Lino Balotti wanted to go against the general
trend , he didn't give in to the pull of big
industry, of the easy money , of the productivity
without soul. He have always worked on his
own, in his artisan workshop with his family
to search in the past and to enhance the product
of his valley.
 Using
natural wool, cotton and flax fibres, he started
to weave with old looms , some reconstructed
watching ancient drawings of engravings with
the help of archaologist friends reproducing
ancient works of art. With 19th century looms
he is trying to reproduce the traditional
carpet (pezzotto) of the Valle Canonica, embellished
with the reproduction of ancient graffito.
The little work of art of Lino Balotti is
to have been able to make and to work a prehistoric
loom to repropose an experimental fabric from
the third-fourth millennium B.C. and to revive
a scarf unique in the world. A prehistoric
scarf to wear today after seven thousands
years, like an extraordinary fossil.
THE HISTORY
Till about seven thousands years ago in
the everyday life of the Valle Canonica
inhabitants, in the north of Italy, there
were the hunting, the working, the sheep-breeding,
the fight, the gods adoration and dead veneration.
The hunting was necessary to survive and
animal pelts to cover oneself. The intelligence
was born with man and so the constant search
for comfort led man first to cover himself
with wild herbs weavings, then, passing
the centuries, experts artisan hands were
able to use the wild herbs weaving method
with the wool, hemp and then flax.
The weaving, with the tackling, like
the threads of a cobweb called warp,
with the thread obliquely (weft)
to the framing fixed on the ground with
four basic points, had an evolution. Two
tree branches pitchforked at the ends, the
bases fixed on ground , three oblique branches,
one in the top set down on the forks where
the warp is knotted and two a little higher
from the ground that are useful to separate
two warp threads and with some stones to
keep them in tension: in this way man created
the first loom and started wearing sacks,
tunics, mantles, scarves, etc…
 The
Valle Canonica inhabitants in the Prehistory
wrote their lives and handed them to posterity
not by means of books or parchments, but
they carved their stories on mountain rocks.
From this great patrimony, unknown until
some decades ago, uncontaminated and hidden,
Lino Balotti with his family, always careful
to the preservation of history, culture,
traditions, in collaboration with the archaeology
Priuli, realized the original reconstruction
of the prehistoric loom and using it the
Italy Rare scarf was made.
"The modern age has surely created
development, comfort, but it has not been
able to support and maintain traditions.
We, observing time, investigating the past,
have been alarmed, scared because of the
progressive destruction of artisan manufacturing
work, of arts and ancient crafts. Our young
people are not able to recognize any kind
of plant. In our valleys, mountains there
was sheep-breeding, people worked wood,
iron, and knew herbs, flowers both medicinal
and to dye cloth, with hazelnut bushes baskets
and panniers were made, hemp and barley
were cultivated.
 The
wool was spun and the hemp was trampled,
in this way one obtained the threads and
with these our grandmothers using needles
or looms made clothes. The loom supplied
also fabrics for sheets or with scraps of
old and recycled clothes one created carpets
and mats. With herbs, flowers, kind of lands,
chestnuts, rust, one dyed and coloured these
fabrics. Also as consequence of observing
all this I want to discover again, learn
and show origins, traditions, the culture
of loom working and the use of vegetable
products, improving, where it is possible,
the product with particular additions in
fabrics and colours.
It is a characteristic and original work
to know first of all the product, the first
matter and then the method and application.
My project has a precise goal: to learn
the traditions culture and to rediscover
nature. It is a big bet!"
(Lino Balotti)
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