My Bea Delight I

2015 is starting with two huge gifts I couldn't really expect, 'cause in the years they managed to be hard: meeting Bea B. and meeting Bea B.

They are two different Bea, they were both my schoolmates, they both tend to disappear in their own world, which for one has been Singapore and then Scotland and for the other has been Venice but above all then her art and her passions. Furthermore, of course, in 2012 I left Italy as well, so I also became harder to reach (or way easier, it depends…).

The years passed by and after the school we met one or two times, not for very long – but never doubting of our friendships, although also our virtual communications have been rather little.

Both of my Bea have reasons to be in this part of Europe this January, though – and it has and it is hard to believe that I'm going to finally have chances to meet them!

This week I met "the first" Bea, and I had my first Bea Delight and I could trip again into her very genuine and trustful heart.

Now I'm looking forward to meet "the second" Bea.
Last time I did I also had to scream it loud, it was 2009 and I had written this post.
Meanwhile, check out her beautiful art… Ptičkart!!!

Ciao, cara BeiBei! ♥♥♥

Grazie ancora – e buon ritorno ad Aberdeen…

"Not Flamingos"

Heidi and the 9 Feathers  – no, wait.

I meant, we! Ah!

So, wait, let's start all over again.

Thing is that today, 13th or 14th of January 2015 (depending if you count the New York City time or the Dutch time zone), today more than ever I feel I'm "a Feather" too: I'm really a member of this amazing band and it's really a big joy! And this year I feel that somehow I'll manage to meet Heidi Harris, after some years of collaboration, and perhaps, who knows, all the Feathers. I'm so glad!

So, let's start again… We picked up the Flowerism from Felice that I've shown here some days ago as illustration for Not Flamingos, a song to let you taste a bit in advance how their coming album will sound!

Plus! Later today (14th) there will be a gig from them! I won't be there in New York, but I hope to hear them on streaming! I think it will be very special!

Enjoy!

Much love to all the Feathers over there in New York. Feeling you so much from here!

FIRST PLEASURE, THEN DUTY

So that the duty comes much better.

Fishagall flies over the Flowerasms

Turning 25, I had told myself that I would had embraced myself as woman, and therefore as mother.

So I did. In the sense of being a "universal mother", not in the sense of becoming the biological mother of someone specifically – I don't want to, first of all because of the current world situation.

I found feelings I had pictured on my-grown-up-self, like the serenity that calmed down that newborn on the train as I touched his/her foot, on the train, a day in May, with my friend Shivesh, who first was shocked and then told me that touching the feet is his mother's wisdom tip to cheer babies.

But I also found one unexpected feeling: discovering a new joy, more maturely understanding what really is being, at very biological first, a daughter – a huge fortune I can fully enjoy (despite the distances and with a Very Special Thanks to the technology and the love).

This portrait is the smile I feel for my parents – it's the smile that they mostly see now over videocalls.

I had the urge of it and it's really out of my thankfulness for them – to thank them, both in once.

It may look weird to portray me instead of who I'm thanking, for example, but I know that more than everything else they're letting me feel their pure and true wish for me. And I know that, since I'm geographically far away from both of them, my presence totally meant for them is exactly what can sweetly please them the most.

Portrait Of A Daughter – Young Nora

We can be one world
We will be one world
In the Jungles of the Mountain Young Nora loves the mountain
And the Mountain feeds the people and the Wheel keeps on turnin'
REVOLUTION!

Jefferson Airplane, The Wheel
1989 (my birthyear)

This drawing came out of my nails the first night I drawn this year, light licked by the Chagall's retrospective that I've seen in Milan with my friend Andrea and my mom, one of the last December days.

Before to do this illustration, I really had to tribute Marc Chagall. Not that this can be vaguely enough: I have no way to express my love for his art. The simple idea of his sensitivity totally devastates me if I think about what he had seen happening in the 20th Century. To me he's a flower into the dust and the drop of his existence rocks the branches of my highest waves.

Furthermore, fish widely flew through Chagall's lands (and, of course, I'm slowly gathering them on my tumblr Piscem).

But before the Chagall's portrait, the first drawing of the three I made that night has been a jump of colours roll between my fingers, as it happens when I understand I only have to give room to my inspiration and to shut up.

This drawing is my 10th Flowerasm.

The Flowerasms are a series of artworks I started in October, after my trip in Italy to read my book Felice; only in these days I understood how to title them and I'll start soon to show them. They are the main reason of all the time I'm needing to elaborate the memory of my street performance summer and to start to translate my book in English: a new generation of art, total consequence of my book, is asking for my attention. Soon I'll publish the rest of the series.

Flowerasm 10 – Chagallian

Something else happened this fall. I'm learning much more deeply my creative process; as my old followers may recall, this has been a terrible struggle for me: now, I'm experiencing one of the most satisfying season of all my life.

Apparently, rituals insist on showing their power into all this and I'm keeping happening in painting my forehead with the colours I'm going to dive into, time by time.
This night, I involved Fishagall too (originally Fish Chagall).
Fishagall is a wooden fish I found in my favorite Utrecht shop, De Oude Pijpenlade, and that I'll probably repaint every time I'll feel like, according with my craziness and moods.

Now Fishagall is playing hide-and-seek, I think – but I can't tell for sure, my little desk is covered by a maze of layers of oil pastels, wax pastels, waterable pastels, brushes, towels, ecoline, pencils, markers, pens and even the eraser (hooray, that's always so hard not to loose it!). If I find Fishagall again or if he decides to come out, hopefully he will send me some good vibes for my illustration for the cover of The Grand Tour, the first novel of the trilogy from The Red Universe by Victor Lorandi (yes, this is also taking more then unexpected, but we're appreciating and finding a sense for this creative process too).

Much love,
from this flower-shaped volcano and its stream of flying fish coming out!

The Feathers are getting ready

Yesterday I woke up in front of the most brightening windows I could imagine for my 1st day of this so hopeful 2015, in Amsterdam, and the first thing I've done, after my very healthy, beloved and regular checking tour at the toilette, has been, back under the blankets, grabbing my current sketchbook and my colours from the backpack next to me and starting to sketch my grandfather Carmine as surrealistic symbolic cosmic tower tree, as note for a painting I pictured today and that I want to make on a big canvas, soon. It has been a sudden inspiration after my first 2015 phantasying after the sleep.

Later in the evening, while I was waiting for the bus to go in the center of Amsterdam and then back to Utrecht, enjoying my time walking, I realized better this little sweet thing: the first thing I made after my first 2015 awakening has been: drawing, working.

:)

I think that's one of the nicest wish I could give to myself, considering the little big goals I set for this year (you'll notice about that, I hope).

In the Amsterdam Central Station then I found this big piano up to be played by any person (there was a viral video I've seen months ago with such a piano in another train station somewhere else). Two people were playing and singing, quite nice, and a lonesome wild fellow was dancing with his red red red umbrella!

Coming back home I had to struggle to do not sing and jump and dance all alone in the street, with this too-big smile for my little cheeks.

Yesterday I kept thinking of all the beautiful people I met in my life and wishing them the best, despite I sent a very few texts or so. I had a big smile also thinking of my dear Heidi Harris. Back home, I found her request to use an illustration I made this fall for the new album she's working at with her band Heidi and the 9 Feathers. I made this illustration a little after my trip in Italy for Felice and the consequence of two-three months backpacking and performing has been this extremely hot need of research into my style, I started to do stuff totally different, feeling completely amazingly free. Most of these works are still illustrations that I didn't show. Daring this way, I also happened to do something that I wasn't sure if I like or not. That's the case of this drawing I had made for Heidi and the 9 Feathers. After a while, we agreed together that it was not the one we wanted for the cover of the album. But the album is now coming soon, on the 27th of February, hopefully with the art we want for it, and in the meanwhile this strange weird freak picture can anyway visit your eyes to make you a little more curious… (So it's now the profile picture of Heidi and the 9 Feathers and their way to wish you Happy New Year!)

 …The way I mix media is getting more and more insane, by the way, so no surprise if I end up sticking things on paper. You recognize those leaves, right? (Mediterranean friends, I know you do!)

A lot of feathered rainbow brightening wishes from me too

PS. Love you, Feathers! So cool to play with you! Big big hug from The Netherlands to New York!