A Mão da Moça não Sabe Costurar

(The Hand of the Girl Does not Know how to Sew)

My commentary, 2018

Phrase attributed to Picasso draw my attention: "When I was 15 years old I could draw like Rafael, but I needed a lifetime to learn how to draw like children".

It is the case of A Mão da Moça não sabe Costurar (the Hand of the Girl does not Know how to Sew), an ellaboratedly awkward drawing, a metonymy of the absence of a specific ability attributed to girl(s).

It refers to the contemporaneity announced in the 19th century, in addition to and with the Industrial Revolution. To the passage from Luizinha, in Primo Basilio, Eça de Queiros; to Mary Wollenstonecraft, the pioneer of women's rights "

Not knowing how to sew, symbolically, is a loss that represents an achievement. It is a contradiction.
A Mão da Moça não Sabe (mais) Costurar (The Hand of the Girl Does not Know how to Sew) any more.

Visiting Millôr Fernandes I was enchanted with the way he did his drawings. Scribbles, collages and figures were made for printed reproduction in newspapers or magazines had, in their originals, disastrous appearance. The mixture of cutouts, bottle cap, scribbles on a figure drawn carelessly was meticulously studied for expressive purpose when printed.

I thought about it for my participation in the xerox printings exhibition, GEROX, that we were planning.
 I accepted to participate thinking that xerox copy could introduce a contestatory practic e, rather than an innovation, in the art circuit. For example, to sign and number a copy with number/Infinity instead of a limited number of copys as it was used in conventional engravings
Unlike Hudinilson who practiced it as his own work.
At the same time I remembered the experience with the visit to the Milor.

I chose my drawing A Mão da Moça ... (The Hand of the Girl...), which were being studied for the painting of the same title, using its contours and colors to obtain expressive greys in the xerox reproduction. With the same purpose I kept the sheet in the notebook causing the shadows of the outline and the spiral, reproducing it on colored backgrounds.
Two other drawings followed the same principle, in these, nankin, pencil and aguada, one of them with collage.

_{Gabriel Borba}