it before in my post 10 reasons why you should attend artist meet-ups), created this event with the aim of gathering people around sharing ideas and services relating to magic, witchcraft and the mysterious aspects of living.
Everyone was welcome to come, whether you’re a practicing witch, a religious person, a spiritual person or a skeptic, and since it was a fairly small and intimate group the debate was healthy and everyone was very respectful.
We had tarot readings, palmistry, handmade jewelry, home-made elderberry and sage syrup, and in the afternoon a couple of us were giving talks. Mine was titled “Art as a dialogue with the subconscious”.
The event took place in the abandoned complex of the former paper factory Hartera. The place looks really interesting, and has been a home to many concerts and festivals in the past 5-6 years.
There were about 15 people at the time when I got there, but they told me people have been coming and going all the time.
This is a photo I stole from my friend Marijan. Thanks!
Some people got there without even knowing what was happening, and decided to stay all day long.
I took some of my art with me, and displayed it on the table and next to me as I was speaking.
(Totally unrelated, the sign in the background kind of reminds me of Christian Orthodox icons of Jesus.)
You can see my paintings Layers and Nourishing Heart next to me. So far I’ve gotten the most positive feedback on these two paintings, and people were glad to see my originals in person.
I was sketching out some of the concepts I was talking about for easier understanding. Since there were no projectors, we did it the old-school way!
My talk was very well received, and I was very happy with how it all turned out. Especially considering I wrote it only a few hours earlier!
I think the reason it turned out well is that I applied the same concepts I learned about blogging, and just adjusted it to a different format.
For those of you who couldn’t be there, don’t worry — I’ll be writing a blog post on this topic in the near future ;)
The event lasted until the evening, and I hope there will be another one again because we had so much fun!
Wallpeople 2014: “Back to Nature”
Wallpeople is a world-wide yearly event that uses public wall spaces as a gallery. Every year there is a theme to the event, and anyone can come to put their work on the wall, or to create it right there.
I also took part last year but I couldn’t stick around because I had a wedding to attend, so I really wanted to be there this year and hang around with other artists.
This year’s theme was “Back to Nature”, so I took prints of my works Maple Elemental, Daughter of the Forest and Flora and Fauna. I originally intended to paint something there as well, but I ended up chatting with people the whole time so I didn’t draw anything new.
Here’s me with prints of my work (the top 3 pictures), a collage by my street artist friend Rudi, and a piece of some very cool lettering.
And here is my photo of almost-the-entire-wall with almost all of the pieces, an hour before the event ended (I’m sure there were a few more works added later). There was some really amazing art up there!
BAnd here is a closer view of the right side of the wall, with a very popular floral “Edward & Bella” installation.
I hope you enjoyed this little photo tour of my weekend art wanderings!
Check out part 2 where I feature some very unusual (and possibly gory) imagery from my art show during the Freaky Friday event in Zagreb.
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What a beautiful venue, Nela! I would love to give a talk surrounded by those cobbles and vines. It looks like a wonderful and creative time :)
xo
K
Kris I totally agree, this venue has a very romantic feel to it, even though it’s a former factory, but there’s very little to see from the factory – it’s mostly just walls and floors now, and some roofs here and there :)
We’ll surely have more events there :)
Super slikice, nema veze što su poslikane s mobitelom, sve se lijepo vidi, baš sam uživala u njima.
Divim se tvojoj tj. svačijoj hrabrosti održavanja govora/predavanja pred ljudima. :)
Hvala, Martina! Malo su mutne ispale, ali ovako smanjene izgledaju ok :)
Ma to je stvar vježbe, a i ambijenta. Meni je najveći strah da ću reći nešto netočno ili glupo, a kad osjećam da je publika jako otvorena onda sam odmah i ja opuštenija!