The Textile Museum: Saint Gallen, Switzerland

The morning I landed in Switzerland, I took the train from the Zurich airport to St. Gallen where I'd later be meeting Eleanor to head into Gais. I had a lot of time to kill, and found an amazing textile museum. Its hot pink screen-printed brochure of religious iconography caught my eye in a tourist info stop, and I made my way from there.

Museums comfort me while traveling. They are the link to home, the link to one of my favorite past times: being able to wander quietly, looking at interesting things; the time and space to think.

The textile museum has bright green walls, fabrics you can touch, a library of books (ancient and new). The current show was amazing: the textiles of the Catholic church, with pieces dating way back. They also had a screening room where you could watch the fashion show from Fellini's Roma. I sat there and watched it a few times over. 

It was the perfect way to spend my first afternoon in Switzerland.

I hope you all had a lovely week!

xo, Amanda

the swiss-italian sketchbook

Sketchbook pages from Italy, Switzerland, and Germany.

I hope you all had a beautiful weekend!

xo, Amanda

for caesar's I am, and wild for to hold, though I seem tame.

A new book to add to the list of "books that have meant very much to me": Bluets by Maggie Nelson.

Written in numbered paragraphs, sometimes subsequently related and other times not, she tells, in subtle code, the simplified story of a relationship that effected her deeply encased in her immense and overwhelming love for the color blue.

Blue is my favorite color, and when I spotted this book at the Booksmith, I felt very happy to have found it. I love the way Nelson feels about blue. It is how I have described feeling about birch bark - the endless search for something within it, without really knowing what. The love is in the search.

I read it quickly over the past three days. The book had an odd way of always playing off something I had just heard someone else say, something I had just thought or just written down, or something one of the kids did or said at school. The book is a rarity in that I feel so grateful for having read it, so grateful to the author for having written it. I always feel lucky when I stumble on a book like that. 

The day after I began to read it, one of my students asked me, "What's your favorite color?" 

"Blue," I told her.

"What's your favorite number?"

"Two."

She saturated a piece of paper with blue, leaving a white space in the shape of the letter A for my name. In the negative space of the A, she put 3 lines of varying length (a Japanese 3; she said it looked better than the 2). I folded it up and put it in Bluets; it just seemed too perfect. Such a perfect coincidence. 

In general, I admire Nelson's touching honesty about what it means to be "blue." I think the way she speaks of it is something that many creative types will relate to, even though that's not the point.

Long story short, it struck a chord in me that has not been struck by a book in a while now. It's beautiful, and I loved it.

Luzern (land of swans and rare birds)

Luzern is my favorite of all the towns I visited in Switzerland. It has incredible history that is so well preserved, and lots of nature. There are countless swans swimming in its main river.

The water is incredible shades of black, teal, and green.

This wooden bridge has numbered panels hanging from the ceiling that tell a story in German and with illustrated paintings that are hundreds of years old.

The currents of the water create beautiful landscapes on the surface.

 little blonde ducks

While in town, I noticed people walking along the bridge of an old castle wall on a hill in the distance and made my way up to it.

rock formations

On the castle walk-way.

The view was breathtaking. I got to spend a good 20 minutes up there by myself before anyone else arrived. 

 

koi pond

 A blue painting in the window of an artist's studio: "blue poem."

 On the bridge of stories, little cabinets house shrines like this one.

 water like gathered silk

 nesting swan

 two different bird species built adjoining nests and were getting quite upset with each other. They eventually calmed down and just settled on top of their eggs. It was very sweet.

A beautiful statue that looks out on the harbor. She has Cleopatra eyes.

 Incredible waters.

 SO many swans!

Pigeon friends.

This is where I spent my last full day in Switzerland, and I was very happy about that decision.

Happy Monday!

xo, Amanda