You noted that over time these women followed this route? That is, they are more attentive to author design?
HS: I think yes, there is a group of people who are aware; they always want to see, moreover, was here in Madeira, who highly valued the work. One way to reach new markets was to go in search of these islanders in the world, because they would review up this dream. There is no one who has not had someone in the family that was an embroidered, like a mother, a grandmother or an aunt. We are the most demanding because we have always lived with embroidery. We are able to tell whether it evolved or not. I remember when I started people were very critical of my work, they said that would not do well and when they are confronted with the result underlined that actually it had a good execution. That's why I make an attempt to escape the craft, while not flee. My attempt is not to miss design, the line, the way to work, but I get a look that is not only handicrafts, that it becomes something more scholarly and of higher quality. It seems easy, but I'm trying for 25 years.
And now what is the next phase for the Hugo Santos?
HS: I think that I never introduced myself and I am preparing for it. At the moment I am cleaning the house, organizing my head because I wanted to introduce myself as I never did. I think I'm starting again.
Will show the evolution of an entire career?
HS: I wanted to do a presentation that I intend to show a year from now, I want to show all this way, through an exhibition and thus mark my 50 years, because I feel more empowered. I've tried several ways to introduce myself and wish to say good or bad this is all what I discovered.
How to start your creative process? It is through embroidery, or the materials?
HS: First works in the imagination. I end up having a life that allows me to always be in the process. Then as my clients describe their dream dress, I'm drawing, they rarely bring photographs. Even with a very definite mental picture, they are able to open up and I allow me to introduce some changes. Every day I think about it. Throughout my career never really tried to change the sewing, or invents them. One of my processes so that the embroidery quality is maintained, is knowing that the lines are thicker than before, the needles have other formats and my ideas turn out to work otherwise. The embroidery of Madera is equal to the outside world, in that there are designs that are not so different from other areas of the globe. Madeira was populated by people who knew embroidery, the fact that we are in an island, with dense vegetation and many flowers, isolated, that helped make it different in some respects, there was time to do it well. History points out an English lady, Miss Phelps, as founder of Madeira embroidery, but I do not see her as a pioneer in this area, what I think happened is that she been the daughter of an industrialist, she notes that there were people who did embroidery patiently, saw the quality of the hands, and begins to bring drawings to take back to England embroidered as unique pieces. There were many repeated drawings in this time, we had more English embroidery. Then, the paper and the picking machine with the Germans, allowing a more freely draw with coal, more running, more delicate designs, just like in Europe. They bring more movement, but then comes the first major war and with it the decline of embroidery, it's a product always in crisis. The locals are again alone designing, investing, producing, and that's where we get to the real Madeira embroidery because it was imagined, designed and produced by islanders. The lack of design patterns made with the drawing more primary and becomes dense, we define it as naïve. Lacking a way to draw even makes it richer, the need to always fill the spots, a process that was drags since the 20s until the 50s. After we entered new markets, as was the case in Brazil and then we started to produce very colorful embroidery, although Brazilians liked the original, most wanted shades. My only regret is that Madeira has always responded to the markets and never invoked its own identity. What we created was a new form of embroidery, because the drawings were not always ours. So one of the things I advocate is that we will do it from the soul. I do not work to go to Paris; even if they never fulfill this dream what I want is Paris to come to my land. Apparently not, but is a higher ideal. I've stepped so that the dream earn wings, as no one does nothing alone, there is room for a team to create an event that made such fuss that the exterior came to meet us, Why we cannot be the center of attention?
That's what you are looking for?
HS: I try to do something that belongs to us; it is ours, to declare that we are alive. Working in function of the dream, because without it we quit, must be great to be able to take the step. I believe that if we work a lot of the rest comes by accretion. I feel like people know me outside of Portugal, but wouldn't be fun if they spoken about the island by referring it to the embroidery and to someone who tries to do something more modern. I think this was the true dream.
