"Te pienso" cushion

Literally, “I think you”. Berta tells me that this expression is part of her past. It is what she and her former partner usually said when they missed each other. At Sabellar we like the verb “to think”. We think it is less selfish than “want”, and as it evokes more freedom, it could be even more powerful than “love”. Think about someone. Remember someone. Having this someone in your head, without ties, without expecting reciprocity. Ah, a requited love! Maybe it is the greatest joy of life, but… isn’t the selfless love, the love that doesn’t expect nothing in exchange, the truest of all?

Made of antique linen. Cushion filling included.

Measurements

Medium: 36 x 55 cm.

Big: 44,5 x 58 cm.

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Berta Salinas is a multidisciplinary artist. You can find her either working in the film industry, as an Art Director of an advertising campaign or designing and embroidering cushions. Yes, like the ones we bring to you at Sabellar.

Berta doesn’t remember exactly when she began to get an interest in the art of embroidering.“In fact, it was always there”. First, because an aunt who sewed magnificently anything that fell on her hands, and then because when she was 7, she started to do sewing classes at school. “My school was into alternative education, and a lot of importance was given to arts, crafts and creativity”.

The embroideries done by Berta are very different from the ones made by her aunt. Not because the thorough and thoughtful technique, that remains pretty much the same, but because of the concept. Berta’s designs are rooted in other techniques she masters, like photography, painting or engraving. But, above all, everything boils down to how she feels at that exact instant of creativity. “I’m very intense, María”.  

That’s how different body forms (eyes, hearts, hands…) mix with words and floral motives, in a universe where love, dislike, uncertainties, doubts and sexuality prevail. Life, after all, from a conceptual point of view that talks about Berta, but also about the rest of us.

Berta wants, above all, to “emphasize the idea of the artistic object”, assert the importance of the things that accompany us in our everyday routines, the importance of decoration, from a point that is both exclusive and artistic.  

That’s why all of her cushions are totally handmade. Berta carefully searches and pick the cottons and linens she is going to use. Sometimes they are new, others they are old. She depicts the original design on paper and then goes directly to the cushion to see how it develops and gets the final form.

“Ideas usually come when I’m immersed in the creative process. Since I get the first idea for a design, buy the fabrics and embroider the first cushion... it usually takes a month. With the rest is easier. Then, the embroidery time depends on the difficulty of the design. But it usually takes me between one and three days to hand-make just one cushion”.

Someone called her cushions “soft poems”. She doesn’t remember who said that, but we couldn’t agree more.

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Leer aquí la historia en español