The gold woven in white

Many secrets and unknowns surround linen and the looms that produce the lovely lacework. Olímpia Monteiro, 78, is the last weaver in Agarez who knows these mysteries and carries on working out of passion.

She started at six, under her mother’s skirts, and has always devoted herself to this craft. “Linen? I care more for it than for all the gold in the world,” she says. To this day, she likes to shut herself in the loom workshop to create, with her dark hands, the pieces that have always brought a captivating smile to her face.

Olímpia is an exemple of dedication and perseverance around an art. She was still a girl when she spun her first skein at her mother’s suggestion. This earned her a “little cotton dress”, bought with the money fetched by the skein, after being sold at the São Pedro Market in Vila Real.

It is actually in this market that Olímpia’s linen can still be found. “I’ve been selling at the São Pedro Market for 72 years and I’ve never missed it. I would even pray to God to not give me children at one time so I could go there to sell my linen to those who cared to buy it from me.”

In the old days, there were many ladies working in this activity but, over time, some gave up and others were taken from us. “There were many people growing flax and weaving linen. They worked it and sold it to make ends meet,” she recalls.

Now, in the village of Agarez, right at the heart of the Alvão Natural Park, there is only Olímpia to ensure the survival of this art. “Although all my daughters know how to work linen, they prefer to make a living in other ways because they’re educated.”


Secrets to be unravelled

For Olímpia, linen only holds one secret. “You need to love it more than gold, and that I can’t teach,” she reveals. As for the rest, she is willing to teach about growing the flax and about linen treatment methods.

First, you plant the flex “around 20 of April”, and you harvest it “at the tide of St. Peter”. “I throw it into the well for 13 days. I take it out and stretch it out on the terrace for a further four days,” she describes.

Once the linen is treated, it’s time to pick up the tools. These implements, built by her grandfather, have gone through her mother’s hands and continue to be Olímpia’s daily companions. It is with them that the weaver sets to work.

“First, you beetle the flax, scutch it, hackle it, and put it in the distaff or the spindle. Then it goes to the windle, then the winding frame and only then does it go to the loom. As you see, it’s no easy matter, it’s actually a prison that you have to really love,” she explains.

It is with accurate, mechanic movements that Olímpia tackles the loom. The machine, static hitherto, seems to take on a life and a meaning of its own. Then, the yarns start to come together and entwine, as if they already knew where they were going, to form perfect pieces that leave no-one indifferent.


A linen treasure

At Olímpia’s home, there is an old chest full of linen pieces. This reliquary, storing hours of dedication to the art, contains the labour of a lifetime. Several dozen pieces live in this wooden chest, including cloths, bedspreads and tablecloths, waiting to be taken to other places to be admired by other people.

A set of three linen cloths for a bedside table may cost 60 euros. The same set in tow will only cost 45. A cloth for a dining table is worth 75 euros and a tablecloth may reach 275. Even if this may seem expensive, Olímpia guarantees that the price of linen “has not undergone increases to not frighten off the buyers who have less money these days.”

The value of the pieces depends only on the amount of linen required, and the time spent to make them. And the quality of a good product is priceless. “I still sleep in these bedsheets and I enjoy sleeping in this fresh linen,” the artisan confides.

Text: Patrícia Posse | Daniel Faiões

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