Adelina's Alley: take 1 and 2

This screen shot from "Adelina", one of a trilogy of three short stories in Vittorio de Sica 's 1963 film "Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow" [Ieri, Oggi, Domani] was the inspiration for the pillow design. The combination of neutral colors with bright colors and white, the patterns, the weave of the man's suit, and the architectural lines of the alley all play into the design.

        A couple of the fabrics are even in sync with the time period of the film-- the woven beige cotton was the curtains from our 1960's patio home, the green plaid was my dad's shirt from the same time period.

                This is my dad in 1959 with my two oldest sisters here in central Texas.

The raw silk is cut from a tunic top my sister made for herself in the late 1980's- early 90's, a Claude Montana design.  The fabric is breaking down from age and it causes me pain to cut up her hard work, but once the material is backed with fusible inner facing it's usable again, so why not?




Framing 

Edge strips

Here are the edge strips trimmed from the pillow cover and sewn together to create a new textile.

The process of framing and trimming is self-generative.

Collage Pillow 1, plus "Ieri, Oggi, Domani"

rotations:

Film and fabrics:

This week I watched Vittorio de Sica's film "Ieri, Oggi, Domani"  , a trilogy of short films within a film starring Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni. I was struck by the colors, patterns, and textures in the clothing, architecture, props-- everything so beautifully thought out.  

It's a comprehensive approach that brought to mind the diverse group of fabrics in my collection, which span a wide range of time periods, various family members' personal tastes, functions etc.-- interesting to think of each group of fabrics as a scene, a place, an event.  Some of the fabrics in the collection, such as the green and gray windowpane plaid shirt-- a rag which I recovered from my dad's work shed--  are from around the same time period as the movie, mid-sixties.  

Love the Lipton boxes and other products, the pop of turquoise in the doorway.

Note the occurrence of blue in this series of market scenes.

.. and the geometric patterned dress that strolls through.

LOVE this one-- the linear structure and use of shadow to reinforce it, the texture of the wall at the back, the pop of orange amid grays and beiges.

I was reminded of this painting by Nicolas de Stael .  The monochrome image above emphasizes the lines and spatial composition.  Below is the original painting with all of its glorious colors.

back to the film....

Is that a pile of giant lemons?

You can't miss the yellow in these frames.

So small that red license plate, but what an impact.

and a pop of red again in this one.

Crazy colored cabinets!  Note the blood-red pot with the turquoise bowl back left.