CREMONAPALLOZA ROCK FEST 2013 - THE STRAIN + MY DINOSAUR LIFE /// (Plus the pink, the gender identity and how I'll die from an heart attack of satisfaction)

•••intro muy dedicata a Kremona•••

L'anno scorso la festona del 25/XII al Dordoni mi ha quasi ammazzata (anche se ne valse la pena >>> art_art_art). Ieri a inizio serata ero quasi spaventata che si ripetesse il rischio di perdere la vita. Ora che sono sopravvissuta di nuovo e con molta gioia (quest'anno senza sangue, a parte quello che ho visto nei miei sogni, poi), posso serenamente annunciare la mia presenza, sabato sera, all'evento dell'ultima locandina con cui mi sono divertita. Chi lo deve sapere lo sa già e magari non passa di qua sul mio blog (brutti orrendi figuri, ve ne state quasi tutti rinchiusi sul sito bianco e blu, eh), però lo ribadisco: sabato sera è un'opportunità per insultarmi dal vivo di nuovo prima che riparta per i Paesi Bassi fino à la prochaine foix (ma, devo dire, oramai la sensazione di rimbalzare indifferentemente tra più luoghi si fa familiare). Ah, e, a tal proposito, sabato pomeriggio invece mi faccio iioografare anche io, e ne approfitto per fare pubblicità al progetto: BAM!: iioo project! Dateci un occhio, se già non sapete, e se vi piglia bene contattate il caro Enda (e preparatevi a prendervi malissimo se avete problemi con l'asimmetria).

Dicevo.

SABATO 28 DICEMBRE - ore 22:00

LUOGOCOMUNE

Centro Sociale Culturale Arci

Via Speciano, 4 - Cremona

ingresso con tessera Arci 2013

dalle 16:00

F.I.C.A. 2013

Fubalino International Cremonapalloza Award

Cremonapalloza Rock Fest

The Strain

My Dinosaur Life!

+ 100% rock'n'roll dj set

Once again the flyer for the annual rock festival organised by Cremonapalloza

is a collaboration which makes me addicted: my cousin McA and I.

Ogni anno siamo più incasinati tutti e due,

ma non sono/siamo molto capaci di rinunciare alla tradizione.

After all, I think the posters we made for the Cremonapalloza Rock Fest

have always been among my most enjoyed drawing, probably because with McA and this festival I always tune myself on "fun", I don't think too much about something else and I mostly just follow instructions that I like (which this time were "folk-pin-up-not-vulgar-like-the-past-year, blouse-with-checks-braces-boots-PaulMcCartney's-bass-guitar-thanks").

The 2010 edition with Il Teatro Degli Orrori is probably still one of my best poster ever, for exemplae, indeed, one of those drawing which made me fear I couldn't anymore go beyond myself…

(After three years, by the way, my answer to this useless but still interesting doubt is:

perhaps that illustration was the top of that wave, of that style I had so much back in the time,

now I'm just elsewhere with my colours and I play in another championship. And that's just how life is: it changes in a way you simply couldn't predict, so you better only predict there is always a change.

And I'm going to try to tell here below one of my change…)

The little creative process behind this illustration has definitely been a lot of fun.

An evening I played a bit with the elements McA told me.

And the day later I started to draw in the afternoon. Ok, I know it's very weird to read, but to me drawing in the afternoon has been really a moving experience. I was used to draw, to work, to live in the night, in the darkness, for years, and in the last months I was totally in the other way around, waking up around 5 pm and going to sleep around 9 am. Not kidding. For some reasons, that was my way. Perhaps I'll have again this type of rhythm, easily because, if I can, I just want to welcome the inspiration in its random beginning, whenever it is, and sometimes it arrives in very absurd moments, but it's now about one month I'm finally became a "normal day person". I love the sunshine (and still the moon as well, though, of course). And the sunshine is fuckin' important to actually understand the colours you're painting with, that's something any visual artist know very well.

The illustration I made that afternoon has been the first one with the daylight after ages.

I honestly think a video of me during that afternoon would be hilarious, for each colour I was picking up and dropping on the sheet I was having extreme emotional different reactions. Simply because of the colours themselves, much before to consider any quality or critique to my work, I mean.

You can't see that in the flyer, but above the knees, where there is that light blue green, I was actually scratching the sheet, basically "sculpting".

When I decided to don't fill the external side of the skirt but to only turn in yellow* the "emptiness" under it, well, I was almost crying.

I wish I could share at least a minimum part of all these extreme feelings I have, fuck.

Often I have experience like this (well, everyday) and then maybe I meet someone who says is bored.

I can understand the struggle from some very big troubles, of course, but how people can be bored?

Anyway, my bigger surprise arrived when I realised I used so much actual  p i n k .

I still remember when, years ago, I was telling a friend about how I would need to sincerely physically puke each time I see the colour pink, especially if it's on a ribbon or anything girly.

I mean, what's going on? Am I becoming really SO "girly"?

It's already a couple of years or so I feel I'm not anymore a hoyden as I always felt very much, but such a use of the colour pink is about to be disrespectful of anything I was, or so, holy hell!

(Furthermore, this drawing was with/for my cousin, like I said, and when we were little he was changing the TV channel every time there was a too-girly-advertisement, poor man, what a terrible girly drawing was I sending him?!)

The only use I could tolerate of the pink was the one clearly far from any gender implication, as in my growth has often be recalled by Pink Floyd. Wait, I know that "Pink" stays for Pink Anderson, of course. But I also think they probably noticed "Pink" still sounds vaguely "pink", don't you think? Anyway, I'm referring more about the actual visual use of the colour, a part of their name. If you browse their pictures from the 60s, so still the ones from the very psychedelic time with Syd Barrett, you'll bump into an endless flow of pink silk and velvet. And that's not anymore "girly", that's far way from our stupid modern/old gender question, that's the kingdom of psychedelia, where anything can turn in anything else and it's only up to you phantasy, which I wish you is not too caged by those issues.

Also, later on, all the animated parts of The Wall by Gerald Scarfe have a bunch of pink, but it never sounds as something "girly". Rather, to me is a creepy reminder of the mere flesh so suffering in that movie.

I'm sorry for such a focus only on Pink Floyd, but they really got a role into my growth, I can now consider myself disconnected by them, somehow, but not if I have to tell my past.

Anyway, this time is not really the first one I use the pink, of course.

I confess I notice only now again that right my banner has a lot of pink. Also, my memory immediately goes to this .gif I made. Probably I'm forgetting something else, but anyway I think, in its totality, never looked so girly.

So, what's the point?

Maybe it's the desire to still study and contemplate symbols and histories behind the colours, on one hand, and on the other to remember that they are free from any human iconology. A sort of double awareness which never ends.

I think I'll stop my rambling with a couple of articles better explained which, of course, I found right after this illustration. Qui c'è in italiano, here in English: pink wasn't always girly.

(Ah, yes, now I remember: this was the point: why pink is girly, so, after all?

And men could were skirts more often, by the way.)

Ma ok, questo disegno è comunque troppo da femminuccia, scusa, cugggino!

* If you want more delirious about colours, another was just about the yellow, a few weeks ago, here.