Following on Women’s Day, I want to recall here a recent initiative that took place in my store at Avenida da Liberdade: I invited seven friends to talk about the importance of Art in our lives.
It was a successful experience, of reflection, within the scope of a project that I intend to expand and repeat in the future. Marina Coelho, Maria José Costa Félix, Cristina Esteves, Conceição Zagalo, Elsa Roncon, Sophie Civet-Burrus and Sofia Pidwell. This was the group that promptly acceded to the call, without actually knowing very well that this idea of mine was something more than an invitation to tea with friends. After all, with the valuable contribution of all, Art was approached in different perspectives.
The personal experiences of that female group, gathered around a cup of tea, highlighted individual traits and aspects in common. All of them transmitted their points of view, crossed with their own personal, professional-life, family and mothers’ experience.
Interestingly, I realized that apart from a discussion about the role of Art in our lives, there are other issues that are intertwined in the threads of conversation – motherhood, family, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, professional fulfillment, and the world around us.
For Elsa Roncon, an economist, who held important positions throughout a challenging career, in her own words, jewellery, fully understood as artistic objects, helped her to reinforce the feeling of confidence mostly in a male predominant environment .
Sofia Pidwell, she is also a creator. And as a visual artist, she doesn’t understand life without a space for art. If this were not the case, only Nature would remain, today, unfortunately, so threatened.
Art as an important stage for education, is today still not understood as fundamental by educators in Portugal. This path, is clearly inserted in the professional objective of Sophie Civet-Burrus, a Frenchwoman who adopted our country and is dedicated to promote something that the French dominate – l’art de la table – (artistic dinners organized in unusual places).
A well-known face of the public, Cristina Esteves, with her discreet style, uses jewellery pieces in her daily life, without distracting her attention from what she transmitting. However, this Jewels are a vehicle to communicate another message, almost imperceptible – that of strong femininity, underlined by a pair of earrings or a necklace. Through these jewels is sea a projection of me, as an invisible character during the dialogue with the viewer.
Marina Coelho, daughter of the glory Portuguese football player Humberto Coelho, knows the world of watchmaking and jewellery very well, since she has been working as a communicator in this area for many years. In other words, mechanical watchmaking and the glamor of noble metals and precious stones have no secrets for her.
Currently, she is dedicated to promoting the internationalization of luxury brands through the digital channels – a different way of communicating that, according to Cristina Esteves, is a different form of artistic expression.
But speaking is easy, arousing emotions already requires a big talent! – Marian Coelho, it is our individual lens, made up of experiences and accomplishments, that allows us to interpret multiple art forms that surround us.
How many of us do not master this Art of communicating without realizing it? – as Maria José Costa Félix recalled. Former journalist and writer, she dedicates herself today exclusively to Astrology, and sees Art as a way of being in life. In his profession, which is still generally misunderstood, paths are taken to discover the inner self, as a way of discovering our place in Life.
Another genre of Art appeared in the conversation, that “Urban Art”, which currently can be discovered throughout Lisbon. Well observed, Conceição Zagalo, it is true that the different dimension of the paintings (and other expressions) that are spread throughout the city and surprises us at every corner dignifies spaces that were once despised. There is more to life than work, recalled Conceição, who dedicated forty years to IBM and finally discovered a vocation in volunteering.
Because they are restless, because they have achieved things in life, because they dream of Art, these women are at the forefront.
Privileged that we all live surrounded by expressions of art!
