Carolina Melis interview

[ITALIAN text and more images after the cut]

Carolina was born in Cagliari (Sardinia) in 1975. She’ a magistrate in animation and illustration an recently fell in love with tapestry. Some of her Sardinia inspired tapestries, illustrations and movies will be at the Italian Culture Institute in London, opening tomorrow 24th November ’till 15th December.

What does “patterns” means to you?
I find patterns very satisfying, mesmerising. I remember I was in Barcelona once on a very stressful work trip. My head was full of thought that I couldn’t sleep. Eventually I noticed the beautifully decorated tiles on the floor and my thoughts got lost in the design, the repeats, the details and the grand picture. Possibly patterns are for me what numbers are for a mathematician, I always try to find the rules that hold the design together.

Sardinia is an hard to explain island for those who have never been there, can you do it for us?
Sardinia has always been very isolated and is not very populated compared to the rest of Italy. The coasts are very famous and quite visited but the inside of the island is a world of its own. There are still very strong traditions and social codes which is extraordinary yet quite impenetrable for an outsider. Having spent so many years in London – probably the most multicultural place of all – I find it extremely fascinating to go back to places that managed to keep such a strong individual identity for so long. In terms of my work I have great respect for traditional arts and crafts, if something hasn’t changed for years it means that it works and as a designer I should learn from this.

What is this carpet project?
A couple of years ago’ I visited a village in the middle of Sardinia called Nule. Here there is a very strong tradition in weaving, most women in the village make carpets on a vertical loom. The technique and the design haven’t change much through the years, it’s an extremely laborious work as it’s all completely hand made. I was told that every two years the village hold a competition to prize the best tapestry of the village. The weavers spend a week in a room together and each of them produces a 1 meter textile. After that week the judges choose the best piece and the winner gets a big prize. I got very intrigued by this story and I decided to make a short film based on the competition. It’s an animated short called Le fiamme di Nule. When I show the film to the village they liked a lot and they were so honoured that I made a film about them that they asked me to be one of the judges in their latest competition! Since the film I started design tapestry myself, some of them will be exhibited in London at the Italian Institute of Culture from the 24th of November until the 15th of December together with the screening of the film.

How do you link your love for choreography to design and illustration?
In my work my priority is composition rather than narrative. On paper and on screen I think about about motives, movement and space. I work very closely to music, it’s very important that my work is musical, alive, dynamic. I always play music when I create and when I look back at some of the work I did I often remember what I was listening to when working on that piece.
Sometime I find it very frustrating when people try to force a story a literal interpretation into my work, just because is animation and illustration. I like to think that as music can be simply about music, and dance can be just about movements, also illustration can be just about shapes and colours.

Fernanda Veron interview

Fernanda was born in Argentina in ’78 and now lives in Rome. She’s an eclectic artist, video, installations and photography (from digital to waxed prints). She likes shiny rusty odd things, Crème Chantilly  and ancient mysteries.

Above you can see a selfportrait she made for Woodenleg and after the cut her latest waxed photos Fabrica Fluxus Gallery took to Blooom and the interview in Italian translation.

You were born in Argentina and then moved to Italy, what do remember of your childhood?
I remember happy moments, an illuminating childhood in contact with nature, and so many parties, so much love and magic moments. I used to invent games and I knew that I wanted to be an artist. I remember I ate flowers and spent many hours watching the sky and animals, I lived in the countryside in the midst of horses and peacocks along with my grandparents. I often slept because I liked to dream and as to best friend had a small pillow that I always carried along with me.

Do you feel like a migrant or a citizen of the world or what else?
I have a migrant nature, citizen of the world I belong, daughter of the old and the new world. I think the plan is like a blank sheet of the universe, you can feel for a moment a God if you connect the dots and create your own personal geography through creation.

What the future will be like?
In the future I see chaos, we are the living prophecy of this time passing fast in human history. I see that all our actions have not much to do with the future because I see that the future is now and we will determine what we do. You must be into the holographic thought to reverse the course of our destiny.
The road is the detachment from everything to understand and to do an action that will help us to apply a natural evolution.

And how do you feel in the depth of your soul?
There is movement, energy flowing, dismay, disquiet. I feel part of something bigger than me that is moving in and out of me. I feel the soul that drives me where the body does not arrive. I think there is a shared moment of awakening, perhaps we are close to the resurrection!.

Where (or in what) do you find sense?
It is difficult to answer this, but I find meaning in understanding, in sincerity, in humility, in the nature that resists, in tears, in diversity, in knowledge, in imagination in determining what we see and everything we want.

Ludiko interview

Ludiko are a duo of artist / designers devoted to the wild childish cretivity. They live in Omegna, Italy, close to a lake where their studio is open for residencies of similar minded people.

What is the kidult philosophy?

KIDULT comes from kid + adult .
Actually we are 100% kidult ( we start to belive it can be even a kind of disease..) and all we made is mainly for Kidult People.
Childish uncosciousness is required in the process of creation as well in the act of partecipation or observation”

Who are your heroes?

MissPaka aka Francesca Mendolia: my granmother, K.Haring and Bruno Munari…three very different ways of espressing feelings and emotions.
Ludiko boy aka Andrea Ruschetti:  Ernest Henry Shackleton and his wife.

Where do you live? can you describe it?

We live in Omegna, a small town on the Orta Lake, in the north-west of Italy.
The lake is just like an amniotic fluid. It gives as protection and nourishing.
Our Studio is a energy space close to a river,  the source and the setting of our playful ideas.

Why do you think you don’t grow up?

Little children and teen-agers wants to grow up faster, while adult are wondering to be child again.

We are players, everyday we play.  When you play you have not time to grow up.

When will you turn all adults into kids?

As Huizinga noted we are already living in the HOMO LUDENS Era.
Nowadays the main human need is the searching for enterneinment as survival  to boredom.
Playtime is perfect against boredom and everytime we choose to play someway, somehow, we all spontaneously turn into kids.

Nicol Vizioli interview

So, here we go with an uprising young photographer. Nicol lives in London, born in Rome.

Who is Nicol Vizioli?

I’m constantly looking for something, inside and outside me. I often meet incredible creatures and together we listen and tell stories. I am all of them.

Where is your fav place to shoot?

For long time it has been outside, the forest, the countryside, the small wood close to the place I grew up. But my work is changing and I am changing with it. I lately discovered a more intimate dimension, shooting in an empty space, it could be a room or anything I would call a studio. It doesn’t really matter: an empty space, a bare stage, is for me all the choices together, that is so inspiring.

When did you shoot your first photo? How was it?

My father is a photographer, so I guess I have always been familiar with pictures, somehow. But at some point he gave me an old reflex, I was 18. I remember a series of bw films, long days with a friend of mine in her darkroom. And I clearly remember that one day, a specific image appeared on the paper: it was a portrait of a child, smiling and showing a couple of missing teeth. There was something strong in it, something new, the imperfection, the messy hair, I can’t really say. I just felt very close to it, excited. For those reasons I guess that was the first real picture I took.

What is your main instinct?

Drawing.

Why animals, nature and animistic – life principles in your photos?

The natural world has always had a certain influence on me, it is where I feel close to my inner voice, where I feel I can start again, where all the secrets seem to be revealed. My dreams are full of animals; they bring new secrets and I love them.

Arianna Carossa interview

Arianna is a kinda sister to me. I decided to give her the post #100 of my blog. She’s in NY now, having dinners with cool people, fighting with rats and doing a residency ay ISCP. And I miss her.

Where are you now? And where is your heart?

I’m in Brooklyn at home. My heart is inside of me, sometime when is beating very fast it goes close to me.
When will you die?

When I will stop to wish.

Who are you now? And who were you last year? And who will be next year?

Now I am a American woman, last year a was a Genovesian woman…like a Cristoforo Colombo, I think…

I discover my Brooklyn.

I think that next year will be a newyorker woman, but without metro-map.

What could be a perfect definition of your imaginario?

The imaginario of the steps (stairs).

Why do you have this tension to do more with less?

I have more and more tension in everything I decide to do… I want all I  wish.

My less point is the sweet brown pudding of cinnamon and when I speak in english I say many bullshit than in italian language…I guess.

Aëla Labbé interview

Aëla is a  young french contemporary dancer  and freelance photographer. Dust, dreams and memories fill her photographic imaginario. She’ll taka part to Le Voyage Initiatique at Fotografiaeuropea festival.

Who introduced you to the camera’s world?

No one, photography came as a need into my life after a difficult period…

From an early age I devoted myself to dancing I became increasingly interested in photography afterwards; I see it as by essence connected to dance.

What childhood means to you?

Nostalgia of a lost time…

When will your portraits grow up?

Children (my nephews) are all over my galleries but I do shoot grown ups as well… My sister

Maïna, my boyfriend Neoklis, my friends Laurie, Genevieve, Eleni … persons I love and with who I have a special intimacy

I also do lots of self-portraits; even if my soul remains in childhood I guess I’m an adult…

Why do you thin your photos are so delicate, evanescent and powerful at the same time?

My work is made up of my memories, my emotions, my hopes, my thoughts, and my inner turbulences. There is a certain wistfulness about it – a shroud of reverie perhaps…

Childhood itself (which is a recurrent theme in my work) is seen as delicate besides what interests me the most is to research darker sides and unconventional representations … Sometimes people tell my images are disturbing… because I put children deliberately in uncomfortable positions. This belongs to my vision: to my mind, children are not only “cute” beings and they are not that “innocent”, they can see, hear, feel, understand…I think they have much more serious thoughts and stories inside than we usually think. I’m always moved and terribly inspired by Jeanne, my niece, she has this gravity and such melancholic face for her young age.

Where do you feel at home?

The family house in Saint-Nolff a small village of Brittany, France. I’m living here with my parents, my sisters and brother coming over very often with the kids… a cosy and atypical place full of love, old books and relics where I found most of my inspirations.

Tamara Ferioli interview

A new section in the blog, here we go with the first of, hopefully, many interviews to the artists i work with.

Tamara (she lives in Milan, works with drawing and installation) had to be at the very beginning of this adventure, with an exclusive self portrait she shot for Woodenleg:

Who is the most important person of your life and why?

I believe in the psyche and in the illusion.

To browse all of life’s priorities therefore we have a different perception of what are the most important people. The mother at the time of birth and the person who will stand beside us in the moment of death. In between, people support and reference and experiences that form and transform.
I can not rationalize and write a name.

What pushed you to drawing instead of other media?

I love the smell of a drawing. Synthesizing, clean, dry, scratchy and manic. Submitted to the movement of the hand.
I use also the installation because (if successful) has the magical power of wind and catapult into a physical dimension of mind.
Although the materials and technique I use, in the end prove to be symbolically important, do not ask myself those questions about why. In the ‘trance’ during the act of creation I focus on what I get.
Use any form that allows me to reflect and reveal the unreflective.

Where would you like to live?

Ideally in Iceland. The landscape, the colors and sounds of the island perfectly reflect my inner mood.

Why white?

It is easy to relate it to purity. It indicates a liminal state, suspended between two moments of being. The eternal moments that I try to freeze.
When will change?

All the time, is not the color that makes the change.