Il Re Dei Boschi per Lapisvedese

The literary project Lapisvedese and the musical duo Il Re Dei Boschi are two things that I like a lot, so their combo sounds great; I have the pleasure of virtually joining them by an illustration for the flyer made by CMVSAMAC, one of the Lapisvedese authors.

The Lapisvedese graphic design has always this same very clear aesthetic in black and white, that for some reason I always observed with great satisfaction, which, of course, makes even bigger my pleasure.

Furthermore, a concert by Il Re Dei Boschi is something pretty unique!

My illustration still in colours

A couple of its sketches

This flyer has a very serious fault, by the way.
Working on it, of course I had an excuse to get lost in loop again listening to Il Re Dei Boschi. Listening to Il Re Dei Boschi, you'll be showered with an harmonica matching a triumph of bitter-sweet words that will echo your childhood.
Well, the result is that yesterday… I bought a toy-harmonica! How could I resist, seeing that cute piece of metal in a paper box in the corner of the shop?
Good luck to who'll meet me and my backpack!
(It's a very real viral danger, since I'm gonna travel a lot this summer! I'll be a viral danger, watch out.)

Fast I

Do you see that red circle came out on this visual grammar born as warm-up?

It's often in my mind, that red circle, in these months, for a reason.

But I know that this one is stucked in my fingers from Sunday, specifically because I saw it on a canvas in a beautiful studio in Amsterdam. Probably not only the red circle inspired me.
Anyway, you're that lucky that you can have a look on this artist also online, since we are in the future. Here it is this pretty lady: Helena Sanders – enjoy.

"Hidden pictures" /// Heidi Harris and guests, June Saturday 29th at Pianos 158, NY

I'm having again the honour of collaborating with Heidi Harris and her lovely atmosphere. This time I made a poster (here its page event) following a way not so common for me. Thinking about it in the previous period, I often had totally different idea with very clear subjects, not far from my imaginary. But in these last weeks, walking through Tate Modern or perhaps some gorgeous Dutch squats, I rediscovered a lesson as basic as easy to forget: freedom! Which is also a duty if you follow your honest artistic path: on one hand is important to have a style, but on the other hand you have to refresh it, don't let it cage you and don't let yourself cage it. Frank Zappa said that without deviation, progress is not possible.

So, reckless or wise enough, sometimes during all my life I always liked to abandon for a while media or techniques that were already nicely working out, proposing something new to my short fingers and my long nails. So this time I played experimenting a little bit again.

When you do that, one of the most exciting phase is about deciding when to stop. Since I saw this illustration in several different aspects, this time I like to share one step, also because it could be a tip for who's playing to find all its elements, like the sweet Eve Blackwater did… (No, I didn't draw weasels for boobs, by the way, but how cool that you can trip so much in these colours!)

… So, have fun and in case you're in New York, enjoy for me the Heidi Harris concert with her special guests aka "Knife Thrower's Assistance"! It will be the 29th of June at Pianos 158, in Ludlow St! 

☉

«I feel that I'm swimming in a liquid rainbow!»

Once I thought that I was so happy that I could stop me.

Then I thought that if I was so happy, it worths to sharing happiness and enjoying it, staying alive around still inside the human society.

Sometimes, though what makes me happy, the human society corrodes my stability.

Because of this, I'm glad to have a little help from the music that describes a bit my inner sensation of harmony. One of my favourite place where I can be sure that I'm not lonely in the perception of happiness is the Planet Gong, or one of those other sounds created by Daevid Allen, Divided Allen, Zero, or whatever the galaxy can whisper you as name for calling this wizard. Do you know what I'm talking about? Listen, there is anybody here that who doesn't know the Gong trilogy? Don't be afraid, I'd like to meet you… really… Did you never trip on a Floating Anarchy, for exemple? Well, I did it many times, also together with some of the best creatures that I never met in my life. So you can figure out what a great honour was for me enjoying the last concert of the Cinema Soloriens tour, a wonderful super band in which that night Daevid Allen played, with of course Marshall Allen and James Harrar,  fathers of this project.

During the first part of the concert, I just flew on their music, but after a while my hand asked for my pen. I made very quick portraits that maybe don't tell so much about them; but I'm satisfied anyway, because my desire of freely enjoying the music was definitely harder, that night.

Marshall Allen; Daevid Allen

James Harrar; Daevid Allen

And although I made just these sketches, after the concert the band welcomed me to their table and we spent a good time together.

This happened two months ago, the 7th of April at dB'S, but each time I started this post I asked to myself how to tell how much I was joyful that night.

Well, that's an expression that could perhaps evoke that emotion. And it's from the classic Daevid's drawing that he made on my sketchbook…

Daevid Allen's doodle

After all, I wasn't able to show my joy that night itself neither. The only thing that I said – and that Daevid appreciated a lot, actually – was:

«I feel that I'm swimming in a liquid rainbow!»

Thanks again to Daevid Allen, Luc Pilmeyer and James Harrer for their smiles.

And to Miss Carol Scoponi – that had the great joy of enjoying an Allen's concert too, recently – for our presumable magic connection.

"Nine Feathers"… and a project behind it

The copies of Cut the Line are almost sold out (so, if you want yours, order it soon on the Inner Ocean Records website, where it's in streaming too) and, spying the work of Cory Zaradur, preparing them one by one, I'm really looking forward to enjoy my copy, also because, strange enough, I actually didn't listen yet to this album: I decided to save my first time for the good one, with loud speakers, lying down on my couch with closed eyes and letting trip my mind.

So, from Cut the Line, currently I know only Animal Insect, of course, and… another one…

The story of this track, so meaningful for me and Heidi Harris, is pretty particular again.
Once she watched my old short movie Perché lavori ai ferri?, in which there is my voice all the time as a stream of consciousness, in Italian, and this, somehow, brought her a flash. She had already the music track, somewhere, keeping it untouched, so the inspiration was imagining it with my words and my voice. But, pay attention, please, the too great part is about how we mixed together our lines… She suggested to operate ignoring what was going on to other side. So I recorded my voice completely without any information about the track and Heidi, that doesn't understand Italian, worked on my files without the translation. I'd like to remark that she also edited the order of my phrases, she really dares, you can figure it out listening to the track. And when she sent me what she made with all, it was an incredible strong emotion for me, I was sure about our connection, but some details went out so perfectly precise! Above all, I'm astonished by the end, that could totally let guess that she was feeling the core of the words for real – at least, that's what I feel, conscious of what I have behind that text.

This humble "empathy experiment", as someone described it, makes even more colourful my hopes about Human Communication.

(Sketch made during a brainstorm for Animal Insect music video)

Our good synchronicity doesn't stop here, has to do, indeed, also with what I have behind that text.

When Heidi told me her idea, I already had it.

Felice – Lettere d'amore sull'armonia

I do like writing and reading too, but for sure, taking a look to the projects that I made, you are not gonna find anything like this. I work on purpose trying to be conscious of each possible medium, for picking up the best one each time, but the kind of project that I'm introducing now, for sure, is not so common among what I'm mostly "used" to do. Because of this, I actually consider quiet interesting that Heidi asked me for a text written and spoken by me just when I had started these pages, Felice.

I almost finished this carnet and when it will be filled my text will stop too. That's the weird method that I decided. Everything happened the 3rd of March, with the simple intention of a private (loooong) letter. But in a few lines I understood that it was becoming something to share with anybody, for real.
So the private letter immediately turned into the bigger idea of a book that I would to print and read anywhere, you could call it "street theater" or whatever, I would do it in any public space in open air, to let it meet especially strangers.

And, well, currently the anywhere would be limited to Italy, because of its language, obviously.

One day, maybe, I could also think about do it in English or another language.

So, this is now one of the main project that knocks my life and, since I'm telling it here, if anyone there, to the other side of the monitor, feels like launch me any idea, anything is welcome (yeah, I mean: maleta [at] alice [dot] it); in a while I'll start to looking for interesting collective situations for let it run.


And typing "collective situation" now I would feel like to tell the other big idea that is going on recently. But it is not time for it, yet.


Once again, this is not everything and I go to let grow the rest in that psychedelic corner behind the wall: the pillow.

A kiss to each skull