Welcome back Milvia

For those of you who follow my blog regularly you will have noticed that I mention Milvia from time to time. Milvia is an Italian painter and artist who enjoyed fame in the late 50’s and 60’s. Her illustrations and patterns were produced on fabric in Italy and in the U.S., even Liberty London became one of her clients. There was never enough written about Milvia when her career was at it’s height and this fact has created a certain illusive atmosphere about her being. This lack of information has also created curiosity and regard towards her work. For quite some time I didn’t know anything about Milvia’s real identity but I was attracted to her quirky illustrations, her talent, and her style. Basically I was a great fan of the illusive Milvia. 

Then about 8 months ago things changed, I was contacted by Milvia’s daughter. Just one meeting lead to the creation of the Milvia project. I have been working with Milvia and her daughter for more than 6 months. The project begins with cataloguing Milvia’s work from the 60’s onwards and ends with the work being digitalized and made available for licensing. I am responsible for the licensing and promotional side of the project and Milvia’s daughter in turn for the archives and restoration of the works. I can’t tell you all our plans but we are working on many aspects and markets, I hope very soon you will be seeing more and more of Milvia and her fabulous work. 

The real news is that Milvia never really went away, I have been privileged to see her studio at her home in Florence. The studio has always been there for her work and as ‘real’ artists do she has continued to lead the life of a creative. After raising a family and following her husband all over the world in his career she has always found time to work and experiment. For those of you who have not read between the lines this means that there are many unpublished designs waiting to be discovered and I hope to lend a hand in making this happen. 

So now it is time to really begin the Milvia adventure. Work has gone on for months behind the lines and it is now time to share some of it with the public. Milvia’s website will go live on 5th June 2014, which is of course today! Please visit us at www.milvia.eu I think you will all be interested in our unique proposals. Obviously there is limited information available on the website and for anyone with serious intentions just contact me at dawnclarkson@milvia.eu and I will be delighted to help.

In addition you will find Milvia on Pinterest, http://www.pinterest.com/milviahome/
and Twitter  https://twitter.com/MilviaHome
More news of Milvia will be published regularly in press releases and obviously here on my little blog.

Thank you for reading.
Dawn Clarkson

World Lupus Day 2014 - Acknowledgments

The collection of butterfly designs to celebrate World Lupus Day was a great success this year. I received 99 beautiful butterflies from all over the world, from as far away as Chile, Canada and Australia and by people with ages ranging from 3 to 80! Personally I had to do a lot of work to prepare everything but it all went well, my blog received well over 650 hits in 3 days (300 on 10th May) and the event generated hundreds of Tweets related to World Lupus Day.

Some of the 99 butterfly designs received for World Lupus Day

Tweets mentioning the event and a personal Thank you from Lupus UK!

In general a big thank you goes to everyone who sent me a design, however just a few people need to be mentioned as they played a particular part in helping to make the event a success. 

Thomas Fummo who encouraged his adult English class to draw butterflies instead of perfecting their grammar.
The 4 and 5 year olds from the Scuola Materna dell'Istituto Calasanzio dei Padri Scolopi di Empoli, Florence.
The 7 and 8 year olds, class 2A, from the Scuola Alessandro Manzoni, Moncalieri, Turin.
SKI TEAM Jouvenceaux.
My mother Ann Clarkson who is not very good with paints but fabulous with a needle and thread.
All my professional surface pattern friends who found the time in their busy schedule to do a special design for this initiative.
My thanks also go to a very special lady called Milvia who was without doubt the most famous person to produce a design for the butterfly gallery.

We must not forget why I began this project, mainly to increase Lupus awareness, which is an illness close to my heart but also to make a small donation to LUPUS UK. By donating 1 euro for every design received I was able to give a total of 99 euros, or 80 UK pounds, or 135 U.S. dollars. 

Details of my donation

Although the event has now finished if anyone feels inspired to draw and send me a butterfly design I will continue to accept them throughout 2014. They will be added to the following Pinterest boards... Children, Adults and Designers. 
I think I have said enough for now, I just need to add that I enjoyed myself very much and it gave me great pleasure to receive so many fabulous creations. Next year is going to be bigger and better, I do hope you will take part. 
THANK YOU

World Lupus Day 2014 - Butterfly Showcase 3

Welcome to the third and final showcase which includes designs from adults and professional designers. It is another long post so get yourself a nice cup of tea, relax and enjoy! Just a reminder that we are here to celebrate World Lupus Day and for every design that you see here today I will be making a small donation to LUPUS UK. Please take a moment to read about Lupus and increase your awareness of the disease. If you missed out on the children's showcases earlier just continue to scroll down after this post is finished... I can assure you it is well worth the effort.

© Dawn Clarkson 2014

© Thomas Fummo 2014

© Anneline Sophia 2014

© Sonal Nathwani 2014

© Shelly Penko 2014

© Jan Shepherd 2014

© Annette Plummer 2014

© Salvina Lo Monaco 2014

© Isabella Schirripa 2014

© Ann Clarkson 2014

© Tokzhan Ibragimora 2014

© Antonio Bosio 2014

© Frances Boyd 2014

© Bethania Lima 2014

© Camilla Torna 2014

© Ellie Fidler 2014

© Julia Grifol 2014

© Rosalba Lauda 2014

© Laura Settimo 2014

© Sergio Sbicego 2014

© Carrie Tasman 2014

© Krishna Shyam Sundar 2014

© Maike Thoma 2014

© Mary Tanana 2014

© Beatrice Zamariola 2014

© Claudia De Guglielmo 2014

© MaryJane Mitchell 2014

© Melissa Watts 2014

© Rebecca Stoner 2014

© Rosie Martinez-Dekker 2014

© Rosie Simons 2014

© Silvia Sesia 2014

Last but definitley not least... a special treat, a super 'original' design from Milvia!

© Milvia 2014

All the designs from this post can be seen HERE on Pinterest, and a reminder that the children's showcase can also be seen on Pinterest HERE. You can also just continue to scroll down and see the previous two posts below if you like.
I do hope that you have enjoyed the lovely butterfly designs on show today. I am amazed to say that I had a total of 99 designs sent to me. A big thank you to everyone who participated and helped to make the day so special for me. If you should feel inspired by these posts and you would like to send me a butterfly design I will include it on one of the Butterflies for Lupus boards on Pinterest.
Next week I will be posting news of today's showcases and of what the initiative has achieved, until then, xx

Milvia on Pinterest

For those of you who have been following my blog for a long time you will be familiar with my interest in Milvia vintage tea towels. I have written a few blog posts about these wonderful creations which I was lucky enough to come across at my Mother-in-law's house. My collection stretches to a mere 4 tea towels from the set called 'Days in the Week' but I have since discovered that Milvia did numerous collections for Zucchi such as the 'Hours in the Day' and many more. All of these tea towels are difficult to come by and I have yet to see one for sale on Ebay or Etsy. However I have recently become quite addicted to Pinterest and to my delight have found images of lots of Milvia tea towels. My new Pinterest board called 'You wash, I'll dry' enables me to pin images of any tea towels that take my fancy. At least I was able to complete my 'Days of the Week' collection by Milvia even if only virtually! I am lucky to possess Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday and below you will find images of the the missing tea towels.

Tuesday - sewing

 
Thursday - cleaning

Saturday - shopping 

You can visit me on Pinterest here where you will find lots of boards with lots of interesting stuff on them! 

Milvia - Vintage Tea Towel

This latest tea towel came to light whilst searching for something completely different. Thats how things happen in my house, you have to look for something you don't really need to come across what you're looking for (if you get what I mean).

Anyway thats beside the piont, I consider it a lucky and interesting find to add to my 3 tea towels already posted some time back (September 2010). Since my last post I have also found out that the towels were produced by Zucchi which is an Italian household linen manufacturing company. However Milvia remains a mystery to me I guess that Milvia is the artist and that the artist might be a lady but still no nearer to an answer.

For now enjoy this lovely find with me. It is Mercoledì/Wednesday - Stirare/Ironing. As before the illustration and colouring are wonderful. I particulaly like the iron, the plug, shoes, face and that gorgeous loopy handwritten typeface. So I now have 4 days of the week, I think its going to be pretty hard to find them all.

P.S I find myself more and more interested in the humble old tea towel, I keep doing searches on Ebay and Etsy for vintage stock. There is a lot of interesting examples out there to buy and at reasonable prices. Please don't let me start collecting tea towels... I collect enough stuff as it is!