When life gives you lemons, you create art!

Ask yourself, if you would make the work, you make today if no one would ever see it. Would you paint or sculpt or draw something if you couldn’t show it to anyone or if it would not lead to a profit?

That’s the irony of art, your talent does not always translate into a material value. Two of my favorite artists of all times, Vincent Van Gogh, and Monet are the best example. One was considered to a be a failed and poor artist in is his lifetime, managing to sell only two paintings, and the other was continuously rejected and rarely had any income.

I search for art in the most random places, out of any kind of spotlight. Therefore, when the unique artwork of Jani Barxo, in his mid-60s, made me walk through colorful meadows and pristine panoramas, I felt the urgent need to ask him why now, why not before.

He laughed when I asked and answered bittersweetly <<I had to “abandon” in order to survive for the past 30 years, the only thing that actually made me feel alive.>> Jani followed specialized education on painting in his youth and worked in the creation of "Ethnographic Museum" of Gjirokaster, a city well known for its UNESCO heritage. It was there where he first saw, table clothes, napkins, and home clothing full of flower and traditional patterns decorations embroidered with Mouliné floss (quality of multi-ply twisted yarn in various colours, used in embroidery), hand knitted carefully from city’s women. Such artworks were created using buckram clothing, fixed in two wooden loom rings and worked afterword’s with delicacy.

For the artist, this memory is the most precious gain he ever had. For the years to come he would hold it very dearly to lighten the greyest of days, filled with hard work and a lot of sacrifices. Everything he saw from that moment on was a mix of colors and carefully knitted surroundings.

The memory itself, became the connection between the days he used to paint the grey stones of Gjirokastra and the wish to one day go back to his beloved little studio.

That’s why Jani decided to mix both, firstly painting his surroundings as reflected in his thoughts, and then following the pattern embroidering with Mouliné floss colors. Years after, he finally gave himself the chance to slow down and provide solace and balance to his life through a carefully detailed work of art.

In his work it is very easy to spot the mix of a full spectrum of colors, which can represent many different emotions. I personally got a very calming sense and a rush of positivity from the pastel colors mixed with the soft earthy tones. The trunks of his side-road trees are hued with a mix of blue and brown, half autumn-half spring, the yellow crest on it, has hints of green, and mauve, and the hyper color of the pavement looks almost psychedelic. For a brief moment, I felt like I was walking in that exact same street on a rainy night.

I left Jani’s studio not only admiring his art, but inspired, from the story of someone that after a long journey came back to art.

Because the truth is that good art, should not only be about the creation of money, but rather an escape from reality that helps us heal and discover little glitters of magic in the most random places.

Pictures from Jami Barxo Instagram Page