Hang it All: Etseri, Svaneti
The renovation guys have come and gone again, after dire phone warnings from us that they were late and the tourist season was starting. Literally a couple of hours before, eleven men from Lithuania arrived for a night, the upstairs was completed enough for them to occupy several rooms in their wallpapered, parqueted splendour. The next morning they breakfasted, then hit the road on foot towards Mazeri, the top of the village of Becho. I hoped that the forecast patchy rain wouldn’t either dampen their spirits or veil their view of Ushba’s southern peak, which can be spectacular from the pass.
That interlude aside, the renovation continued, as many hours a day as was necessary, with little time for sympathy as May was nearly over, never mind April.
At one point, admiring the work (which is really very good quality), I said that I had literally hundreds of photographs waiting to be printed, framed and hung. There would be a separate world location for each room as a theme, drawing on my 37 years as a photographer. Zimbabwe, Venice, the UK, Canada, Russia, all likely room choices. It would all be tied together by the house’s actual location, Svaneti, running through the corridors and connecting them all. SO... don’t neglect the gallery rails, guys, that’s what they’re for!
What I was trying to say was that this has been my dream for as long as I’ve thought about owning my own house: that it would also be my own gallery. No nail holes in the walls, just these rails from which, by hooks and wire or string, I can hang anything I want, and even change exhibitions as often as necessary too.
They got the message without further persuasion that the whole thing is just a backdrop for the hanging apparatus, no offence, and obligingly put up my rails as almost the last item.
I’ll likely include some other people’s work. I have a great long Caucasus panorama by the great Vittorio Sella; and some other 19th century work from an ancestor of mine, portraits by the equally great Julia Margaret Cameron, who might just end up on the new UK 20-pound note.
There will be room for the display of art or craft work from local people too, so this could be somewhere for schoolchildren’s best art to go, for example. It could even be for sale, why not? They seem to be good at needlework and relief woodcarving.
I started collecting antique wooden window frames from abandoned houses in the area some years ago, hoping to turn these into born-again frames for my Svaneti photos. Some sanding and varnishing and they’ll be as good as old. Alongside these, the odd local horseshoe which I also collect from the ground, very rough but with a charm all of their own. Anything I’d like to hang, in short, as long as I can persuade my wife that I’m not crazy.
It was quite a job to choose wallpaper, ceiling paper, floor boards, skirting boards and doors to put these rooms together... while visiting various shops in Tbilisi (not just one) selling these items. Imagining how it would all fit together, trying to visualize the whole thing. Going for some colour, mostly muted browns and greens, hues which would work well together in a calming atmosphere and not draw too much attention to themselves and away from the art everywhere. It seems to have worked; I think I pulled it off. My wife couldn’t be with me, but she trusted me, she said, and seems to be very happy with the finished look.
She even retracted a statement, on seeing blues and yellows together in tiles for one bathroom, that she could no longer trust my colour sense. I decided not to say anything at the time, and let the results speak for themselves. They have done so, and she has lapsed once more into accepting my judgements.
It will take some time (because of the expense) to get everything printed, framed, delivered and hung; there might be well over a hundred items, large and small. But the dream is one huge step closer to reality: the Tony Hanmer Gallery, Etseri, Upper Svaneti. Be assured, I’ll let you know when it’s open. Wine and cheese on me.
Tony Hanmer runs the “Svaneti Renaissance” Facebook group, now with over 1000 members, at
www.facebook.com/groups/SvanetiRenaissance/ .
He and his wife also run their own guest house in Etseri:
www.facebook.com/hanmer.house.svaneti
Tony Hanmer