El autobús amarillo (1/x)

Eran las 10:14 del día 9 de abril, desayunabas lo de casi siempre, tostadas con mermelada y un café con leche muy caliente. Vestías sólo con una camiseta XL en la que se podía leer Omission (tu canción favorita de Frusciante). Cruzabas las piernas de una manera especial para que nadie viese las cicatrices de tu rodilla izquierda a pesar de que vivías sola desde hace meses. Por la ventana, mientras prendías el primer cigarro del día, un rayo de sol entraba por la ventana subrayando el suave deslizar de cada mota de polvo. Mientras tanto, a sesenta y cuatro escalones de distancia, el cartero deja en tu buzón un sobre que contiene las coordenadas donde se encuentra la granja donde vivo con mis siete hijas. Nora, Abril, Manuela, Elena, Natalie, Mila y Mar. Seis de ellas son rubias. Mar es morena, la más pequeña y mi favorita. Tengo una cama volante que cuelga del techo. Es una cama muy grande y cómoda. En ella dormimos los ocho. Cada mañana se trenzan el pelo una a cada una. Yo aprovecho para ir corriendo y coger siete flores que luego ellas colocan en su pelo (hoy han sido unas flores de jazmín muy pequeñas). Siempre se les hace tarde para llegar al colegio aunque bien es verdad que mientras atravesamos el lago, que separa la granja de la carretera, aflojo la marcha para poder disfrutar del mejor momento del día. Cuando llegamos a la orilla, las siete se ponen en fila para despedirse dándome un beso. Mar siempre es la última y me da un abrazo. Las siete se marchan a las 9:06 en el autobús amarillo que las traerá de vuelta a eso de las 14:38

(parte 1 de las X que puedan llegar a surgir)

Havier on Pinterest

ENTREVISTA CON DIEGO PATIÑO

Chris Badger & Will Edwards

                                                       

Jacky Winter Group

First of all, I´d like to thank you for having dedicated the time for this interview.  

     1. We, all who consider us to be real design lovers, know that you are a very well-known public figure in this subject area. Would you mind telling us a little bit about yourself?

 I am really far to reach such a highly recognized status, so thank you; that made me feel very warmly received.

   2. Are you a freelancer? If so, what do you do to get clients? 

     Yes, I have been working as a full time graphic mercenary for the last six years. It is usually considered to be a professional position very closely related to freedom, but actually, it requires plenty of sacrifice. There are good months and bad ones. There´s scarcely no rest, and normally, Saturdays and Sundays are the heaviest days of the week. You must be extremely patient, and in fact, you never really get to know if you will succeed or fail. It means a true risk, so I wouldn´t recommend the experience.

I don´t use any strategy to get clients; I mean, I don´t go for hunting customers because I do not consider myself to be patient enough so as to show me as real sales man.

By the way, I neatly take care of my web profile. Also and for the last period, the Australian Group Jacky Winter represents me, and that fact has turned things easier for me.

Practically speaking, the best thing you can do is to give all you can from that very first work opportunity, and to upload it, to take it to the clouds or whatever they may call that, so as to make it known.

3. How did you start to go in for this? Are you self-educated or did you take any studies?

I´m a journalist. I worked writing about Economy and Technology, but all these affairs didn´t satisfied me at all so I lost interest on it. It was then when I decided to explore other fields such as graphic and publishing design, and as I was working in a publishing house in Bogota, I was asked for the first time to illustrate for Soho. They knew about my drawing, though for me it was just a way to kill my time.

The Soho offer couldn´t have been more appropriate, because shortly after I was allowed to leave the publishing house to deeply dedicate my time to illustrate.

I have no formal education on Arts, so I think that makes me to be self-taught.

4. How is your whole process from the sketch to the final product? Is your work totally handmade?

I sketch the drawings on paper and with pencil, that´s true. But at the moment, I´m focusing more on the idea, rather than on the form. This means serious investigation, so when I finally get to something I really like, I just try to execute it. It´s a dull process like cutting the pieces of a puzzle one by one.

Hereafter you face the postproduction, where the essence is the edition in itself. It is my favorite part of the process because you start joining and giving sense to all that pieces and then you form the puzzle.

 It could be also considered like solving a crime. Here is where I consider the computer to be the most appropriate tool. My work is handmade; in contrast, I also work with a digital pen. 

There are so many legends going around what is unkindly known as “digital illustration”, when actually, there´s no real distinction at all. I think that people normally have an unnecessary and somehow pretentious caution towards digital tools. But in my opinion, anyone could be amazing either using traditional methods or digital ones.

5. What does inspire you when you are creating? Why do you think that your designs are so special? 

My main motivation is thinking of the final product, the illustration, when published, and the people´s impression. I´d like to see their reactions so as to check if my first intention is similar to what they perceive, or if, on the contrary, it has become a complete different thing. My inspiration is inside my work, it has to be like that.

I´m not a graphic designer. There´s an opposite relationship in how they see their own work. 

A graphic designer adapts himself to a client by pursuing his identity. However, people want me for what I do and what I did, because it´s closer to my identity, and not to the client´s.

In Darwinian words, I am in a difficult position, because most people don´t like my work.

I don´t know what makes design or graphic arts to be so special. I don´t think of my work very often. Nonetheless, I guess it has to do with being a channel between form and content, and the way they connect with the audience.

6. Did you illustrate as a child? What was your favorite comic? What about a current one?

Yes, it was something I used to do a lot when I was a child. Specially to imitate my brother who was always a better drawer and storyteller than I will be. 

I used to read – and I continue doing it- to Tintin and also Superman, Batman, Flash’s comics which Cinco Editora published. I can add Condorito, Memin and Asterix.

My uncle had a Mafalda‘s collection which also caused a huge impact on me. Ah! And the inevitable Fontanarrosa’s Boogie.

Now I read Daniel Clowes, Charles Burns, and Chris Ware and so on, and some Japanese authors such as Moto Hagio and Hitosi Iwaaki in whom I am interested at the moment. Moreover, I feel a big attraction towards crime and horror stories previous to the 50’s censure code and I have recently become a devotee of Oesterheld’s El Eternauta.

7. Do you think that your technique has changed with the passing of the years?

Yes, of course. You can´t help it. But rather than being somewhat experimental, I´ve always known where I wanted to take my work in aesthetical words.

8. Have you got any references? 

Yes, I´ve got plenty of them. Hergé, the Garbage Pail Kids, Charles Burns, Tim Lane´s comics…So many things…

9. Do you think that designers are office workers?

That´s not a rule. I guess some of them will, and some others won´t.  I´m not an office animal. I wasn´t trained for it, and in fact, I hate leaving home except for sushi, a whiskey bottle or to take a plane. Normally I wake up not earlier than twelve o´clock and I work till two, three or four in the morning. It keeps being monotonous, I guess, but, without a doubt, it is not an office timetable. Besides, when I think I´m not submitted to the humming of bad installed fluorine lights and the stale coffee breath of a mean boss looking at me over his shoulder, I feel so relieved.

Offices are horrible. The only thing they want is to see you early at work. They don’t care about your efficiency, if you are preparing a bill, or fantasizing with the sales girl Facebook profile. They just want you to warm your seat. Offices are the worst and poorest excuse to go out early on Friday.

10. Have you ever felt that you´d lost your creativity? If so, how did you solve it?

When you leave a blank page, it´s because you have nothing to say. Beyond that, there is no mystery.

11. What would you recommend to those people who want to dedicate their lives to the design field?

Giving advices is a horrible habit; I couldn’t do it to anyone. Or maybe yes. Although it’s only something to take into account. That’s what Milton Glaser said about admitting the failure. I already have an email from an editor from Chicago who tells me that my illustrations would surely make her to have nightmares. She, I am pretty sure, considered herself really funny when she sent it to me (and it hurt me really deep when I received it). But later on I thought that it is not so common to cause that kind of reaction in a person. So I can’t be so bad. Her indifference would have hurt me much more.

Failing is essential. We have to accept it and take it strongly.

12. Could you tell us something about your work experience with magazines such as El Malpensante and Soho?

I don’t usually visit any illustration websites, and the few I follow belong to some friends of mine I like to see, just to recreate myself and to know what they feel and think when they are creating.

13. What websites do you usually visit?

As I said, Soho was the magazine where I first published. I owe them that initial confidence though there are some aspects concerning with our relationship that make me feel a kind of displeasure today. I still disagree with the way they see the illustration.

El Malpensante, on the other hand, somehow embodies my home professionally speaking. I owe them my whole career. They have a very professional and serious concept of the work and I've been lucky to rely on the guidance and collaboration of its staff. There is no other magazine where I feel freer to discuss and perform my ideas. No doubt, those are the works I'm most pride of and the most outside awarded works too.

14. You have also worked for Bicentenario Pop.  Before the exposition organizers asked you to illustrate the character La Pola, did you already know her? What did you imagine she would be like?

Policarpa Salavarrieta is a very popular character in the Colombian history, so I´ve known her very well since my school days. Along with the Bicentenario Pop exposition, this time, came a more critical investigation process that made me very skeptical in relation to the figure of this woman as a heroine. There is even a previous version, rejected by the organizers, in which I drew her as a giant parasite with a sack of eggs hanging on her.

I think that she was a woman overcome by a very teenager like energy and naïve reasons; and for me, defending a cause so devoted and blindly means distrusting. Maybe that´s why I added some details like the mask and the hidden gun.

15. Where could we find your online portfolio?

http://www.diegopatino.com/

You can also follow me on Twitter: 


http://twitter.com/#!/votefordiego

 And on Facebook: 


https://www.facebook.com/Showering.With.Satan

16. To sum up, could you tell us what´s your favorite book, film and music group or singer?

It´s hard to choose only three, so I will say the first thing that comes to my mind. A music group, Sparklehorse (or any other project by Mark Linkous). A book, El Mejor de los Mundos, by Quim Monzó. And a film, Heat by Michael Mann.

Translator: Cristina Galdeano Romero

Interview by Doris Curtis

Libre elección

   Después de todo, se llenó un mundo entero con conversaciones alrededor de láminas sabor café. Desertor infatigable de madrugadas en blanco, culpable de la felicidad total al abrir los ojos. Mandarinas podridas y posos de bourbon. Las huidas hacia adelante siempre hacen tropezar en el camino, sobretodo cuando hay días que no sabes de qué huías. Los recuerdos son espesos, como resacas con vómito por aspirina. El presente es peor según la hora. Compartir riegos de plantas nunca es agradable y la soledad, mientras tanto, provoca náuseas. Pero el carmín rojo, los zapatos de tacón y las risas hacen que se pase, hasta que la melopea entristece lo suficiente como para irte en taxi a casa, o a cualquier cama que nunca es lo suficientemente cómoda. Creo que el universo me debe un estipendio. 

Jueves musical

 



Kiss kiss,bang bang!

Laurindo Feliciano

Artist, Illustrator and Graphic Designer

             

Bodasdefiambre entrevista a Laurindo Feliciano.




Para todos aquellos que no te conozcan demasiado, ¿podrías hablarnos de ti? Tu pasado, tus aficiones, tus estudios…

-Soy un artista ilustrador brasileño, nací en 1980 y vivo en París desde 2003. Estoy graduado en diseño de productos e interiores. No creo que tenga hobbies, pero sí muchas pasiones.

¿Cómo empezaste a dedicarte a ésto? ¿Fue algo vocacional?

-Dediqué toda mi vida a pintar y escribir mucho. Después de graduarme, trabajé varios años en oficinas de diseño y arquitectura en París. Realmente amaba esto, pero sentía que necesitaba hacer arte para ser yo mismo y estar en paz con mis demonios. En 2009 decidí ser honesto y hacer de esta pasión mi profesión.

¿Cuales son tus fuentes de inspiración a la hora de crear algo?

-Me inspiro principalmente en la naturaleza, el comportamiento de los animales, la vida, la muerte y las  imágenes nostálgicas. Mi trabajo collage es una respuesta visual a algunas obsesiones que tengo desde muy joven, y creo que éste nunca terminará. En algunos casos 

tengo mis creaciones listas en mi cabeza pero a menudo me viene la inspiración al empezar a trabajar. Una foto, una película o algo que encontré leyendo un libro. Me encanta pasear por París, esta ciudad cargada de memorias y arquitectura me inspira bastante.

¿Dónde lleva a cabo su trabajo?

-Mi ambiente ideal para trabajar necesita papel viejo, revistas y libros, todo tipo de lápices y una luz espectacular que entre por la ventana. Así es como le doy forma a mi trabajo. 

¿Qué procesos previos a la ejecución técnica de la imagen realizas normalmente?

-Lo primero, y probablemente lo más importante, es la calidad y la originalidad de la imagen que a posteriori usaré en el proceso collage.

¿Sueles usar un mismo procedimiento a la hora de realizar tus trabajos?

-Siempre empiezo haciéndolo a mano y luego uso photoshop. Pienso que es una habilidad maravillosa pero un gran trabajo necesita más que esto. Necesita mucha investigación y gran sentido de la composición.

¿Cual es tu especialidad en la ilustración?

-Hago collage utilizando materiales distintos como pintura acrílica, cinta, lápices y ceras de colores.

¿Ha cambiado mucho su técnica con el paso del tiempo? 

-La técnica es la misma pero el sentido de la composición está en constante evolución. 

De todos los trabajos que has hecho, ¿de cual te sientes más orgulloso?

-No me siento orgulloso por ningún trabajo en especial. Pero realmente disfruto cuando la gente encuentra detalles y entiende lo que quiero decir con algunas ilustraciones.

¿Ilustrabas de niño? ¿Cuál era tu cómic favorito?

-Sí, todo el tiempo y mi familia siempre me animaba a seguir este camino. Mi cómic favorito era Peanuts, (Snoopy).

En un mundo tan competitivo como éste, ¿qué piensas que te podría diferenciar del resto?

-No siento que esté en permanente competición, hay otros muy buenos artistas de collages. Creo que todos los que vivimos en este mundo somos únicos y no pienso que yo sea mejor que otros artistas, yo sólo intento ser yo mismo y crear mi propio trabajo.

¿Como ves tu trabajo en un plazo de 5 años?

-Esta es una pregunta difícil. Siento que mi trabajo artístico está cambiando y convirtiéndose en algo muy íntimo, inexplicable con palabras, sólo con imágenes. Sólo quiero hacer esto por el resto de mi vida. 

¿Qué aconsejarías a personas que quieran dedicarse a este mundillo?

-Ser honesto y quizás cruel. El secreto del campo creativo es: no rendirse, si realmente lo quieres tienes que hacerlo tú mismo. Si es necesario dormir menos y dejar de desperdiciar tu tiempo en internet o viendo basura en TV. Remplazar todas las cosas que hacen de tu vida una persona ordinaria y concentrar todos tus esfuerzos en construir tu carrera. Si sientes que tu creación no es lo suficientemente buena, no te detengas ahí, en el futuro verás la evolución natural de tu trabajo. No hay grandes jóvenes artistas, todos necesitan desarrollar su visión personal del mundo.

¿Tienes algún referente?

-Los referentes más importantes para mi son Max Ernst, Joseph Beuys, Cy Twombly y Donald Judd.

¿Que páginas web de ilustración sueles frecuentar?

-Concentro mi búsqueda en la composición, color y luz. Por lo tanto, prefiero gastar mi tiempo visitando páginas de fotografía y algunos grupos en Flickr. Pero sigo Ilustration Mundo y los podcast de Tomas James en EFII, este chico es brillante.

http://www.illustrationmundo.com/

¿Nos podrías decir un comic, una película y un grupo musical que te guste?

-Disfruto con Hal Hartley y el movimiento de la Nouvelle Vague, pero Stanley Kubrick era un génio. No leo comics. Me resulta difícil elegir un grupo, porque me paso el tiempo buscando nuevas bandas y no puedo trabajar sin música. Algunos músicos contemporáneos que me flipan son Wild Nothing, The Caretaker, The Magnetic Fields, Panda Bear, Mount Eerie y Broadcast. Quizás lo mejor sea visitar mi perfil de lastfm:

http://www.lastfm.fr/user/Impermeable

¿Perteneces a algún grupo artístico o tendencia?

-No, la idea de pertenecer a algo me aterra. 

¿Dónde podemos encontrar tu portafolio online?

www.laurindofeliciano.com 

Y para terminar, ¿hay alguna cuestión que no te hayamos preguntado en esta entrevista y que te gustaría responder?

-No. Sentí que me hicisteis hablar demasiado sobre mi, chicas, y esto es ya un ejercicio muy duro…

Laurindo Feliciano

 By Doris Curtis and Hanna Höch
(Traducción de  Cristina Galdeano y Amanda López)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- 

For all those people who may don´t know much about you, could you briefly introduce yourself? Your past, your hobbies, your studies…

- I'm a Brazilian artist and illustrator, born in 1980 and living in Paris since 2003. I'm graduated in product and interiors design. I don't think I have hobbies, but lots of passions.

How did you start to go in for this? Was it vocational?

- I spent my whole life drawing and reading a lot. After I graduated, I worked in design and architecture offices in Paris for several years. I really love this, but I felt that I really needed to do Art to be myself and be in peace with my demons. In 2009, I decide to be honest and turn this passion into my full-time work.

What does inspire you when you are creating?

- I'm inspired mainly by nature, animal behavior, life x death and nostalgic images. My collage work is the visual response to some obsessions that I have since I'm very young, and I think it will never ends. In some cases I have my artwork ready in my head, but usually I have inspiration before to start to work. A picture, a film, or something that I found reading a book. I love to walk in Paris, this city with all this charge of memories and architecture inspires me a lot.  My ideal work environment needs old paper, magazines and books, all kind of pencils and a wonderful light coming from my window. It is how my work gets shape. 

What previous processes to the image technical implementation do you normally carry out?

- The first and probably the most important thing is the quality and the originality of the image that I will use in my collage process. 

 Do you normally make use of the same procedures when you are executing your work?

 - I always start hand-making and then I use Photoshop. I think that this is a wonderful skill, but a great work needs more than this. It needs a lot of research and a big sense of composition. 

What is your specialty in the illustration area?

- I do collage mixing medias like acrylic, tape, pencil and wax crayon. 

Have you changed considerably your technique with the passing of time?

- The technique is the same, but the sense of composition is always in evolution. 

What among all your works made you feel prouder of? 

- I'm not proud of any work in special. But I really enjoy when people find details and understand what I want to say with some illustrations. 

Did you illustrate as a child? What was your favorite comic?

- Yes, all the time and my family always encouraged me to follow this way. My favorite comic was Peanuts. 

 In such a competitive world like this, what do you think that could make you different from the rest?

- I don't feel that I'm in this permanent competition, there is other very good collage artists.I believe that everyone living in this world is unique and I don't think that I'm better than other artists, I'm just trying to be myself and create my own work. 

 How do you consider your work in a five-year period?

- This is a hard question. I feel that my Artwork is changing and becoming something very intimate, unexplainable by words, only by images. I just want to do that for the rest of my life. 

What would you recommend to those people who want to dedicate their lives to this field?

- To be honest and maybe cruel: The secret for all the creative field is: don't give up, If you really want it, you have to do by yourself. If it is necessary sleep less and stop to waste your time on internet or watching bullshit on TV and replace all the  things that make your life an ordinary person and concentrate all your efforts to build your career. If you feel that you work is not good enough, don't stop to do that, in the future you will see the natural evolution of your work. There's no big young artists, everyone need to develop your personal vision of the world.  

Do you have any references?

- The most important references for me are Max Ernst, Joseph Beuys, Cy Twombly and Donald Judd. 

 What illustration web pages do you frequently visit?

- I concentrate my research in composition, color and light, so I prefer spent my time visiting photography websites and visiting some groupes on Flickr. But I like Illustration Mundo and the Tomas James' podcasts on EFII, this guy is brillant. 

Could you tell us a film, a comic and a music group you like?

- I enjoy Hal Hartley and all the Nouvelle Vague mouvement, but Stanley Kubrick was a genius. I don't read comics. It is really hard to me to talk about music, because I'm all the time looking for new bands and I can't work without music. Some contemporary artists that I love: Wild Nothing, The Caretaker, The Magnetic Fields, Panda Bear, Mount Eerie and Broadcast. Maybe is better to visit my Lastfm profil: http://www.lastfm.fr/user/Impermeable

Do you belong to any artistic group or trend?

- Not really and the Idea to belong to something terrifies me. 

Where could we find your online portfolio?

www.laurindofeliciano.com 

 And finally, is there any question that we haven´t asked you in this interview that you would have liked to answer?

- No. I felt that you make me talk a lot about myself guys and this is a very hard exercice. 

Laurindo Feliciano

 By Doris Curtis and Hanna Höch

Kiss kiss,bang bang!!