Ibiza: A Hundred Years of Light and Shade.
In the first in a series of essays by Ibiza-based author and historian MARTIN DAVIES, we look at at craftsmanship and leatherworking in 1970s Ibiza through the lens of photographer Oriol Maspons.
Martin Davies was born in Liverpool, England in 1961 and studied history at Christ Church, Oxford and librarianship and information studies at Newcastle Polytechnic. He succumbed to the spell of Ibiza and its fascinating culture in 1992 and settled on the island the following year. Prolonged rambles and friendship with Rolph Blakstad and members of the group TEHP (Taller d’Estudis de l’Hàbitat Pitiús) brought him into close contact with traditional Pityusan architecture, and in 1997 he completed a full-length study on this subject. Since establishing his own imprint, Barbary Press, in 2000, Davies has published titles on vintage photography, travel, archaeology, architecture, history and birdlife, as well as wriitng and contributing to countless others. He is an expert on Ibiza’s rural heritage, the island's Jewish history, the enigmatic goddess Tanit, Ibiza’s architecture, wells and irrigations systems and the painter Elmyr de Hory. This is the first in a series of essays by him for L’OFFICIEL IBIZA.
'A baby slumbers in a neatly hitched sarong while Mama polishes off a party snack – Madonna and child with champagne. We are back in the tiny square where fashion designer Armin Heinemann of cult boutique Paula's Ibiza celebrated his birthday forty-six years ago, practically to the day. There was quite a crowd. Ibiza by the mid-1970s could boast an astonishing array of talent, and it was nicely represented at Armin’s get-together: artists, craftsmen, designers, musicians, writers, photographers – even forgers. Their skills had been honed across the globe, but they were drawn to this one spot by a siren combination of art and fashion. Those with families found themselves facing something of a challenge. Growing broods needed to be balanced with work and play – experimenting in moonlit fincas, making masterpieces with scarce means, schooling, selling, and scraping through winter. The autumn rains and leaky roofs that came with them caused distant horizons to beckon more urgently. Far away were sunlit strands and airy uplands where living and learning could be juggled more cheaply. Morocco and Mexico, India and Arizona, Bali and Brazil. But Ibiza was the hub, a place where pathways came together, where traditions could be compared and intermingled. For the new global village, the Balearic magnet was school, workshop and marketplace all in one. It was simply irresistible.
Zoltan, the sleeping infant, would eventually settle as a leather craftsman in distant New Zealand, birthplace of his mother Jennie. His father, Jean-Lou Guérin (half hidden on the right, it seems), was a gifted Breton leatherworker who started out making fashionable belts in Paris. From there he moved to Mexico where he mastered the intricate braiding techniques of Huarache Indians before arriving in Ibiza with his young family. The Pityuses, unlike Majorca and Minorca, had no leatherworking tradition, but this was changing fast thanks to Spaniards like Selim and Argentinian maestros such as Jorge Ocampo, fleeing economic and political chaos back home. Guérin remained on the island for eight years, deepening his knowledge of Spanish and South American techniques before heading for Chefchaouen, the craft (and hashish) capital set deep in the folds of the Rif. Here he learnt about Moroccan shoemaking and started his own workshop, which eventually numbered a hundred apprentices. The children also became fluent in the local dialect of Arabic. Next port of call for the family (by now with two girls) was New Zealand, where father and son produced custom-made boots for six years, before moving on to Bali around the year 2000. At the moment Jean-Lou is best known for his amazing ‘gothic’ silver jewellery, while Zoltan works not only as a performance artist (stilts and fire), but also crafts one-off items made out of leather, inlaid jewellery and carving. A child of fusion and fashion.
Let us return to that simple knotted sarong which enfolds the baby. Could it perhaps be a product of Bali itself? If so, this would allow us to close a true magic circle, a ring of living fire which encircles our entire planet, burning brightest in islands and backwaters where ancestral traditions are cherished: the precious circle of art and craft.'
Martin Davies
PHOTO CREDITS: Oriol Maspons, Madre y niño, / Mother and child, Sa Penya, 2nd Sept 1976
Eivissa-Ibiza: Eivissa – Ibiza: A Hundred Years of Light and Shade/Cien años de luz y sombra (Barbary Press, 2000/2007)
