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Anna
& Maria After a Cutthroat Game of Tombola on the Giudecca
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I
have come to know many Venetian casalinghe, traditional
Italian housewives. I explain to them that I am researching their artful
way of hanging clothes. Then each tells me about her mother's way, and
her own, of hanging up clothes to dry: in the sun, in the shade, under
moonlight, on the grass, in the morning, after lunch. Some will hang clothing
in order of size, (little socks, then larger socks), and some will hang
by color, or by type of clothing. Poorer women in small apartments without
an outside line will hang shirts and towels suspended from each other
from one window, so that the whole looks like the sails on a clipper ship.
Each woman has her own style, and her line is her signature, her own music
which, like a birdsong, says to the outside world "This is me; this
is my territory; this is my family."
(please
click on the small images below to see a larger image)
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| Calle Stella |
Burano Ladies in Their Housecoats |
Tintoretto's Shop |
The casalinghe
consider hanging laundry to be an ancient and important ritual. Clothes
dryers are almost nonexistent in Venice; everyone uses clothelines,
but older Venetian casalinghe are all sad that their daughters
and grandaughters have no time for doing it with style.
Now I began to read laundry lines as if they were lines of a diary written
by a woman in her home. An Italian woman expresses herself in the air.
She hangs out her furs, her lingerie, her husband's hats and rowing
club shirts, and her children's soccer uniforms and team pennants. Watching,
you can learn about their ages, their politics, their sizes. A casalinga
shows you who she is and who she wants to be.
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Marilyn on the Giudecca |
Elvis on Burano |
Nausikaa in Castello |
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This is my good friend Margherita Citon, Venice's
first woman to win the Regata Storica rowing race. She turned fifty
years old the next year, and the regatta committee told her she was
too old to enter the race. She sued and won the suit and the next
Regata Storica. Margherita is a farmer on the Island of San Erasmo.
She shows me her figs.
This is how I met Antonia. She told me that the secret of life was
a real mamma casalinga. Without loving homes and good
food, children don't grow up right; the center doesn't hold, and the
world will fall apart, says Antonia.
Here is Amelia, asking me why I am taking her picture and where I
am going to send her, where I am going to show the picture. She refused
to send her wedding ring to Mussolini when he ordered Italian housewives
to give him their gold for Fascist the war effort; instead she sold
it for food for her children, who were much more important than Il
Duce, she says. She is 88 years old: "This new world is not my
world," says Amelia.
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Margherita Citon |
Antonia's Line |
Amelia at 88 |
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The Giudecca is a world all of its own. Traditionally
it has been an island of fishermen and workers in the ship construction
business, whose politics tends towards a Che Guevara-inspired romantic
communism. Tourism has made some inroads, but back behind the Fondamenta
along the Giudecca Canal live real Venetians.
This is Rina who has raised eight kids with her fisherman husband,
all of whom turned out well, she says emphatically. Rina would call
me up in the morning and say "Olli! I've just hung up my best
sheets. Come right over and photograph them." This is Renata,
and this is Renata's handiwork; the backdrop is the Women's Prison.
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Rina Shows Me Her
Best Sheets |
Renata on the Giudecca |
Renata's Laundry |