Browsing through the paintings was a task I had to organise. To make a selection, I assigned each of my children precise tasks, engraving the following commandments in stone:

  1. Size of each element no larger than 8 cm
  2. Presence of no more than three vegetables in the scene
  3. Number of leaves less than 15
  4. Selection of autumnal/Christmas colours, with absolute exclusion of marine tones (just so as not to yearn for the memory of the sea that I would never see again because of this cruel imposition)
  5. Discarding spring and summer vegetables
  6. Preference to typically Christmas vegetables
  7. Discarding irrelevant documents… Patrizia! You sent us the tax declarations of the last ten years!
  8. Poeticism
  9. Pleasure for the eyes
  10. Fluidity of line

So I came, with Christmas in my mind and the fan in front of me, to count five paintings and assemble a scene, cutting supernumerary branches and leaves with an axe.

I also sought essentiality in the colours, but there was no way.

Too many colours.

Too beautiful.

Don’t tell Patty, but seeing them all together, I can’t wait to start embroidering….