Trieste, 15 June 2008

…I can only speak of the deep impression made on me right from the start by those extraordinary skirts she makes, that look to me like leaves borne by wind or water, in a rush of passion as tough as it is heartbreaking, or like great valves of mollusc shells, the fragile yet dauntless armour that protects the impetuous heart in the battles of life into which, despite all, it hurls itself. In the same way I was deeply moved by her thorns, red as they are with blood and pain, but also with the joy of life. They make me think of roots, but not the roots that are buried and hidden in the depths of the earth, but those spreading in abundance over the surface, as if lovingly reaching out for possibly encounters, with other thorns – other hands, other roots – to grasp and squeeze, in a tangle that is at the same time self-abandon and inevitable conflict, as it is with love. There is an aura of redemption in these splendid creations, as in those statues of the Virgin which in the popular imagination sweat and give forth blood. I glance at them from time to time, as I sit at my desk, just as from time to time one might hold a rose with all its thorns.

Claudio Magris