Dispatches from Spain: Olula-la

Contributor post by Serena Olivieri

Last week I made this huge discovery: Olula-la, a little shop-showroom based in Madrid selling incredibly beautiful handmade designs.

You'll find everything from bags to cushions, from lampshades to baby dresses. The designers represented here are from all over the world. The selection of objects follows a certain line of simplicity and  quality and it is carefully curated by its owners, the fantastic duo Cristina and Javier.

Their story is also inspiring and fascinating: she was a copywriter by day and a tireless crafter by night, always creating, sewing, cutting and kind of filling their home with clothes, fabrics, cushions while she went to different shops to offer them her products. He worked as administrator. One day he got fired and decided to focus all his efforts and accounting knowledge on her partner's growing business, creating the perfect duo of creativity + organization. (He also has a great eye for spotting good products on the internet!)

They opened this shop two years ago, mainly to show and sell their own beautiful line of products, Olula se casa: simple, geometric and bright handmade accessories & homedecor, but it evolved and became a spectacular collection of pieces and sometimes results of collaborations, with the same visual potential of a blog.

When I found out they had a lab beneath the shop, I couldn't resist asking them to let me see it, so they let me in. Fabrics, buttons, tools...the perfect place to create!

If you get the chance, come and take a look a this shop, or visit their blog. Plus they're adorable!

Olula-la

c/ Amaniel 20

28015 Madrid

Spain

T. +34 915.211.432

olula@olula.net

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All images & text by Serena Olivieri - Contemporary Handmade Works

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Dispatches from Spain: Tiergarten

Contributor post by Serena Olivieri

I wanted to share with you some pictures I took while visiting an exhibition at the Romantic Museum in Madrid: Tiergarten. A romantic German garden. The exhibition displays a photographic series by Amparo Garrido;of the Tiergarten in Berlin,  a garden planned by Joseph Lenn� in 1840. The aim of this project is to show the relationship between contemporary artists and Romanticism and to offer a different kind of interpretation.

Garrido's pictures represent the elements of the romantic garden: the imitation of natural landscapes in order to recreate the anarchy of nature. To obtain this natural chaos, romantic landscape gardeners built tortuous paths, wide grasslands filled with  different sorts of bushes: this planned explosion was designed to boost the visitor's senses to the maximum,among wild vegetal colours and flavours. In this series it's possible to see the Tiergarten in all the splendor of the four seasons.

I loved the colours and the neat shapes of this controlled and planned wild nature. This room of the museum was small and intimate and I thought that the pictures were really inspiring. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

Tiergarten. A german romantic garden.

A photography series by Amparo Garrido

Museo del Romanticismo

Madrid

May 23rd - September 2nd 2012 

All images by Serena Olivieri

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Beautiful New Notebooks by Serena Oivieri

Serena Olivieri (our Dispatches from Spain contributor) recently made a new series of beautiful handmade notebooks.  30 different kinds, all A6 and with different colours.  She's also produced 4 little A7 notebooks and 4 bookmarks as prototypes.  Everything bookbinding - illustration, cut out is all handmade. Available in her Etsy shop here.

Dispatches from Spain: Urban Patterns & Colors

Contributor post by Serena Olivieri

Every city is full of lines, patterns, textures...a lot of details that most of the time you don't see. But there are always days when you start looking..


CONTINUE READING...

Dispatches from Spain: Ad Hoc

Contributor post by Serena Olivieri

A twitter friend told me about this lovely shop in the beautiful neighborhood of Las letras (literally: the letters, meaning humanities, since lots of spanish writers during the golden years lived there) in Madrid, so I went to take a look. I was really pleased to find in this shop a great  connection between nature & fashion.

Ad Hoc is the result of a mix between  flower shop Vinca per Vinca, represented by Cayetana and the fashion design shop Ad Hoc, with Clara being the owner.

This collaboration started 4 years ago, they chose an old flower shop to set up their business and also kept some pieces of the vintage furniture - good choice!

What I really liked was the atmosphere of the place, the scratched walls, the colours, the wooden furniture and the plants. Actually there wasn't as many plants and flowers as there usually is due to Cayetana's vacations, but if you take a look at their blog, you could see what it usually looks like!

So, flower arrangements, plants, little seeds packages on one side and fashion on the other: Clara likes to find handmade products, young designers and unique objects to fill the shop. Washi tapes, jewelry, clothes, stationery...everything handmade and unique belongs here

 

Ad Hoc

c/ Le�n 11

Madrid, Spain

T. 913697620

www.adhoctienda.blogspot.com

All images by Serena Olivieri

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Dispatches from Spain: MASQUELIBROS

Contributor post by Serena Olivieri

Escuela de Cebras

Last sunday I went to take a look at this new art book fair MASQUELIBROS, meaning "more than books" - the first of its kind to be held in Madrid. Organized by the cultural association Triplica Equipo, it presented an impressive range of paper-themed artwork with the art book, in all its possible forms being the focus of this fair.

There was a great variety of stalls among which I found creative studios, artists, shops, academies and art galleries. I really enjoyed walking around all these tables full of color and inspiration. Here are some pictures I was able to take when I wasn't talking to the various people I met there.

La Dominoteria

Heroin Paper Goods

Escuela de Dise�o Superior de Madrid - (Students Work Exhibition)

La Integral

Silvia Paredes / Paula Frailes

Taller d'art Llum de Lluna

Elisa Torreira

Galer�a Nuble: Antonio Diaz Grande

Benveniste Contemporary: The Print Subscribers Club

El Caballero De La Blanca Luna

Escuela ARTEDIEZ - (Students Work Exhibition)

I have to admit, I didn't know anything about the building in which this fair was held, and when I first saw it I was really surprised (and angry!) that nobody had told me about it before. Belonging to the UNED University, it is an impressive modern construction built around a 220-year-old restored church. Amazing.

On the left: Yarn Bombing by Adriana Turmero Hidalgo, Unn Brundin and Natalia M. Gonz�lez

There were so many people visiting the fair and sliding from one stall to another that I had some serious trouble keeping my camera steady!   

In the end, it looked like it was a big success and I am really glad that initiatives like these, around art books and paper artists, are being well accepted by the public. Here's hoping you get the chance to see another soon!

All images by Serena Olivieri

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