Improvisation is a personal process that embodies one’s individual freedom and thus, each person is characterized by their own distinctive creations. Is it possible to learn how to be free? One is attracted to freedom only if they perceive their current situation as insufficient and want it changed. What seems natural, customary and easy for one, may seem unachievable, mysterious or impossible for someone else.

I will transfer these questions, that are relevant to any sphere of human activity, to bobbin lacemaking. Can work of bad quality be an excuse for the desire to work without any restrictions? How does one decide which limitations and rules are to be kept and which can be modified? Where is the dividing line between the permitted and the unacceptable?

My work is free improvisation. However, the technique has its own rules. I study the classical methods and seek ways to transform the resulting figures. Knowledge and new skills support spontaneity by providing it with the tools for expression. I aim to have an idea of what element will appear where and with what technique, but I do not always follow my initial decisions. I often change a specific implementation as I work and trust myself that this will lead to better and more interesting results.

I prefer to mix opposites of the same nature – thin and thick in terms of material, dark and light in terms of colors, opaque and transparent in terms of texture.

Without any restrictions and impulsively, I determine whether to fade nuances into one another or to suddenly switch between them. Changing thread thickness helps single out the dominant vertical or horizontal threads. In order to avoid being restricted by these active and passive threads, I choose techniques which make use of all threads on an equal basis. For example, each pair is moving in a zig-zag motion. It is interesting to observe the movement of colors when threads are not paired. To avoid producing the geometrical forms characteristic of classical bobbin lace, I avoid repeating the same movements. If the result does not meet my expectations, I revise and re-work it.

I will illustrate this with photos of a specific example. From classical lacemaking I take the method of changing the places of 4 pairs of bobbins. The two on the right interweave the two on the left and remain in their place. If this is repeated consecutively, the result is that of the digit 8. However, the irregular positioning of these intertwining waves breaks the resemblance to the unnatural geometrical positioning. Thus I create a leaf both orderly and wavering. The resulting texture is alive and embossed.

Observing the sequence of movement helps me suggest to the observer the illusion that there is some order that they are able to perceive. However, why does order seem to slip away? Deformity of the ready matter is achieved by positioning each figure on a smaller area; this results in the piling up of material and eventually the edge of the leaf gains volume which reminds of how the real leaf is serrated. This is achieved by moving the pin, together with the woven threads, towards the completed piece of work and pulling the active pair of bobbins, thus keeping the already released length of thread from the passive pairs of bobbins.

When I explain to someone what I am doing and how I am doing it, I always point out that this is just sharing my own experience, a piece of advice which might be followed or not.

Brave and free improvisation leads to unique pieces of work which are unlikely to be repeated by the same or another author. This is where the charm of discovery, surprise, novelty and art resides.

The technique of bobbin lace came to me by chance – as part of a conversation about a course that was happening in Sofia in 1998. Until then I had not heard about bobbin lace, I had not seen any samples, nor had I met any people who made it. I enrolled on the course out of curiosity.

Bobbin lace is not too widespread in Bulgaria; the technique was introduced as late as the beginning of the 20^th century and is practiced only in few locations in the country. There used to be a lacemaking school in the town of Kalofer which lasted for 23 years. I happened to be on the last course that my teacher Velichka Radulova organized; she is the only person who put an effort to promote bobbin lace outside the town of Kalofer. She trained people all over the country, but my course with her was just a ten-day foundation level after which she had to travel abroad.

Using the basic ways of twisting and crossing the threads, I made my first lace items, but at the time I did not have any specialized books or magazines, I did not know people who made lace, there was no internet to helm me communicate with lace makers from other countries. It was difficult for me to grow and develop.

Soon I had done all the patterns in my course book. What I was producing with them, however, was not satisfying or enough for me. The existing clothes with lace ornaments seemed to me too “retro”, while the home decorations were redundant and not practical at all. However, I was already under the spell of this technique created by the pleasure of touching the bobbins, the enchantment of the process of filling the empty space with fabric and the creation of something beautiful and very personal. I began drawing my first pattern sketches while learning the movements of the new twists and crosses. My first independent work, far removed from the style of typical lace, was one called Winter Hut – inspired by a favorite Bulgarian song.

3. Where do you find inspiration for your work?

Nature is my favorite place where I relax, replenish my energy, and generate ideas. Over time, I started seeing lace in all my surroundings. The branches of trees, the curves of mountain ridges, the contrasting dark and glittery patches in water, the shapes of clouds – it was all lace. For my first landscapes I used white only and was seeking the expressive differences in the texture of the filled-in areas, but gradually I discovered my own ways of combining colors to achieve a more realistic effect.

4. Do you do lace exhibitions? Which one was the most important for you?

The most important was that in 2010, in Valtopina, Italy where I was invited by Maria Bissacco. It was then that I received acknowledgement and gained self-esteem as contemporary author who interprets bobbin lace. So far I have participated in over 30 exhibitions, festivals, and conferences in Russia, Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Slovakia, Germany, Poland, Croatia. I also took part in the OIDFA congress in Lubljana, Slovenia. In Bulgaria I have participated in more than 10 exhibitions with SediankaTA – a group of people with whom we promote lacemaking and other handicrafts through demonstrations and training.

Personal method

In the past 15 years I have been working on my own patterns. I went through different periods – making portraits, landscapes, miniature flower clusters. My works are not different just because of the drawing or style, but because I seek and find new means of expression, based on the ones that already exist. The new technical solutions lead to new practical results, which require a different aesthetic disposition. A while ago, I chose to challenge myself with an idea a friend of mine, who is an artist, suggested – to transform the landscapes of French impressionist Paul Cezanne into lace. Following a brilliant, yet foreign to the technique of bobbin lace, idea is a challenge which sometimes leads to technical discoveries. The transformation of traditional ways of lace making helps me achieve unexpected solutions which bring about interesting effects, all of which create something that no one has made of lace so far.

Teaching in Bulgaria

Starting in 2012, for five years, I taught an MA course entitled Old Lace Making Techniques to students of Fashion at the National Academy of Arts in Sofia. This was a transformative period for me – it was then that I saw clothing as a new medium for lace. My interactions with my students were a two-way process of mutual change in which the question “Why not explore the possibility of rendering this item in lace?” became a central one.

5. This year, you have collaborated with a Spanish fashion designer. Do you think that in 2019 lace and fashion go hand in hand?

Since 2015 I have been part of fashion shows in Peniche, Portugal and Camariñas, Spain displaying clothes with lace ornaments depicting stylized landscapes and trees. In the past few years I am developing a project I call “The plants that feed us can be beautiful” in which I entertain the audience’s imagination with 3D solutions. It was a spontaneous idea to combine the lace pumpkin flowers, stems, and leaves, which I created, with traditional Galician lace, in line with the imagination and skill of Spanish designer Jose Luis Luaces. In May 2019 his collection was part of a fashion show in Serra d’el-Rei, Portugal. More fashion shows are planned for Spain. I believe that lace is most suited for clothes, jewelry, and accessories – like it was in the past and will be in the future.

Teaching individual interpretation in lace making

Over the past four years I have been receiving an increasing number of invitations to teach people my way of working. I share my discoveries and achievements in free-style lace making with enthusiasm. What happens is that tutors and lace makers from Spain and France organize themselves so that they can learn and practice the new applications of the ancient technique over three or four intensive training days.

Research on the processes of practicing lace making today

I am part of the community of people who make lace and also, as anthropologist, I am interested in the diversity of the actual applications of lace making as a type of human activity. Over the past two years I have been working on my PhD thesis on Lace: Cultural Technologies and Social Practices at the University of Sofia. I collect and analyze conversations with lace makers with whom I am able to communicate without an interpreter. I listen to the recordings and note down their stories, their original words about the unique characteristics of their ways of working, their preferences of applying the movements, the instruments, and the use and application of the completed items. I am interested in the special terms and the words they use to talk about lace. My goal is for more people to learn about lace and to be attracted to this form of art.

Who did you learn to make bobbin lace with, where? Due to historical reasons, bobbin lace came to Bulgaria from Czechia (the Czech Republic). In the beginning of the 20^th century, Teresa Holeckova used to teach bobbin lace at the Academy of Fine Arts in Sofia. Later, a student of hers opened a lacemaking school in the town of Kalofer, and this is why this type of lace became known in this country as “Kalofer lace”. My teacher, Velichka Radulova, specializes in this type of lace and was the first Bulgarian lacemaker to teach numerous courses throughout the country. In 1989, in Sofia, I took part in the last ten-day course she taught and then could not continue my training with her because she travelled to the USA. In the first couple of years after the course, I made the models provided by Velichka Radulova in order to get to terms with the technique, but when they were all done, I could not find any new patterns. I had no information, books, magazines, or access to the internet. This made me design my own patterns, learn from my own mistakes, but also learn to manage on my own, in my own way, which involved the inevitable challenges. Maybe ten years later, I discovered that my way of working was quite different from what the accepted norms for the technique were.

How long have you been involved in handmade textile crafts? I enjoy working with thread. I learned to crochet and knit when I was five and at 15 had made my first items of clothing. I used to knit a lot for the members of my family, but when my children grew up and fashion changed, I chose other projects, e.g. I crocheted curtains for our village house. When I was 33, I came across bobbin lace for the first time; this is when I attended the training course. The activity turned out to be both pleasant and fascinating, and soon became a passion for me. When I am working with the bobbins, I have the feeling that nothing else matters. This feeling is in turn transferred onto the people who are looking at my lace works and onto the people whom I teach. Lacemaking is a hobby for me, but for three years now, I have been studying and doing research on the people who make lace nowadays. At the moment I am completing my doctoral thesis at Sofia University on lacemaking in terms of cultural technologies and social practices.

What is your original profession? Do you have any art education or are you self-taught? My formal education is in philology and anthropology, I do not have any formal art education. Lace is not my main profession or occupation, neither in terms of making, nor when it comes to teaching.

What does life with lace give you? Lace gives me challenges, opportunities to find out new things, and discoveries. Also, fun, pleasure, and achievement. It provides me with an extra life, a whole new world of friends, meetings with like-minded people. It gives me opportunities for travel and adventure. It opens up new directions with endless opportunities, and multi-faceted answers to questions that interest me. It is like a clever puzzle with both numerous and interesting solutions.

What do they say about your work in your home country? Do you have support or are they more classics? Bobbin lace is not too popular in Bulgaria and this is why people are not able to appreciate what is different or unique in my work. Those who prefer the traditional patterns do ask why I am not making them. However, artistically minded people appreciate my improvisation and like the new and unexpected applications I achieve.

Do you exhibit at home or abroad only? In the past nine years, in Bulgaria, I have participated in a range of exhibitions, demonstrations, and cultural events, always together with the lacemakers from SediankaTA community, most of whom are my students. Abroad I have been part of more than 45 exhibitions, festivals, conferences and other events dedicated to lace. I have also had the opportunity to have solo exhibitions: three three-day ones in Ferrol, Spain in 2017, 2018 and 2019; a one-month one at the Bulgarian Cultural Institute in Berlin, Germany in 2013; and one six-month long at the Museum of Lace in Arlanc, France in 2018. Unfortunately, my participation in the one in Prague could not happen this year, but I will eagerly visit when you organize the next meetings of the lacemakers’ community.

Do you teach at art school or do you take lace courses? At home or abroad? I teach bobbin lace and needle lace at the SediankaTA social group in Sofia. This is a community where, in an informal atmosphere, different types of handicraft are taught and learned; tuition is on an individual basis and can hardly be named “a course”. In the context of our busy daily life, however, this form of teaching proved successful and attracts the few who are interested in learning such skills.

I used to teach different types of old lacemaking techniques to MA students in Fashion at the National Academy of Fine Arts in Sofia for five years. I was happy to work there with three talented young women from the Czech Republic who were studying at the Academy in Sofia as part of an Erasmus exchange; this is where they experienced the opportunities offered by bobbin lace. My contacts with young people, often thinking outside the box, have been beneficial to both parties’ development.

Since 2016 I have been teaching my way of improvisation in lacemaking on three-day intensive courses in Spain and France. For me this is somewhat strange, but also rewarding, because lacemakers who know more than me, are interested in learning how to make lace landscapes without subordination to any rules and conventions.

Where do you get ideas for your works? I am inspired by nature – landscapes, flowers, trees; by human faces and figures. In the past few years I have been looking at more abstract images that can be rendered and perceived in unexpected ways in three dimensions. In the transformations of Paul Cezanne’s landscapes, I find the technical challenge to follow the idea of a complex art form, and render it in an even more complex way by interlacing the threads on bobbins.

Do you prefer white or colored lace? If you prefer the color, do you come out of the laws of color harmony or do you choose them by feeling and intuition? I prefer working in color. Even when I have monochrome projects, I introduce some variety by adding darker of lighter nuances of the main color. I do not observe any rules when combining colors. When you work with thread, the end result is complex and difficult to predict. I experiment with interweaving colors and achieve different effects and variations. Another variable that affects the intensity of the colors is how close (dense) or wide apart in space the threads are. In my type of lace, in addition to color, an important element is the play of threads of different thickness which also adds to the final effect. Even if I have some initial expectations, experience shows me that I need to stay open and curious for the surprises that come with putting together the different threads.

How complex technical patterns do you use? Do you make them up? Since I learned very few technical options in my training, I was seeking ways to adapt them for my purposes. The classical elements implemented in bobbin lace, as practiced in Bulgaria, already limited. In the beginning, what I was doing in my interpretations, was just changing the positions of the threads and changing the size of the zig-zag when moving the active pair of bobbins, or using twisting, to get away from the regularity. During the last ten years, after numerous encounters and active communication with lacemakers from different countries, I have been learning new elements (e.g. nets) and approaches. When I implement these in my works, I use the variety of textures and the change of direction of the threads, but try to avoid the even-paced and geometrical sequence of positioning the figures. I achieve this by also changing the positions of where the pins are fixed, after the fabric has been created; or by pulling some of the threads, which takes the interlacement to a place different from where it was formed. In the course of this mode of work I sometimes discover new ways of working. I also combine different techniques which always brings a new result.

Do you draw exact templates or do you work according to a simple drawing? For me, the idea comes first. Even if I have a specific place in nature that has inspired me, this is just a starting point. I do not stick to the actual details, positioning or colors too much. In the beginning, I decide where I want a dense patch and where I want more lace elements and air. I also decide upon what the colors are going to be – harmonious or contrasting. I do not use a pattern; I only draw the outline of the patches but I cannot tell in advance how exactly I am going to fill them in. I often introduce changes and keep drawing on the cylinder as I come up with new ideas and different solutions in the course of work. I trust not the drawing, but what is formed by the threads when they are woven together. I am led by the fabric that is created and not by my initial approximate idea of it.

Do you draw originals by hand or on a computer? I draw the outlines by hand and change or add to them in the course of work.

Is there a topic that attracts you and that you want to work on? For several years I have been making dresses themed around the idea “The plants that feed us are beautiful too” where both the fabric and the lace are made of pure natural silk. The first two dresses were created around bodices/corsets made of lace wheat ears – the green one representing young wheat, and the golden one – the ripe wheat. These were followed by two dresses appliqued with pumpkin stems, leaves, flowers, and fruit. After that I made some eggplants and loosely attached them to a dress shaped like the fruit of the eggplant. I am now working on a couple of green dresses featuring a bunch leeks and Savoy cabbage leaves both made of lace. With these I am aiming to provoke people’s imagination and prove that anything can be made with lace.

Do you make more decorations, paintings or clothes lace? I usually work in harmony with my inner moods and desires. I do not limit myself in any way. Landscapes, flowers, portraits, jewelry, paintings, lace for clothes – all are interesting to me. For me it is always the curiosity for the unknown that takes me to my next lace project.