Lenka's Way of LaceAmazing Grace
May 12, 2020
Maybe you were one of tens of millions people who watched Andrea Bocelli’s Music For Hope – Live From Duomo di Milano on Easter Sunday.
It was calming and moving at the same time to listen to Andrea’s beautiful voice singing hymns to Virgin Mary, praying for love and compassion that she embodies in Christian faith.
Besides the singer and the organist playing on the grand organ of the Duomo, the cathedral was empty. Camera moved around freely to reveal magnificent art of the church interior. At one moment, I noticed a familiar image – detail of the gothic tracery in one of the apse windows.
It instantly transported me back to time when I took this very image as inspiration for one panel of my work “Centering”.
Creating the work in 2008 for the 13th International Lace Biennial in Sancepolcro, Italy, I explored given theme of “lace as an architecture of threads” in study of circular elements in architecture, especially those resembling lace patterns. I found the rose window of the Milan Cathedral interesting because its clean, graceful design contains so much flow and movement. From the historical perspective, it is symbolic of enormous creative energy of the sciences and arts in Europe at the onset of the Renaissance.
Continuous Milanese tape braid allowed me to trace the simplified lines of the rosetta. The lace was worked in fine bronze wires to which an encaustic medium was applied later to evoke the colour of white marble.
Ten years later, the piece was one of the works reframed in the Lost Art series. Restored to the plain bronze and mounted in reverse against recessed black background it seems to continue living its own life in motion, propelling the gothic image through evolving times.
When the virtual offering of divinely gifted Andrea Bocelli and his team culminated in Amazing Grace sung on an empty piazza in front of the cathedral, his voice carrying over across empty cities in Italy and around the world, I thought about how everything is connected. 
Imagining all the links in time and space as delicate threads, they created an immense multidimensional lace… timeless, infinite and incredibly beautiful.
Now more than ever I believe that art truly is capable of expressing and transmitting the amazing grace…
Lenka's Way of Lace 
Such a lovely reflection. Thanks so much for sharing it.
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Lenka, thank you so much for sharing this. I did watch this broadcast, and seeing your lace piece made the memory even more powerful.
Hope you and your family are healthy. And, I hope to come over the border to see you in person again someday. Meanwhile, your posts and lacework are one of the things that truly bring me joy.
Kathy V
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Thank you for connecting, Kathy!
These are not easy times for small artists, so I, too, find a lot of joy in every moment I can spend with lace.
Keep well and creative,
Lenka
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