miggy-figgy

[miggy-figgy]

A Five Day Diary on Magic By Miguel Figueroa

Thursday, March 1st, 2018. Full Moon in Virgo. San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Words. The beginning, the end. The life giver and its killer. A word can make you or break you. Yes, the pen is mightier than the sword; but, are you aware of the power of your words? Your words are the first key to magic. Yes, to your magic. It all begins with you. How do you talk to yourself? How would you describe your life? How do you feel about life? How do you talk to other people? Did you know that your words are the key to unlocking your wildest desires? Words have the power to bring you what you want or the force to drive out what you don’t really need.

The first step is the intention you put to your words. Like the saying goes, you need to mean what you say. Go back and think of that first thing you wrote that was filled with desire? No, I’m not talking about a love letter. Your first declarations of magic were probably your letters to Santa Claus or the Three Kings. Remember them? I do! Remember wishing, and wishing, and wishing and wishing for toys, Nintendos, cassette tapes (if you’re an 80s kid), CD’s (if you’re a 90s kid), radios, computers, clothes, shoes, backpacks, trips - anything that you could dream of! And then, on that 24th or 25th of December or 5th or 6th of January, voila! Magic! Most of your first dreams came true. Well, your first materialistic dreams. But see, from the time you were a kid, your words were creating magic.

As you grew or grow older your words will start to take another on another shape - the reality is that they, due to life’s situations, will become jaded, bitter, sarcastic and downright depressing through time. You may start to think, “magic? Please…” You must know - and this is crucial as you purposely decide to dim your light - that your words are like magical seeds. Would you like white seeds for light or black seeds to feed your dark side? How do you want your crop to look like? Lush or barren? It all comes down to the words you say. Seriously! If your life is not 100% then you probably weren’t the best farmer of words. I’m not saying that you now need to start talking as if you were in a Disney movie, oh no. White seeds of word light also protect you, make you stand for yourself and open pathways that those pesky little black seeds were blocking from you. But, if you feel satisfied, loved, in tune with life and on an abundant right track - and I don’t just mean economical abundance - consider yourself a skillful wordsmith.

If you’re not in the best moment of your life, you may be asking yourself; “but, how am I going to find the right words to manifest what I want?” Look no further than to silence. Yes. Quiet. Hush. Zip it. Shush. Cállate. Tais-toi! Are you acquainted with that little voice inside of you that says: “I shouldn’t be doing this… I don’t think this is right… I think I should stop pursuing this or that person… I’m miserable at this job… If only I followed my dreams…” Listen to it!! Don’t ignore it! Your intuition is one of your best friends. This one has your back before anyone else does. You will find your answers in silence.

So, I encourage you to grab a pen (preferably red) and start writing what you want and do it from your heart! Not from your ego! You don’t need any Gucci sneakers to impress anyone. Whoever loves you, will like you for who you are, not what’s in your closet (although I think that’s not the best advice to give in a fashion magazine, but, what the hell…) Write down your dream job. Make plans. Write letters to people but don’t necessarily send them. Heal. Words are the basics of magic. But never forget… be careful what you wish for.

Friday, March 2nd, 2018

Life, as well as words, is the other most important component of your magic. To live is a magical experience. This is a planet that’s filled with magic and you are worthy to receive it and also give your magic back into the world.  

Let’s take it all the way back. Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start: your birth. The fact that you, those who around you and I are here in this moment of time is the most magical thing that can ever be. Walking is magic. Breathing is magic. Blinking your eyes is magic. The ability to read, recognize words, symbols, places and things are secret magic tricks of the universe that no one really takes time to think about. But, really… think about it, even if you’re just another cynical magazine reader, don’t you think all of that is magic? You may be thinking, “Oh, that’s all physiological and there are logical, scientific facts to all of that.” Yes, you are right. But, if you don’t sometimes see life through magical colored specs you really are going to miss out on all the opportunities that life is giving you at even this single moment to manifest your magic. Haven’t you ever had one of those days that you find money in an old jacket? Or that you run into a dear friend you haven’t seen in years? You land the job? You move somewhere you’ve always wanted to? Someone pays for your lunch just because? Or even, you’re in a long cue and someone says ‘oh please, go ahead, I can wait.” Luck! Serendipity! Casualties! All magic.

But, sometimes we may feel that there is no magic in our lives. You may think, “What does this person know about life? My life is a nightmare and I detest it.” Guess what? I’ve been there, probably everyone has and a pity party won’t get you very far. One of the key elements to having a magical life is to trust. If life doesn’t seem very magical to you at this moment, the universe is testing and pushing you to get a hold of your magic wand and start turning your life around. We all have the opportunity and power to do so. If you’re in a rut, a place of discomfort can seem as a comfortable, familiar and safe place to be. Leading a life like that will only suck the magic out of you.

So, what can you do to start making your life magical? Pen and paper. Red pen! Don’t forget. Your magic means something and it’s worth more than anything from the Louis Vuitton Supreme Collection. And believe me, I want a couple of things from it. Who doesn’t? If you’re content with life - you feel pleased, accomplished and you can look back and say, “Wow! My eight year old self would have never believed that I would be here now!” then you are part of the magic of life. I’m very pleased to have you on this journey with me.

It’s been a long day and I really should be getting to sleep, but don’t worry, I’ll tell you some of my magic secrets on the next entry.

Sunday, March 4th, 2018

In order to lead a life filled with magic, there are some things you will need to assist the process of creating the good kind of magic. It is my pleasure to share with you some of the helpers that I’ve found along the way. If you try at least one of them, you are in the path to magic. Enjoy.

1. The first thing you need in order to create magic is silence. Silence is key. It’s the place you go to when you need to sort out difficult questions about life and find the answers that go along the way. If possible, spend at least five minutes a day in silence. If you can make it up to an hour, even better. No, don’t worry about deadlines, looking at how many likes your latest Instagram post has. All of that can wait. You won’t find any answers there.

2. Meditation. Life changing. Magic at its purest form and one of the best ways to use silence to your advantage. Look it up - meditation works. Its been proven to alter the brain and nourish you so you can become a better version of yourself. I was introduced to meditation in 2013 by one of my magical sisters and five years later I’m still on it on almost a daily basis. There are many ways to meditate. One of the basics if you’ve never done it is to sit in the same place or chair each day for five to fifteen minutes and let thoughts pass along the way. At first it will be difficult, you will fidget (a lot), you will peep your eyes open to look at the clock and your head may tell you “this is stupid, get up, carry on with your day.” Don’t listen to it! Well, yes, do, accept the thought and let it pass by like any stranger on the street.

My path in meditation began with the Silva Method, a groundbreaking meditation from the 60s that uses alpha beats to help you connect, it’s main mantra is that we are here to make the world a better place so that when we’re no longer here, the world will be a better place for those who come after us will benefit from it. Powerful shit. Then there are numerous buddhist mantras to help calm the mind including from Om mani paddle hum to purify your ego, your jealousy, passion, ignorance, greed and aggression. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo to win over suffering, protect you from difficulties as you help yourself and others reveal their happiness.  Ganesh’s mantra, Om gam ganapataye namaha to clear your path and Laksmi’s mantra for prosperity and feeling yourself (it makes you feel really sexy!). There are just so many. Find the one that’s right for you. I’ve also heard great reviews from the Headspace app and during Hurricane Irma I discovered Yogaglo - a fantastic portal for yoga and meditations. I’m currently riding the Kundalini meditation wave.

In Erich Fromm’s The Art of Loving, he recommends that you meditate twice, for 10 minutes each time when you wake up and before going to sleep. Close your eyes and visualize a blank movie screen. Another of my magical girlfriends and Kia Miller, my favorite Kundalini yoga teacher at the moment, recommend that you meditate in a space called “tween time” right during dawn or dusk. It is the moment when the Earth’s electromagnetic field is at its most powerful and you will be able to sink deeper into your meditation. How do you know that meditation is working? A good example is that something or someone who used to bother you doesn’t anymore. You’ll see.

3. Your intuition. Trust it. Really, really do. Your intuition is your body’s radar. We are all satellites. Even if it turns out wrong (like, for example, a lover you’ve been stalking for way too long and you finally have the guts to ask the uncomfortable questions and hear no) your intuition will help you clear shit that you’ve been dragging on for way too long, opening paths to better horizons. Don’t fear it! Listen to your solar plexus!

4. Repetition. Sometimes, in order for something to work, we need to do it again and again and again. Through repetition is how we learn our craft as magicians. Nothing that is good for you will come easily. And if you’ve been asking, “why does he keep repeating himself?” it’s because this is the only way to learn and grow! Practice makes perfect!

5. Speaking of repetition, notebooks are of extreme importance when it comes to magic. You NEED to put things in paper. No, not on your iPhone notepad or your super efficient planning app. A notebook is where things go down, where you plot, plan and organize. Notebooks are is the place where you plant your magical seeds. My recommendation is that you have different notebooks - one for daily planning, one for work, another for creative ideas/projects and a diary. A diary is sooooo important. It’s like visiting the shrink. No, it’s not stupid to be a 35 year old man who keeps a diary; oh no, honey, that’s where you go and release your demons and become a better person along the way. Wake up and jot down three pages daily. You’ll see results quicker than a ray of light. And don’t think, “four notebooks?! Is he crazy?” You probably have 30 half used bottles of moisturizer lying around in your bathroom. Now, that’s nuts! Start writing. As soon as you finish reading me or tomorrow morning just get to it. PS: It’s a great way to meditate!

Time for the Oscar’s! See you tomorrow!

Monday, March 5th, 2018.

Let’s continue. 6-7-8-9. Your space is crucial for the creation of magic. In order to get things going you first must declutter, clean, cleanse and organize your room, apartment or home. Clean it from the inside out. Do it in silence (meditate!), this is a great way to gather and organize ideas. Once you’re done, take a shower, drink two glasses of water, room temperature to control your mile a minute mind, eat oranges and nuts to gather strength. A nourished body is always important. Once you’re done then maybe you can indulge a little. Don’t forget that your body is your spirit’s home. An unkempt temple will only gather dust. Clean it out. This is your magic’s headquarter.

Also, practice some sort of sport. You must keep your brain balanced. If you’re sluggish, try a dance class. If you’re on the firecracker side, go to your nearest yoga studio to come down. Do these at least three times a week. If you can combine them with a personal trainer, this will be even better for your mind’s control and organization. Plus, you’ll get hotter in the process. Who doesn’t like a sexy wizard?

10. I also must stress that you start going to a shrink. Finding the right one is sort of going on a date, but when you find the one, you will know. No, you are not crazy for going to one. You are actually a few steps ahead once you start opening up to a shrink. He or she will give you unbiased opinions to any topic or situation that is bugging your mind. Don’t forget that you need to declutter everything. Ask around, I’m sure you know a friend who has one. Mental health is great for magic. I’m currently in an open relationship with two shrinks - one for when I need to be more spiritual, another for when I need to be logical. Taking care of my mental health has been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. You won’t regret it.

11. By now you may be thinking - but what about objects? Knickknacks? Magic trinkets? Why hasn’t he written about what we see in movies or witchy Tumblrs? Start by getting some candles. White ones for protection and to pay respect for your ancestors, they are watching over you. Keep white flowers next to it. Pink candles are great for love. Green for prosperity. Red for more serious protection - they act as bodyguards to your spirit. If you’d like to know which candle works best for you, investigate and keep it to yourself. Magic is private.

12-13. Get your hands on some palo santo and/or sage to clear any space from negative vibes or sadness. They open pathways and help you on your course. If you’ve been in a situation where there are too many negative people around, as soon as you get home, take off your clothes and sage your body from the head on down. Call on your guardian angels for support. Bad vibes be gone!

14-15. Quartz and stones. Also very private. Don’t let anyone touch them! White quartz is the OG stone. They are pain healers, mood stabilizers and overall protectors of your space. Keep it next to your bed. Rose quartz bring love and balance - keep one under your pillow when your head is going into crazytown. If you find Lapis Lazuli it means that you are ready to open the door to your universe, taking you to your true destiny and life focus. Malachite absorb past negative energy and clear you of it. Eye of the Tiger protects you when you go out into the street (it was used by Roman soldiers when they went into battle) and I’ve heard that pyrite is quite powerful for visualization. Charge your stones during the full moon and set an intention - please, be in a good mood when doing so, otherwise your stone will absorb you bad energy!! Compose yourself (meditate!) and get to work. Some need to be washed in salt water, others in fresh water. If you have access to the ocean, sea or river even better. Bathe nude, hold your stones near your chakra points and recharge. Power!

16. If you happen to be in a bookstore and a tarot deck call your attention, purchase it immediately. The tarot is a great guide. Follow its instructions and begin to learn how to read them. Give yourself a reading when the going gets tough, on full moons and before important events. Write down the reading in your magic journal. Some people say that you should draw a card each day to see how the day will be, but I, as an obsessive person chose not to. Offer readings to your friends. Don’t take it personal if they decline. Also, don’t ask the same question over and over. Tarot don’t play. Also, learn about the iChing. I suggest you follow Bobby Klein’s, it’s a great guide to your week.

17. Invest in any or all of these books: The Art of Loving, Erich Fromm Zen in the Art of Archery, Eugen Herrigel The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz The Mastery of Love, Don Miguel Ruiz The Master Key System, Charles Haanel A Lotus Grows in the Mud, Goldie Hawn Reconciliation. Healing the Inner Child, Thich Nhat Hanh The Alchemist, Paulo Cohelo The Ethical Slut, Janet Hardy Whatever You Think Think the Opposite, Paul Arden Light on Yoga, B.K.S Iyengar The Invisible Actor, Yoshi Oida Any book by Alejandro Jodorowksy Many Lives, Many Masters by Brian Weiss The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron

18. Drugs. I haven’t touched anything in over a year and barely drink anymore but I recommend - in moderation - sativa strains of marihuana (I loved edibles) and shrooms.

19. The word “No”. You have no idea how much magic that one word has.

20. Time. You may be thinking, “I don’t have time for all of this! I have a life.” I hate to break it to you, but there is no life without magic. Once you start taking the time to do some of these things, your life’s schedule will organize based on your self-love, self-care needs. Trust me.

21. And last, but not least… all the magical people you will find along the way. Don’t take them for granted. You’ll know who they are.

But please, beware. Don’t take your magic lightly. The seventh rule in the Eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth, written by Anton Szandor LaVey in 1967 states, “Acknowledge the power of magic if you have employed it successfully to obtain your desires. If you deny the power of magic after calling upon it with success you will lose all you have obtained.” Magic can become powerful beyond measure. No, forget I said that. Magic is powerful beyond measure and you must use it to your best advantage. I truly recommend that you do not engage in black magic. Love spells won’t last long and you will suffer the consequences. But, as in anything in life, it will all be a cycle. Things go up, they go down, they’ll calm down for a while and before you know it, they will be up again. Use your words carefully. Always speak from the heart. Never say something you don’t mean. Magic can’t be fooled. As in anything in life, magic is a constant learning experience. You will learn from your mistakes and eventually and hopefully you will do better. Trust your instinct around those who will try to steal your magic. If something doesn’t click, don’t push it. All of us have the power to create and destroy. Don’t dull your magic recurring to hard drugs for inspiration. Yes, cocaine and amphetamines have created some of the best songs in history, but you’ll have to pay a price. You must destroy unhealthy patterns of addiction and thinking habits in order to create and bring forth the light. Rest and recharge are required. Magic is like a gas tank - from full to empty and ready to go once refilled. As your magic grows, your ego will try to inflate - keep it checked. Magic is a humbling, compassionate, fulfilling and rewarding experience of love.

Wednesday, March 7th, 2018. Boquerón Beach.

I’ve always been a wildflower. Even as a kid, I could never stick to one clique. It just felt strange. Why are you going to stick to the same group of people all the time? How am I supposed to discover new things? Honest, trustworthy friendships will be of utmost importance during your quest and creation of magic. Friendships will come and go. As you grow older they will evolve as your mind, feelings and lifestyle develop. Don’t be afraid to lose friends along the way. Maybe from your childhood, teens and early adulthood you will keep a handful of friends who will know you so well that it will feel like coming home. True friendships don’t reprimand, get jealous nor make you feel guilty because you have decided to expand your circle. In fact, they will most likely celebrate it as you celebrate their evolution as well. Sometimes it will take years for your roads to re-converge but the best part will be that you will pick right where you left off.

Once you start defining yourself as an adult you will start to make friends serendipitously through your tastes, work ethics and places you usually run into. In an age where people are looking down into their screens basically all day, take some time to look around and notice people. Maybe you won’t see anyone on a specific day, but if you do, you’ll feel it and that person will probably do as well. Say hello, compliment them. “Nice hat/jacket/shoes/hair… whatever.” Do this specifically if you live in a big city. One day, one of my magical friends gave me a big lesson as we rode the subway somewhere in New York. There was this gorgeous older black woman with fantastic style. He went up to her and said, “I love your look.” Her face lit up, she said thank you and complimented us. As the three of us reassumed our trips, he turned to me and softly said, “This is a lonely city, filled with people who probably haven’t spoken to anyone in days or even weeks. If you see someone who calls your attention, compliment them. Don’t think twice.” For the next three years while living in New York, I did this at least once a day, even on days when I felt miserable. It feels good, human and magical. I was never refused the compliment and usually I got a genuine compliment back. I happily share this with you. By the way, you look good!

Work with your friends. Share your hard earned money with them. Purchase their art, their products and services. Magic is energy and money is energetic magic. Upon starting a project for the first time, reach out to the people you know and admire the most according to what they do. This will birth another magical chapter in your friendship. If they are busy, decline or forget about it, don’t fret, you have the right to do this as well. But please, do not ever, ever, ever, ever, ever abuse or let anyone abuse you or them with your or their power. Their magic or your magic will start to fade and, I feel, that no one wants that.

Sometimes, you will go through rocky moments with your friends. You’ll disagree, fight and separate. It’s alright. Both your energetic fields are drifting somewhere else and you need to accept this. It won’t be easy at first but eventually you will start to forgive them. As you begin to make peace with what happened, you will begin to compose a letter to them in your thoughts, maybe you’ll send it and/or have the guts to say “I’m sorry.” It’s not easy but it’s magic at its purest form. Your thoughts will have magically reached your friend and their most likely response will be ���Oh, I forgave you a long time ago!!” Start re-building this friendship slowly. If they never write back it means they love and forgive you but don’t have the strength to say sorry yet. If they lash out in anger, forgive them and walk away. This person was never your friend. Take your time to forgive and don’t do it right away. By the way, this applies to intimate relationships as well.

There will also be times of personal retreat and silence where all you want is to be with yourself. Go to the movies, take yourself out on dinner dates, go to a museum, walk and walk and walk around. Read books, listen to your favorite music, watch porn and masturbate - but don’t go on dating apps for too long. After my last heartbreak, I found myself spending a lot of time alone. One day, during my usual walks along the park, I came across a beautiful tree which I was able to climb and was strong enough to hold me in its branches. I spent hours looking up at its leaves and one day I started to notice how the branches branched out and thought about myself and my friendships - some were longer, sturdier while others were starting to grow and branch out on to other places as well. The tree let me cry, sheltered and held me. I could go and eat, read books or write with him in silence and even let me go on a date on top of him. This tree became my new best friend. As I write this, I can’t help but remember him fondly. I hope I get to see him again during this lifetime.

Never forget that you are your source of magic and that you are your original best friend. Love and forgive yourself. It may take years of practice, but that’s when magic begins to grow. Now go on and do your thing.

#magic #astrology #fuuuckingyoung #life #spirituality #tarot #energy #chaman #self love #love #respect #light

[miggy-figgy]

A Bizarre Obsession  (Sensual Poetry - The Art of Loie Hollowell)  By Miguel Figueroa Photographed by Brian Ferry

Are you comfortable with your sexuality? Have you ever seen colors through the course of a sexual encounter? Have you ever had an out of body experience during an orgasm? Have you ever had a lover who turns the act of lovemaking into art? If you’ve answered yes (or no) to any of these questions, I welcome you to the world of Loie Hollowell, a 34-year-old Queens, New York based painter who focuses on the journey of intimacy through the depiction of sexual landscapes. Although they may not be directly influenced by tantric sex, these paintings hold close the roots of this ancient sexual wisdom, derived from tanoti, to expand; and trayati, to liberate. Therefore, the word, tantra means “to extend knowledge that liberates”. Hollowell’s work exactly does that.

We talked on a Saturday afternoon, as she mixed colors and prepared paintings for an upcoming show as she confessed that her head was “up in the clouds”.

Hi Loie, it’s very refreshing to talk with you. I think you’re the first woman I’ve interviewed for Hercules Universal. Let’s start with something that I need to get out of the way, because I want to focus on art and sex if that’s ok with you. Yeah! I talk about everything. In terms of the work, it’s all about sex, so you can ask me anything related to it. My husband is in the other room, so he’s gonna have to overhear everything. [Laughs] How long have you been married for? 2 years and we’ve been together for 4. My paintings are autobiographical. It’s all my husband, Brian and I. One of the many things went through my head when I first saw your work was; who is her muse? Is it a man? A woman? One lover? Many lovers? Herself? Yes, it’s about the two of us. When I paint I think about the male and female body. Instead of thinking about porn or anything in specific, the things that we [Brian and I] do which inspire the composition. The New York Times called your work brilliant and you’ve also received great accolades from other art critics, but, the thing that gets to me is this necessity to compare you with other artists. And, this is what I want to get out of the way, was the fact that I also immediately thought of Georgia O’Keefe when I saw your paintings, but it also reminded me of 70s psychedelic posters. As I read about you it was all comparison after comparison. “Her work is like Arthur Dove’s, Hilma af Klint or Judy Chicago.” I went to investigate all of them and what I got was “ok, there are the circular shapes as Arthur Dove, I can see the metaphysical and spiritual, aspect of Hilma af Klint as well as the female power of Judy Chicago - and I remembered how much I love The Dinner Party. I started to research Georgia O’Keefe’s work, which is not necessarily my favorite but I found two of her quotes that are very in tune to your work and that relate to what I want to discuss through our conversation. [Intrigued] Ok! One of them is “I feel there is something unexplored about women that only a woman can explore.” Oh, wow! And the other one said, “I had to create an equivalent for what I felt about what I was looking at - not copy it.” I feel that most of today’s art critique want to corner the new artists into “oh, so and so looks like this” or “she takes too much inspiration from this other artist” which is what happened with your LA Times review comparison to Judy Chicago’s work and I thought to myself, “not really… there is something, but not everything…” What do you feel about this critique system? What was your path as a creator? Because, what I also like about your work is your consistency in style and themes as an artist. You really don’t get to see a lot of that in contemporary artists today - most of them are jumping from one medium to the other. I embrace the comparison to Judy Chicago and Georgia O’Keefe and I am the first to say that there are other people that I am looking at. I think there is a tendency to compare younger women artists to women of the past because there is less women in history to compare to. They are instantly going to compare me to them but they are not going to compare me to lesser known artists that I am looking at like Agnes Pelton and Florence Miller Pierce who are equally important American female painters. But, because people don’t know their history of American Female Painting their critiques don’t come up. I also feel there is more a tendency to compare women because they don’t want to say “She’s the female version of so and so…” therefore they are going to talk about this one woman that they know and that’s totally fine.

As for the second part of your question, the consistency comes from the fact that it’s personal. The language that I’m creating is some sort of lexicon, a dictionary of things that I’m pulling from. Certain shapes are directly referential to a part of my body, Brian’s body or the feelings of that experience that get restructured in different contexts. Sometimes I’ll create a new shape, like the ogee which is a really beautiful shape and it’s a reference to my breasts. I’m always trying to bring more things in and develop my composition but at the same time it’s through that same language like mandorla or ogee and they get reconstructed.

I feel like in that way I’m so different from Georgia O’Keefe in that she’s looking at nature which has it’s own constraints, abstracting it and putting her own winds on it. But, at the same time she has this consistency from where she’s starting from which is from reality where as mine I think it’s also from reality, but from my body but it’s more abstract from the beginning. At the same time it’s familiar. Yes, in terms of the landscape, but in mine it’s the personal landscape, where other than Lake Georgie or New Mexico from where she was painting her different series. O’Keefe’s work is more symbolic - from the skull heads to the flowers. It all comes down to the homage of the female anatomy. Another interesting comparison that I like about Georgia O’Keefe that is readily available looking at her work is her relationship to her husband and that relationship came a lot in the subtext at what she was looking at and in that way I’m also looking at my husband so there’s that kind of comparison. 

We’re both the same age and come from a whole different place of sexual education than today’s generation. There are things that are being left unsaid, yet at the same time there is this new openness - for example, this freedom to be whichever gender you want, yet, I like the fact that you have a classical, but not backwards, approach to sex. It’s a celebration of a man and a woman and this way of thinking about sex is thought as boring and/or normative. And I, as a gay man who is embracing his bi-curiosity, have never been with a woman; but, if you put a naked male body next to a naked female body, my eye will automatically go to the woman, I just find it more beautiful. There’s something poetic where as the male is approached from a carnal place. I haven’t felt what it’s like, but I can embrace and see the beauty in it - which is something that not a lot of gay men can do so easily. I must apologize because I don’t know if I’m going all over the place, but I feel that I can discuss all these things with you. Oh, no, don’t feel sorry! This is good! These are things that I think about in my daily life and we like to define things. Now everyone has defined their sexuality out in the open. No one is supposed to be just one thing and you can have sex with whoever you want, but people still want to label - if you’re a gay man you just have sex with men or if you’re straight you only have sex with the opposite sex. But, the labels are being less stigmatized and more open ended. I think that because I’m abstracting my experience - my vagina or a penis - those kind of gender fluidness becomes more open ended so anyone can engage with that visual thing that I do without having to think “oh, that’s a cis woman or a straight woman.”

I think it’s very important to have that terminology as we expand our definition of gender rather than sex as a male or female thing, then you need those primary basic therms and then you’re a “gendered female” or whatever. Coming from a position that isn’t so politicized aside from the fact of abortion and in that way is very politicized. My position is very understood in culture - where I’m coming from and what kind of sex I have. I still make images of it in a way that it just comes down to form: color, shapes, textures, composition and developing it’s tridimensional aspect makes it more relatable to people from the phenomenological point of looking at something. 

Even someone who doesn’t know about sex can understand it through the forms. Yeah, and even a gay man who’s never had sex with a woman can look at it and go “oh, well in that painting she is focusing on the butthole” and it makes it interesting because everyone has one. 

I feel that a lot of female art tends to be political. Then, you come in and it feels like a breather. “I’m going to a vacation from all this rage and just enjoy my body.” It is great that your work is not confrontational and at the same time it is. It is important to have all of these conversations. There is a political place to be in making something that feels comfortable in space for women to look at than rather constantly putting the politics that they know and experience. It’s what comediennes like Amy Schumer, Sarah Silverman and the show Broad City do where there are women making light of their bodies; talking about how they are so bloody or how annoying it is to have sex with a big penis. It’s about embracing the freedom that our foremothers have fought for. 

And doing it from a comedic standpoint because I feel that one of your biggest strengths as a person is the ability to laugh at yourself. Right! And I think that cutting men out of the equation which was ultimately the problem of 70s feminism is the exclusion of it and you want to bring people in, not exclude people and that’s what comedy does. 

That’s also what they say about the extreme left or right, they are just as bad and polarizing each other. There’s no middle ground and at the end, something’s got to give. I agree with that. 

You grew up in California, which is less wound up as New York may be. Back then, were you this comfortable with your sexuality? Yes. My mom is a crazy, free spirit - she gave me a vibrator for Christmas on my 18th birthday. Her main job was raising us without ever giving up her strong self, she’s also a cartoonist and did a lot of political cartoons for the local paper. My dad is a painter, so I got my formal painting training from my dad who got an MFA from Yale in the 70s. My house has a large female contingence in and there were many generations of women around. My grandma lived with us and I have three younger sisters and a younger brother. It all boils down to having good mothers. 

Indeed. I think that a healthy communication about something that is part of life that it’s not sin nor bad, that is good to explore and be comfortable in your own skin makes life easier. As kids from the 80s, as we grew in the 90s with more fear about disease, but at the same time they did it so you would be aware of it. Nowadays some of the conversations, for example HIV/AIDS awareness are not as strong as they should be. What are some sexual politics that need to be addressed continuously? My friends and I are very much talking about abortion. Our political culture is very much trying to hide the fact that there is severe legislation going on rolling back abortion rights and they are keeping it very secret but it’s not secret to most women. It’s also kind of crazy that people aren’t talking about AIDS more. It’s stupid because it’s still very prevalent. Just because medication is available doesn’t mean that you should be having tons of sex.

  People are not really aware of the side effects. If you don’t take care of your body you’re more prone to gaining weight, liver cancer and/or early osteoporosis. Wear a condom, it’s not that bad. Yeah! Be aware of your partner, of your body and don’t take advantage of anyone because you have this sort of freedom. But the same thing happened with abortion, there was all these discussions that are now happening with PrEP and people should just be let free. 

Well, you may not get HIV, but you are still prone to chlamydia or syphilis and those two are not a walk in the park. Also, PrEP is like and antiretroviral medication. You’re basically talking a version of the pills that are taken by HIV patients to remain undetectable and one of its main side effects is liver damage because the liver processes the medicine as if it was alcohol. That's crazy! All of this is talked about in the communities but not in the mainstream. I wish straight people talked about this more. 

They have it too! This affects everyone - straight, gay, bisexual, lesbian, male, transgender, female, young, old… everybody. When you and I were growing up, we had more awareness of all of this in the mainstream. Sexual politics are shaky grounds and the conversation needs to be stronger. I agree. It’s crazy, especially for younger women because they are not aware of all the freedom that can be taken away from them in terms of having abortions and healthcare that allows them to have cheap birth control. 

Getting back to your work, one of the other things that also called upon my attention is the topic of sexual connection between partners. Your work appeals to all of the theories of tantric sex, kundalini yoga and chakras that are more in tuned and better for the union of your mind, body and spirit. The whole concept about promiscuity is actually contradictory because that sort of attitude of freedom towards sex is not as healthy as it may seem - it leads to anxiety, depression and a more negative outlook on life. What do you think about the energy that surrounds having sex with someone? In those terms I think that I am pretty basic, a normal person. I'm not experimental nor promiscuous… I’m just… normal. But as you talked about chakras and eastern medicine look at sexuality, there are two groups that I’m really interested called the Neo-Tantric painters of India, it’s a bunch of guys from the 60s and 70s and one of them, G. R Santoch. It was a movement that came out of India in response to western abstraction that was going on in the here [in the United States] in the 60s.

The movement was a return to the body, they were also looking at eastern tantra practices, meditative sexual practices and all of that. If you see G. R Santoch’s work you will totally see his influence on my work. He’s amazing! You will love, love, love his work. The whole movement was very much visual and spiritual inspiration. They were about breaking apart sexualized body parts like taking the female form and breaking it into its chakra points and making them into symbols. It is beautifully colored, symmetrical work.I came across an image on Instagram and then I just went down the rabbit hole looking them up and trying to get every book I could. There is actually not very much on them. They’re amazing. Out of all of my influences I would say that I was looking at them the most when I started this new body of work. How has your work evolved? When I was younger, I used to paint with my dad and I just wanted to be like him. Then, as I got older, I started rejecting my dad and painting so in my undergrad I just did performance art. I was obsessed with Ana Mendieta and how she put her body into the landscape. When I got back into painting, it used to be a little bit on the cartoon side but not really just a little stylized, figurative paintings of me looking at my vagina or holding a vagina to a mirror, surrounded by a lush landscape. I was really influenced by Henri Rousseau and was looking at a lot of the Mexican surrealists - Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo as well as artists who were creating personal narratives in their work.

Then, I got pregnant with an ex, but I wasn’t ready to have a kid yet so I got an abortion. That experience was so life changing for me in terms of my freedom and realizing that I did not want to be with this person. Going through that painful yet pleasurable experience made me more in tuned with my body and from there I started doing these tiny vagina paintings but really small, the size of my pelvic area, specially the area of the root chakra. I did paintings of having your period, having an abortion and having cum shot in you. That expanded to my body, moved up to my breasts and from there I did full body paintings. Then, I brought my husband into the paintings and all of that extends from the experience of having the abortion. My latest series started in 2014. It became more painterly and less geometrical. There are eruptions, insemination, orgasms; others are representative of acts like cunnilingus. 

Your work is healing. It is! That’s what I want to transmit. It came as a healing for me after that experience at Planned Parenthood because I had to figure out how to deal with the pain that my ex caused me. And I say caused because it was his fucking sperm and he was kind of an asshole.

Cum will kill you. [Laughs] Yes! Exactly. Cum kills. [Continues laughing] But, you know that experience gave me a new life. It opened a whole new way of thinking about my body. 

Is it ok if we publish this in the interview? Oh, please! I talk about it all the time. Sometimes I’ve been edited for talking about it and I don’t understand why. I’m like praise Jesus for abortion, hallelujah! I love abortion. Through my work I’ve been able to give as much as I can to Planned Parenthood to repay my love for them. They gave me my life. I feel that men in our culture just want to pump their sperm into everything and I’m so happy that there are men out there who are controlling themselves. They don’t realize that they also affect their life by putting sperm in other people. I go through life assuming that people talk about sex and I’ll blurt out things like “oh I just ruined pants with blood!” It just comes out freely and some women are like “ew… don’t tell me that.” I’ll be like “that’s fine but I won’t apologize… but, don’t you have your period? Don’t you not bleed?” Besides healing what else do you want your work to communicate? I want to communicate a sense of bodily freedom. I want viewers, when they are standing in front of it to embrace and open an awareness to their bodies while at the same time offering the kind of comical, beautiful or formally interesting image to look at. I just want to play with the pleasing, pondering viewing experience because that’s what I try to give myself.

Loie’s upcoming show opens in September. Information on the word tantra courtesy of the book, The Subtle Body: An Encyclopedia of Your Energetic Anatomy by Cyndi Dale. Published by Sounds True, Inc. 2009. Featured in the Spring 2018 issue of Hercules Universal, First Love.

#loie hollowell #contemporary art #painting #sex #energy

[miggy-figgy]

Certain Magic (From Chaos to Tradition - Randall Bachner Finds Life in Marrakesh)  By Miguel Figueroa Photographed by Daniel Riera

In 2013, Randall Bachner quit his first life. The then 42-year-old fashion photographer followed his instinct, said good-bye to New York’s rat race and settled into Marrakesh to start a new chapter - if not, a whole new book - as a self-taught fashion designer. Five years later, the risk has pulled off. His successful brand, Marrakshi Life celebrates and safeguards the tradition of Moroccan hand weaving - which dates back in the Middle East and Africa to 7000 BC - from becoming a thing of the past. Giving it a fresh, modernized spin to unisex handwoven apparel that you can’t help but want.

Hi Randall, Marrakshi Life is wonderful! Please, tell me more about it. Oh, why thank you! We started as a little shop in the Medina working with one weaver, doing one off pieces and then added a tailor. We made one piece, hung it in the shop to see what would happen. When people found us in the Medina it was a sort of discovery and inspired them to do things. We do our own brand, Marrakshi Life [ML] and service production. A lot of fashion people come to Marrakesh and they end up wanting to use our resources of hand weaving and garments, therefore, a big part of our business is working with other brands.

Weaving was losing its popularity in Morocco because they want to modernize everything. They have an appreciation of the tradition but it’s hard to get young people engaged in it and the weavers are getting old, but it’s really nice to be able to sustain weaving and make it cool again. Ariane Goldman’s company Hatch became our first client from New York. She took the risk and gave us a huge production. From there we built a little atelier in the center of Marrakesh outside the Medina and then within six months we had more clients. Last June we moved into a new space that took a few months to build and then we were able to balance production for our brand and our clients.

When you enter into the space you can see the whole process - the spinners, tailors, weavers and from there we have our shop and office. It’s all in one whole warehouse space and we’ve already maxed it out! [laughs] We’re growing at a really cool rate and it’s about how we continue. When you can see the process is really nice for people and they appreciate it. We just shot our first campaign in Uruguay and it was great to go with the brand outside Morocco. I have to think about how I’m going to get the brand outside of Morocco because I’m not really into the whole seasons thing, ML is more resort wear.

You can wear it throughout the year. Morocco has mild winters. It gets cold sometimes and in that deeper part of winter is when I can least wear the clothes there. I’m now in New York [in February] and I can’t really wear it right now but we are going to start bulking up, working with wools and other warmer fabrics. There are so many possibilities of what you can do with weaving, but in Morocco sometimes it’s very hard to resource materials.

As the brand grows, has there been any interest from younger Moroccan artisans to learn weaving?   The team is growing and it’s really cool. We have our team of weavers and it’s expanding and we are finding younger people engaged in it. The average age was 55 and now the average age is in the 40s. We have a couple of people in their 30s and even in their 20s. We want to start an education program to get engage younger people who don’t have jobs and train them.

Who is the Marrakshi Life client? Something that’s very important for the brand is that it’s unisex. I like making pieces that are not gender specific at all. If it’s a piece that I couldn't really wear, then we wouldn’t make it. I won’t make very feminine pieces, but I do make very masculine pieces because I like it for men and women. When people do ethnic wear, it has this feminine flow that it’s ok, but not for our brand.

Why Marrakesh? I had been here before a couple of times and I was amazed at how much you can do there. You see all the artisans and the possibilities but you don’t see an aesthetic that appeals to you, but there are definitely the resources here to do something. I didn’t know about all the problems…

Like? I had no idea what would it mean to have a business in Morocco. They have their own mentality, pace and work ethic. I had never lived abroad, so for me, coming from New York to Marrakesh was freaking crazy, honestly.

It’s wildly good that you did such a thing - you definitely stepped out of a comfort zone. I needed to. Working in fashion photography is a really tough business. It can leave you very unfulfilled creatively, spiritually, everything. I was at a point that I felt stuck and the only way to get out of it is put yourself into war and give yourself that challenge. It’s hard when there's something going on in your family and you’re really far away. [Our interview occurred on a Saturday morning while Randall took care of his mother who had just gotten out of the hospital.]

I’m grateful that it’s working and I can’t complain about that. I'm a very spontaneous person, I don’t really like to overthink about it.

Fashion photography’s competitiveness can really get to you. Oh, I would never recommend anyone to get into it unless you’re very well connected. Anything really is about who do you know and how can they help you. What inspired me to do fashion photography was magazines in the 80s and 90s but that kind of business is not happening anymore.

Were you interested in fashion design before fashion photography? No! And that’s the thing… I’m not a trained designer. Everything has been through my instinct. That’s why I thought about keeping it very simple, but sometimes I have a wild moment thinking about fur coats or fringe. For me, it’s more about the technique. Through the years and working with designers you understand the process. You definitely learn by doing.

That's the best way to learn. Life brings you places and this is where it brought me. I love the fact that I don’t have to buy any clothes and I just get to wear the clothes that we make. I’m not a materialistic person nor a fashion victim. Something that I like about what we are doing is that we’re self-sufficient. From two threads we can make a finished piece. I make things, I put them out there, the world responds to it and it’s flowing. I don’t really want to be part of that system of trade shows and wholesale. I don’t want to just do something to go into that category because I know how hard it is. I see all these brands that are trying to make it… but in the long run, I think we may have to do it a little bit because it does circulate your product. It all depends on what your goals are.

It’s really all about the team and ours is amazing. Sometimes I have troubles with them because there is a cultural difference and they don’t really have reference points for everything - this is all they’ve done and don’t really have any previous experience. They learn from what I need, what our clients ask for and it’s been amazing how do these projects. If we can do it, we move on to the next step and they always have it figured it out. That's been pretty amazing and has allowed us to grow. I’m very fond of them and they’ve helped me from day one.

It’s fundamental to surround yourself with a good team in order to be successful and they need to believe in your product. Do you think that’s maybe why some brands never take off? Is it because they are driven more by their egos than the desire to deliver a good product? Exactly. It’s not all about me and I always tell them that too. When we do runway pieces for clients and they see that and think “that is so cool”. You can imagine their excitement when they realize that these products that come from the artisanal communities end up in shops like Barneys.

It is so fulfilling! Maybe they don’t see it that way in its entirety but it is rewarding for them to see something so traditional become so modern.

How has it been communicating with them? That’s been amazing too. I’m not a big language guy. I can speak Spanish a little bit, but other than that…. I had a Spanish boyfriend for 14 years and when that relationship ended I was like “I need to get out of New York” and went to Marrakesh. It was a personal and career moment… that moment when nothing is working and I knew that the environment would be key. I didn’t know what it meant to live in another culture and here they speak French and I don’t as well, but they two main guys I work with speak English very well. Also, English is very exciting here because it’s seen as something modern. But there is a lot of sign language involved. [laughs]

One last question and this one has been in my head since I got the assignment. Americans don’t have the best reputation in the Africa nor the Middle East. Has this affected you or caused any friction? Not in Morocco. Moroccans are very open minded and Marrakesh is dependent on tourism, so Americans are seen as great tourists because they spend money and they are really not used to that many Americans here. I’ve never felt any negative or political situations. Everyone who sees me goes “Oh, that’s Randall the American guy.” There aren’t many of us around here, so we’re kind of a novelty. Featured in the Spring 2018 issue of Hercules Universal, First Love. 

[miggy-figgy]

Ludovic Saint Sernin By Miguel Figueroa Photos by Alex Franco

One of the best ways to get your first foot in fashion - or any type of business for that matter - is through apprenticeship. Back when they were the new kids on the block, Yves Saint Laurent, Donna Karan and Alessandro Michele learned and paid their dues, respectively, under the tutelage of Christian Dior, Anne Klein and Tom Ford. Three years after working at Balmain with Olivier Rousting, 27-year-old Ludovic Saint Sernin struck out on his own, presenting his first collection; a gender fluid homage to late nineties minimalism. We caught up with the designer on his birthday to talk about his influences, obsessions, next steps and unusual morning routine.

Hi Ludovic, let's start with the basics. What time did you get up this morning?  I woke up at 10, I usually wake up earlier but I just got back from California and the jet lag is real. It was an amazing holiday/research trip, very inspiring! 

Do you have a routine? What did you have for breakfast? Yes, I do! It is kind of ridiculous though. I have apple juice and cereal in bed and I religiously watch an episode of Keeping up with the Kardashians or The Real Housewives, just to ease in the day. Then I start work at 11, and right now I am researching and sketching for next season.

What did you want to be when you were a child? I have always wanted to be a fashion designer for as long as I can remember. When I was just a little boy I was obsessed with The Little Mermaid, I had the Barbie, the sun lounger, everything and I would dress her etc. This obsession for her slowly transitioned into an obsession with Lindsay Lohan, when I was a teenager I would draw her everyday. Lukas Heerich who did the soundtrack for the presentation included some bits of interviews from her and mixed it with minimal music as a nod to her. 

I was probably 10 when a friend of my mom’s introduced me to Yves Saint Laurent, not literally but she had some old VHS of his most iconic shows and I remember thinking, this is it, this is what I want to do.

Who were or still are your fashion icons? Alaïa has always been a model for me. He's built something so unique and special. I recently watched the documentary by Joe McKenna who I'm obsessed with and it was so fascinating to see how he works. There's no one else like him he's such a perfectionist. Helmut Lang is obviously a big reference as is Rei Kawakubo and Issey Miyake. Kirtsen Owen, I don't think there's a single image that she's in that doesn't inspire me, she's a huge inspiration. I posted a picture of her from Steven Meisel the other day and the caption simply said : mom.

You broke from working at Balmain - which is the antithesis of your style - and created a beautiful, minimal first collection. What were your biggest lessons working there? Balmain was my first fashion family, they have been amazing to me and I am very grateful for everything I have learnt there. I was working on embellishment and textiles which was so exciting to do there because you can really propose stuff and create amazing pieces. And their approach was very artisanal which I really appreciate.

Have you always played with gender bending? What do you consider to be the most masculine feature in a woman and the most feminine trait in a man? I actually only had done womenswear up until that first presentation and initially I thought it was going to be women’s. I was doing a project on Instagram where I would recreate pictures of me with boys I knew from Instagram and make them pose in my clothes. I created some really cool relationships with some of these boys and one of them became my fitting model/muse. 

So even tough the clothes were originally women's, turns out as we were trying them they looked really good on a boy too. And I decided that it wasn’t really relevant anymore to try and categorize my pieces to one sex only. I myself don't really look whether it's women's or men's when I'm shopping. As long as you feel good in it and it fits your body why restrain yourself. I knew I wanted to show it on guys though. I worked with this really talented casting director and friend, Piotr Chamier, we share the same aesthetic when it comes to casting and he did an amazing job finding boys. What I really appreciate is that even though it was presented during Men's after the show we received loads of press requests for women’s shootings. It’s been about equal with that of the men’s. I am looking forward to seeing how they work in both contexts. 

With regards to the second part of the question, I am struggling to answer that. Truth is I don’t really think in that way. I have long hair so you might say that is the most feminine thing about me but others might find it quite masculine. Likewise the neck of my fit model is long and thin but I don’t think it looks particularly feminine. I really don’t think that way and interestingly I think a lot of people my age and younger are not categorizing through sex or sexuality. 

Who would be your ultimate person to dress? Yesterday I watched Basketball Diaries for the first time and Leonardo DiCaprio is just beautiful and so good in it, he was just twenty years old but looks sixteen. I wish I could have dressed him back in the days, he had that special something about him and also this androgyny that I love. But to answer your question, I love the idea of dressing sons or little brothers of celebrities: for instance Uma Thurman's son is gorgeous, looks just like her but in a boy. Or Pamela Anderson's son is actually really hot too. I recently met up with Niels Schneider's little brother Vassili, and I'd love to dress him for a special project. 

What is your favorite scent? For the presentation I used Potpourri from Santa Maria Novella, it smells amazing and looks really beautiful. It was displayed all over the conservatory where I had the presentation on little ceramics plates I brought back from Kyoto. I wanted the scent to blend in with the natural smell of the boys in the presentation, it was a really hot day, and they were walking around between plants in a manner that evoked cruising. The scent of the potpourri, the boys sweat and the plants just all worked really well together.

Hot! Which are your favorite hide-outs in Paris? I spend most of my free time in London, so I am going to give you my favorite hide-outs there: breakfast at the Towpath in de Beauvoir, their grilled cheese sandwich is to die for, I love walking along the canal, brunch at Rawduck, Epping forest, in the fall the colors are splendid, the British library is the best place to read a book, you need to make an appointment for the reading room and it's great to hide away from the crowd. Then back at the Towpath for drinks and dinner at Gujurati Rasoi, they have my favorite dish on earth there, I always order the same thing.

What turns you on?  A Wolfgang Tillmans picture. I went to see his exhibition at the Tate in London it was simply breathtaking. 

What turns you off?   Being unthoughtful or unconscious. I'm quoting Jake Gyllenhaal, I had to google this answer, I couldn't think of anything that turns me off. 

Can you share with us your latest obsessions? I have discovered this beautiful bookstore in Paris, where they have an amazing selection of queer literature and art. I recently read L’Age d’or by Pierre Herbart which I highly recommend. And I am in the middle of reading Call me by your Name by André Aciman which is the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blossoms between an adolescent boy and a summer guest at his parents villa on the Italian Riviera. It is being released as a film next year and I cannot wait to see how they will translate this beautiful book.

Where would you like to take your brand to next? I have some very exciting projects and collaborations coming up but it is a bit too early to reveal. It is amazing how quickly things can move these days but most of the time it’s just me and I’d like to do things slowly and well rather than rush them. 

What are you doing after this? It's my birthday today [28th of August], so I am going to eat some cake and enjoy a lovely dinner with my family! Originally published in the Fall & Winter 2017/18-Spring 2018 issue of Hercules Universal, Neon Dreams. Out now. 

[miggy-figgy]

THE FIRST LADY

By: Miguel Figueroa

Forget everything you know. Jackie O who? Come again, I beg your pardon, but I don’t know who this Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is. Michelle Obama is so early 2009 and frankly, my dear I don’t give an Iberic Ham about Sonsoles Espinosa. Forget about the Pill Box Hats, the supermodels-cum-wife of the President, the Mugler ensembles worn by the new Mrs. O and First Wife’s who choose to live a life of secrecy. To us at Candy, our First Lady is Ms. Christine Jorgensen, the first female transsexual from the United States. Christine did it all…Original Socialite, Pop Singer, Cabaret Performer, Photographer and Filmmaker who became an instant sensation when she got the good ol’ U. S. of A. all shook up after her Botticellean transformation from a woman trapped in a man’s body into a lady with impeccable taste, a sharp tongue and a groundbreaking fresh as a lettuce attitude whom was able to turn notoriety into such a cult icon status that not even Chantal Biya can come close to her. Honey, she even played Dior to Judy!

            Christine Jorgensen’s came into the world on May 30th 1926 at the Community Hospital in Manhattan when George Jorgesen Jr., son of George Jorgensen and Florence Davis Hansen, brother of Dorothy Florence Jorgensen was conceived. Mrs. Jorgensen raised her tight knit children in the booming pre-Depression era of the 1920’s on Dudley Avenue in the Bronx. Even though George Jr. and Dorothy were inseparable and her paternal grandmother, whom George enjoyed picking violets for, played a key element of her upbringing, Christine does not blame her female surroundings with the fact that she was a woman trapped in a man’s body. At age four he made it clear that something was suspicious when he asked her mother, “Mom, why didn’t God makes us alike?”, about the physical differences between him and his sister his mother replied, “You see Brud [Christine’s nickname], it’s one of God’s surprises.” George Jr. just said, “Well, I don’t like the kind of surprise God made me!”

Growing up, Christine admits that in order to follow the normal pattern of development she needed help, not ridicule. Fortunately, her personal world embraced little Brud, his shyness and awkward stances towards boys of his age. His grandmother never pushed him to be a man and when a teacher discovered that George kept hidden on his school desk one of his grandmother’s needlepoint’s which he treasured, and called his mother to ridicule him in front of the class, he received nothing but love and support. His sister, as a college student, used him as a college subject experiment on the influence women have over Children, in this case boys, while growing up and their feminization. Although there were some pebbles on the way that were easily passed by, growing up as a child all the way to his teens non-fiction fairy tales always surrounded Christine’s life. Her paternal grandfather came from Odense, Denmark birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen, meanwhile his maternal grandfather, John Kreogh Hansen was a painter who’s greatest assignment was assisting the French painter Paul César Helleu in the creation of Grand Central Station’s original ceiling. Also, according to Jorgensen’s autobiography, her Father, in his teens, was obsessed with the birth of radio communication and heard the “Titanic” distress signal on 1912 in his transistor radio, while she was witness of the Hindenburg passing a top of her house moments before meeting its fate. 

At the age of 16 George Jr. lands his first job as a librarian. A string of odd jobs as news editor for RKO Pathé News, a driver and even a supermarket clerk followed, moving along New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Minneapolis. After finishing High School, he enrolls in New York’s Institute of Photography, a passion that was bestowed upon him by his father, a photo aficionado, hoping that in the future he could lead the life of a glamorous photographer, immortalizing the likes of Greta Garbo, Barbara Stanwyck and Bette Davis. After finishing photography school and in between odd jobs, George Jr. in his search to belong somewhere and to make his parents proud joined the Armed Forces in 1945, at age 19, landing a clerical job in Fort Dix, New Jersey. Due to his thin, and delicate 98-pound (about 45 kilos) frame, after 14 months, he was discharged.

During his brief stay in Los Angeles, George begins to discuss his anatomical conundrums, confiding in two girl friends that something is different about him. He “comes out” admitting that he has the body of an underdeveloped male yet his emotions are female. His friends, dumbfounded by this news, support George but tell him to seek medical attention. Upon his return to the East Coast he enrolls in the Progressive School of Photography in New Haven, Connecticut to continue his photographic preparation and begins to research on Endocrinology by reading news that a Doctor in that city was experimenting with hormones turning chickens into roosters. George figures that he’s got nothing (and never had anything) to lose and pays him a visit. After telling Dr. Harold Grayson his “problem”, the visit halts to a complete screeching stop. Dr. Grayson sends George to visit Dr. Reznick, a psychiatrist who recommends an evasive treatment to drive inclinations. Let’s not forget that at this time in the late 40’s we still had a long, long way to go before today’s sexual panacea and lobotomies were as common as Botox nowadays.

These two encounters didn’t deter George’s search to find a solution to whom he really was. He continued looking for answers and on one of his numerous visits to the library stumbled upon Paul de Kruif’s book The Male Hormone that served as opened floodgates to his research. This groundbreaking book established that both males and females indeed have genetic traits from each other’s sex. The investigation continued and led him to medical journals from France and Germany that analyzed cases of hermaphrodism, pseudo-hermpahrodism and other “sexual abnormalities”. After he finished photography school his determination led him to continue his studies, not in Visual Arts, but in the field of Medicine. George Jorgensen Jr. was a man on a mission and thus, on 1949 he enrolled at the Manhattan Medical and Dental Assistant’s School where he learned X-ray and laboratory technician courses letting him know how the body and its internal chemical contents worked. All the while, he continued reading and re-reading de Kruif’s book where he discovered that the author of the book talked about the female hormone estradiol, a prominent sex hormone present in females and in very small percentages amongst males, which was available in hormone supplement for women. George decided he needed to get his hand on this medicine so the next day he drove to a pharmacy, ordered the usual medication and 100 tablets of high-potency Ethinyl estradiol. Unbeknown to the situation and after George said he was a medical student who needed the medicine to run some tests, the pharmacist simply handed him exactly what George wanted. He went to his car, opened the bottle, ignored the warning label that stated NOT TO BE TAKEN WITHOUT THE ADVICE OF A DOCTOR and washed down a single pill with water. On the next day, he felt nothing, yet continued taking a single pill each night. On the eight day, he woke up feeling sensitivity and development around his breasts, also, his usual fatigue and languidness was gone. It may have taken God six days to create Eve, but it took George and additional 48 hours to start becoming Christine Jorgensen.

After realizing that the pills would do up to so much, Christine relied on a good friend he met in medical school by the name of Genevive Angelo whose husband was a doctor. Gen, as Christine calls her, was aware of George’s differences and put him in contact with her husband immediately who after a consultation discussed with him sexual transformations done by doctors overseas, which started in the 1930’s. What sets Christine’s case apart prior to hers is that homosexuality or hermaphrodism was involved. Christine was neither nor the other. During her life as a man, she had been propositioned twice for gay sex and the situations abominated her to the point in which in one occasion she vomited. Christine Jorgensen was a heterosexual woman born in a man’s body and she needed to go to Europe to work on herself. After exchanging correspondence with Dr. Grayson and confirming this information from him as well, the decision was clear. George Jorgensen saved up a couple hundred of dollars, told his family that he was going to reconnect with his European family and on May 11th, 1950 arrived in Denmark on a one-way ticket to his new life.

Christine settled in with Helen, her friend and confidant from Los Angeles, and her family a few weeks later, she’d check in the at the Seruminstitut where she would meet her future doctor and friend Dr. Christian Hamburger whom was recommended to her by Helen’s doctors. Once the consultation had ended, Dr. Hamburger offered Christine the chance of a lifetime. If she would acknowledge becoming a guinea pig for hormone research, the operation would be free of charge. On a letter to Dr. Joe and Gen back home she told them “Just refer to me as guinea pig 0000!” The George Jorgensen to Christine Jorgensen transformation had now officially begun. 

Tests begun in August and George started carrying around on a daily basis what he jokingly called a yor mor taske , Dutch for “midwife’s bag”, containing daily urine samples to test her hormone levels. Christine’s medical dream team would be rounded up with Dr. Georg Stürup who would deal with the psychological aspect of the transformation. Right before she was set to go under the knife, the Danish Government tried to stop the initial operation due to the fact that Mr. Jorgersen was not a Danish citizen. After Dr. Stürup advocated to Justice Minisitry and Denmark’s Attorney General, Helga Pedersen, a women’s right activist, the veto was revoked and the operation continued it’s steer course. After paying a $30 fee, on September 24th, 1951 the first of three operations, the removal of George’s testicles, was conducted. Days prior his 26th birthday, George visited the American Embassy to change the name on his passport and in honor of Dr. Christian Hamburger, on May 1952 Christine Jorgensen, 5’7”, 120 pounds was born. For her first ensemble as a woman she chose an elegant green skirt, pale brown jacket and brown suede shoes and headed to the Beauty Parlor. She continued her work as amateur photographer and filmmaker documenting Denmark and on June of that year broke the news to her parents in a heartfelt letter, which included photos taken of her transformation “You have lost a son, but gained somebody new.” As soon as they received the letter they replied immediately via cablegram: LETTER AND PICTURES RECEIVED. WE LOVE YOU MORE THAN EVER, MOM AND DAD.  Her mother and sister could not hold on to their excitement and indulged on reckless shopping sprees for their new daughter and sister.

Her second operation, the removal of any remaining “maleness”, performed by Dr. Paul Fogh-Andersen and Erlig Dahl-Iversen occurred in November 20th, 1952, 13 months after the initial operation. Even though she was operated in a public hospital that lacked private bedrooms, accommodations were made for Christine to have a suite all to her own. While recuperating, news of her transformation reached US Shores. Her father wrongfully confided in one of his friend who sold the news to the New York Daily News for $200 and on December 7th, 1952 the newspaper’s headline read BRONX GI BECOMES A WOMAN. DEAR MOM AND DAD SON WROTE, I HAVE NOW BECOME YOUR DAUGHTER. A cablegram was hand delivered by a journalist from the Information, a Danish newspaper, looking for a quick interview. Obviously, her plan backfired. Christine could feel nothing but remorse, resentment and rage. At the same moment, another cablegram is sent to Ms. Jorgensen. This time it was her mother, to tell her that her beloved Aunt Edie has passed away. Years later, in her audio memoirs, Christine Jorgensen Reveals, she tells us that her psychiatrist feared that this moment would’ve been her breaking point. She was aware of what she had become and as any serious and smart woman under pressure; she kept her posture absolutely calm.

Up to this point Christine lived a frugal life in Denmark. Besides her life savings, her mother sent her $10 a week as well as film equipment for the documentary she was making about Denmark which would end up becoming the first color film about the country. The penny picking was soon about to change. Immediately after the news arrived, offers started pouring in via telegram (for you kids out there…it was our grandparents alternative to e-mail). Everybody wanted Christine – Warner Brothers in Hollywood, The Copa Club in Pittsburgh, The 46th Street Theatre and The New York Press Photographers at the Big Apple. Offers even came from New Orleans Strip Club performances at $500 a night. Dr. Hamburger also received a deluge of requests from around the world for sex change operations. Journalists, who camped out the Jorgensen’s residence, blackmailed her parents, who would finally reunite with Christine on Christmas 1952 at Denmark, if they did not cooperate with them. Christine caused sexual revolution that such journalistic raucous not been seen until Betty Ford’s family intervention or Monica’s little blue Gap dress.

Christine Jorgensen would not stay mum for much longer. She accepted to publish her tell-all story on six installments in American Weekly magazine for a cool $20,000 dollars. The feature would coincide with Christine’s arrival on New York’s JFK Airport then known as Idlewild Airport on February 13th, 1953. Her departure from Denmark was cause of a grand celebration amongst friends, so big that she almost missed her flight. Reporters documented every bit of her life, including her choice of travel luggage. One journalist mentioned that one of her cases that contained almost 3 and half years of her life in Denmark was a box of petal soft toilet tissue to which Christine said in her autobiography, “I’ve always traveled in a grand manner.” On a press junket with international members of the press, a British Journalists asked her if she was worried about her reception in the U.S. hence all the media frenzy; her response “Why should I be?” Once she boarded the plane, and a few hours prior her arrival, it hit her: the anonymous life she’d wanted as a woman would not happen. “In my long, painful search for a normal life, I had created a paradox: a life that was to be, for me, abnormal and unconventional.” She was now on the road, or shall we say up in the air, to become a bona fide household name.

When the Scandinavian Airlines flight landed she was received by total and utter pandemonium that wouldn’t be matched until 10 years later when 4 Britons stepped off a Pan Am flight arriving from the United Kingdom. Reporters were everywhere, flashes were ablazin’, everybody wanted a piece of Christine. She felt she had stepped of into a scene from Dante’s Inferno and panicked; she thought “Pull yourself together. This, as everything else, must pass”. Countess Alexandra of Rosenberg, who was on the flight with her, a relative of the King of Denmark was subdued to mere coach status. Christine tittered and tattered through the chaos, holding on to her books, purse and train case while keeping her outfit, including her mink coat, hat with diamante broach, and gloves intact. Once inside, she gave an instant press conference; as everyone wanted a reaction she simply replied to all "I am very happy to be back and I don't have any plans at the moment and I thank you all for coming but I think it's too much."

Her arrival was skyrocketing. The American Weekly story was translated into 14 languages and published in 70 countries. With the money she earned she was able to build her parents their dream house where she settled in with them. Christine received over 20,000 letters from around the globe, some even postmarked “Christine Jorgensen, United States”. Of all the fan mail, only a handful was derogatory, while the rest of tens of thousands were congratulatory notes to her and her parents. Even when she went to renew her drivers license, she was followed everywhere by the paparazzi. The press continued for weeks to have her as a Cover Girl. The In-Crowd lauded Christine’s presence; Ladies Luncheons with original Perez Hilton, Elsa Maxwell, Elaine Carrington and Margaret Case, Vogue Magazine’s Society Editor with special appearance by an impressed Cole Porter and a one to one with Truman Capote. On March 7th, in front of 5,000 guests, including Mr. and Mrs. Jorgensen, the Scandinavian Societies of Greater New York named her Woman of the Year. She reluctantly hired an agent, Charlie Yates, who would handle all the Jorgensenmania for two years until his sudden death in 1955. Her original ambiguity towards a life of sing, dance and pizzazz came because all she really wanted to be was a photographer. Years later, on a TV interview she’d  set the records straight on her fame, “Making a living of life is cashing in on it. Then I did, and I suppose I don’t regret it”.

On her first visit to LA, she was bashed by the Californian city, because they believed (and oh, how they have changed) that you couldn’t simply sell an act by its name. After this incident, Christine travels back to England to film the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth. Back in the states, on August 9th, at the Copa Club in Pittsburgh she, alongside her performance partner Myles Bell, gives her first song and dance act. She receives an invitation from Dr. Alfred Kinsey to be interviewed at the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University. She’s banned from performing for the Army and in Boston, the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas refused to let her perform until she could present proof that she was a woman, yet, after her shows at the Copa, the offers started pouring in and they were officially in business. Critics were courteous with her saying that “She sings like an off-key Garbo” and “Nobody expected anything and all they got was Gravy.” Christine became a fashion icon, she was a vivacious woman draped in the latest 50's fashions: ball gowns with mink stoles, silk cocktail dresses, full skirts, swing skirts, tea dresses, tiaras, kimonos, her hair, coiffed in a permanent wave, apron styled swimsuits, and lets not forget...hats, gloves and estate jewlery to match. Lest not forget: red lips. She even sparked her first impersonator and instead of suing her, she settled for a gentlewoman’s apology and when in Miami, a deranged woman tried to pull her hair off, thinking it was a wig, she simply walked away and had people take care of it. She traveled to perform in Philadelphia, Washington DC, Cuba, Miami, New York and Dallas. She had a pop hit in Cuba called “Christine of Denmark” and finally, the owners and showgirls of the Sahara Hotel had to shut their trap, issuing an apology, when they saw that Christine Jorgensen was a gold mine.

Did I mention that all of this happened in 1953?

Christine took a small break in the early summer of 1954 for her third and final operation, a vaginoplasy performed in a small hospital in New Jersey. Christine now had the body of a woman who’d have a hysterectomy and was at peace with the fact that she could not bear children. She was as complete a person as she’d dream of being emotionally and physically. After she was ready to get back on track, she went off to Sweden where her fans waited for her anxiously and with such candor that she ended up staying an extra 3 weeks for an unscheduled cabaret show. Her fame instigated the rumor mil full speed on, bogus affairs with Vanderbilt and Woolworth heirs. Had she lived today these dangerous liaisons would’ve been with a Casiraghi or an heir to PPR. Muy CANDY Caliente! 

Just as Christine was to act in her first role as an actress on the play “To Dorothy, A Son”, Charlie Yates died playing golf with Bob Hope in Palm Springs on January 9th, 1955. Christine was devastated, she thought of not continuing with the play but solid as a rock, she continued and delivered a great performance. It was a year of big changes. Her manager died, she gained a new show partner, Mr. Lee Wyler, after breaking up her career with Myles Bell and during a trip to Venezuela she faced heavy interrogation by the Police in order to enter the country. She was even accused of being a Communist for making a quote on quote “non-American” comment at the time of her return from Denmark. All the while, she perfected her impersonations of Tallulah Bankhead and Marlene Dietrich, whom she would to homage all the way into her death. Christine also found herself amongst the religious ones. She was invited to appear in Jewish and Masonic centers, leaving the latter aghast when she told them that as a young George Jr. she was a member of the Demolay International, a Massonic group for teenage MEN whose hall of fame included Walt Disney and Bill Clinton.

The last years of the 50’s saw her shuffling through agents and having troubles with the IRS. She was $30,000 in debt with her taxes and agreed to record the LP, Christine Jorgensen Reveals, thinking it would be a success, yet it flopped in sales. Looking back on it and listening to it more than 50 years it was recorded, the album is a masterpiece. Christine battled out aggravating questions about her sexuality, being a woman and banal questions on body hair, dating, cruising and the army. She came out a winner while she KO’d telling him that if she had not changed, she wouldn’t have adapted, but rather receded into the world and when she was lauded for making Denmark a household name she told Mr. Russell;  “Denmark did not need me to be famous. It had blue cheese before me.”

The subject of love was always one of a delicate manner. Cupid and Christine weren’t exactly BFF’s. As George, she had a handful of platonic lovers that never consummated beyond wishful thinking. Then on 1959 her friend Howard Knox proposes marriage. Christine says yes. Once they got to City Hall with all the necessary papers, the lawyers found a legal loophole. Christine’s birth certificate still had male as the specified gender. Even though her Passport, Drivers License and NYPD Cabaret Card enlisted her as female, the fact that she never changed her sex in her birth certificate vetoed any possibilities of marriage. She was even recognized as a female by the World Health Organization; yet, down at City Hall they simply did not budge an inch to help. Christine and Howard took to the media, seeking their support, yet, it dug them a deeper grave with Howard losing his job as a labor-union worker. Eventually, they would break up. She had a 2nd engagement years later that also faded into thin air. “I was never in love with the men I was engaged to and I was never engaged to the men I was in love with.” She was as stern when it came to her love-induced-independence as much as she wanted to become a photographer. In the 1984 documentary Paradise Not for Sale, 58 year-old Christine states: "Loving is wonderful, but falling in love is very stupid. I don't think I'd like to marry. I'm free. I do exactly what I want. I live in a manner to which I prefer. I've had men in my life, but I've never let a man move into my house. I'm very selfish; I don't have to bargain with anybody to do what I want. I play hard, I drink hard, I smoke hard and I do everything to a point of excess." For Ms. Belanger, organizer of christinejorgensen.org, Christine’s resentment towards real relationship was due to her surgery setbacks, performed at a time when sex changes were at a premature stage. She says; “if she had been able to have had the quality of MTF surgery that is offered today, her life would not have been so guarded. She's very much a heterosexual woman, but not really being able to fully experience that was a disappointment."

Ending the decade with a bang, Christine gave Los Angeles a second try and they welcomed her with open arms. She settled into a bungalow at the notorious Chateau Marmont, moving door to door with Eroll Flynn’s recent widow (as fresh as the day prior to her arrival!) and soon became good friends. All the biggest stars wanted to rub elbows with Christine, Natalie Wood, Esther Williams, Robert Wagner, Betty Garble, Ann Miller and Judy Garland just to name a humble few. The night she met Judy she was advised not to talk about Ms. Garland’s weight problems, telling her people “What do you think I’m going to say? ‘Hello, Fat Lady?!’” Tensions disappeared once they met; Judy asked Christine for fashion advise after admiring Christine’s look, she told her that women of her frame should not wear such tight-fitting clothes rather a black velvet toreador pant, a stiff, stand-out jacket with a mandarin collar encrusted with jewels, and adding the comfort of flat shoes. “That means no girdles!” Judy said. Needless to say, a couple of weeks later, Christine felt like a modern day Formichetti when she saw Ms. Garland wearing exactly what she had told her!

            In the early sixties she took her show on the road to Australia, Honolulu, Hong Kong and Manila deciding then to settle on the West Coast as her new base. She was lauded for her work on the other side of the Pacific; the Philippines proclaimed her as “the best Goodwill Ambassador America has sent us in years!” Although living a life of money, fame, success and glamour Christine was flat out broke. On her final trip to Manila she returned home with only $5 to her name. The rest of the decade she’d live a frugal life back in New York, settling in for the Theatre and shows here and there, as Cabaret acts were becoming a distant and dated memory. In 1963 her father would pass away, 5 years later so would her mother after a long battle with Cancer. In 1967 her tell-all autobiography, Christine Jorgensen A Personal Autobiography, would sell 500,000 copies on its first hardcover edition. After the death of her mother she moved permanently to California, becoming an advisor on the movie, the Christine Jorgensen Story, released in 1970. The movie is beyond bogus camp. Christine is loosely portrayed, including absurd and untrue stories like that of a cross-dressing George Jr. and visits to prostitutes while in the Service. On set she met an actress you may have heard of called Mae West who was working in the next lot starring in Myra Breckinridge becoming good friends, she also befriended 1962 Playboy Playmate June Wilkinson who thought when they met that Christine prettier than her! The rest of the decade she became a fixture in universities across the country giving lectures on transgender issues. 

            Christine attempted a comeback in the 80’s with a cabaret act entitled “I enjoy Being a Girl!” after Flower Drum Song’s signature song. She strutted and trotted around comedy clubs in over the top costumes and headpieces, belting out show tunes like “Falling in Love Again”, “Welcome to My World” and her act’s title. This new Christine had no qualms about anything; she voiced her comedic resentment towards Hollywood “they took everything” and “this Raquel Welch woman” who apparently was not in Ms. Jorgensen’s best graces. She also talked about working on a new autobiography, and I quote “suggested title ‘After the Ball’”. If you’ve turned into a bona fide Christine Jorgensen fan (which you should be if you’ve come this far) I recommend downloading this recording, available in Itunes. In 1984 Christine returned to Denmark to work on the documentary Paradise Not For Sale, reuniting Christine with her beloved Dr. Hamburger and Dr.Stürup, hoping it would be picked up by Northamerican Cable Television, two clips from this very hard to find documentary can be found in Youtube. Upon her return from Denmark she took nude photos and shopped them to Playboy. Hugh Hefner declined the offer, yet Christine was unstoppable. Or so she thought; three years later she was diagnosed with bladder and lung cancer. During her chemotherapy sessions she didn’t change her lifestyle continuing to smoke and drink her vodka rocks. On May 3rd 1989 she died. For this article, I got in touch with Ms. Brenda Lane Smith, Christine’s flat-mate for the last six months of her life. When I requested a statement she declined to comment on Ms. Jorgenen.

            Christine’s legacy lives on to this day. If it weren’t for her courage and strength to become adversity and be happy for whom she really was, all while wearing mink, the transgender community would not have its First Lady. For Ms. Belanger, "Christine was a real pioneer for what she needed to do. She had no support group or peers for information. She was able to find a needle in a haystack in her trip to Denmark and the world for so many is better for it." Christine kicked ignorance by the balls and she says she gave the sexual revolution “a good quick swift in the pants”. Her living family remembers her dearly, her nieces and cousins remember fondly playing dress-up at Auntie Chris’. Now who wouldn’t want to go home to their aunt and get to wear fabulous heels, jewelry and fur coats? I would most certainly do. Christine said that there were three things she would have until the day she died: laughter and hope and a good sock in the eye. For her funeral, she didn’t want a somber remembrance, she had carefully organized a party for all her friends to laugh and remember her. When it was time for the toast, they all lifted their vodka on the rocks for Christine. Even at home, every day was a holiday; she kept a Christmas tree year round to remind herself of her good life. Christine Jorgensen, first Lady of Candy Magazine, I raise my Stoli on the Rocks for you. Originally published in the second issue of Candy Magazine - The First Transversal Style Magazine - Fall/Winter 2010-2011  

#christine jorgensen #transgender #transsexual #trans military ban #armed forces #trans history #united states #candy magazine #byluisvenegas

[miggy-figgy]

Rossy De Palma Rossy de Palma, born in Palma de Mallorca, was originally a singer and dancer before being discovered by filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar in 1986. He cast her in roles based on her unique appearance which are best described as a Picasso come-to-life. In 1988, Rossy de Palma broke the rules of beauty when she starred in Pedro Almodóvar’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and became a model and muse for designers like Jean-Paul Gaultier and Thierry Mugler. Her status as an iconic fashion face was further cemented with her role in Robert Altman’s 1994 satirical fashion film Prêt-à-Porter. Today, she is a theater actress, charity spokesperson for the Ghanian Charity, OrphanAid Africa, and the face of luxury fashion ad campaigns. Some of the roles you’ve played in Almodóvar films include talk show host, drug dealer, a daughter trapped in a small town living with a hysterical mother, a snobby woman from Madrid, and now, in Julieta you play a malicious housekeeper who doesn’t know much of the world outside her own. You’ve been one of the most consistent Chica Almodóvar in the director’s filmography. Why do you think he always comes back to you? Well, not always. Out of 20 movies, I’ve only been in seven. It’s a pleasure to work with him. I mold myself well, and he knows that with me, he can do whatever he wants. I’m devoted to him and that has its advantages because he knows that I’m effective. I’ll give him whatever he wants. Do you remember the first time you met Pedro Almodóvar? Of course. Legend has it that we met in a bar. But, we met during the years of the Movida Madrileña. I had just arrived to the capital from Mallorca with my music group, Peor Imposible and he used to come to our shows. By that time he was already an underground legend. He had just wrapped What Have I Done to Deserve This? and was beginning to work on Matador. He was casting for that film, but I couldn’t make it because I had a concert in Alicante that same day. He was starting to nag me and I decided to play hard to get. I was going to seduce him from afar. He used to come to a bar I was working at, the King Creole and offered me a small role in Law of Desire. He asked me “Would you like to?” and I responded “Yes, yes; I couldn’t make it to the Matador casting” and he replied, “Ok, well, let’s go.”He was very happy with me. He wanted to portray who I was in Law of Desire. I did my own hair and makeup; I didn’t allow wardrobe to touch my look. I wanted to immortalize who I was aesthetically at that time. I played a TV journalist; but since I was dressed as myself, I didn’t feel like an actress. But, then, when he wrote me the part of Antonio Banderas’ snobby girlfriend in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown it was much more fun because that was the first time I worked as an actual actress. Did you work in any other movies between Law of Desire and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown? No. In the beginning of my career I only worked with Pedro because I was also focused on my music project. Later on, I started working in more films, but in Italy. I haven’t really worked much in Spain until recently. In Spain I only worked with Pedro. Did you want to be an actress when you were a young girl? I’ve been an actress from an early age because I acted differently around each person. I noticed that you had to become a different person. I was conscious that you needed to have a different psychology for each person in order to unite each of your complexities. I was also aware of the simulacra of things. I’ve always felt more of an artist than an actress. I like to keep various creative channels open. I would say that poetry was my first love. The Dadaist poets opened up this whole new dimension of thinking that made me aware that there was another world out there waiting for me. I recently worked in a performance called Residencia de Amor that deals with that: how art helps you survive and how therapeutic it is. Think of it as being the ugly ducking and suddenly you leave, and in this new world you are a Disney character. Tapping into that place of my consciousness without knowing that there was another world waiting for me really cheered me up. Then, also, you need to have music, art and all sorts of things that lift you in order to live another kind of reality because real life is tough. Have you always been connected to your voice within? Yes. I’ve always been connected to that spirit that we all have inside. In fact, I’m very rational; but everything I do creatively I do it from my unconsciousness. I like to surprise myself and see things as if they were the first time I saw them. When I have to interpret a character, I don’t like to prepare and study for it. I like to come from stillness. I welcome and work with accidents and errors. It enriches your life. You can’t think that you can control everything. You can’t control anything. No, you can’t. I don’t believe in that vanity that some artists who think they are creators. No. I believe that everything comes from a collective unconsciousness and when we allow ourselves to be receptive we become vehicles for it but we are not the protagonists. We can’t think, “Oh, I’m going to sit down and write a song.” No. That song came to you from the thousands of influences you have. You are a vehicle for art. I don’t believe in painters who are so self-deprecating. I prefer the humility behind being receptors and we are vehicles for creativity. We’re all artists. Julieta is a great film. His female characters continue to be his strongest suit. Yes. Isn’t this music very 90s? (Forever Young plays in the background) My partner says that time does not exist. My daughter tells me, “Mom, you’re so lucky to have lived in the 80s!” Yes, she’s right. No one can take those memories from me; but especially to have survived that decade, because so many didn’t make it. If it wasn’t drugs, it was AIDS and also the road. In those days the roads in Spain were awful; many fellow musicians like Tino Casal died in tragic car accidents. OD’s, AIDS and the road. Madre mía. All pathways. (Both laugh) And how did you make it? I was very mature in the 80s. I was in my 20s. My adolescence was in my 30s. I was serious in my 20s. All of my friends were getting high and I was everyone’s mother. I protected my friends. I was “homeless” but I had a daily planner. Pedro was always mesmerized by this; “look at her, she’s so organized!” Maybe it’s because you’re a Virgo. Yes, I am. Perhaps it’s that. But I had also moved from Mallorca to Madrid. I left behind my teenage brother and he needed me. My mother was hustling through the market in order to save enough money to send me 3000 pesetas [about $20] in a money order each month. It was so little and it was all she could. With that in mind, I knew I wasn’t there to waste time. I had to pave my road and if not, I went back home. I couldn’t distract myself. I was very clear with my intention. I also didn’t like drugs. Only weed. I don’t like drugs that affect my mindset and take me to other realities because the reality that we live in is already rough enough and psychedelic itself to take me somewhere else. I mean, back in the day we tried everything but weed, the relaxing kind. Sativa’s great but I’m more of an Indica girl. I didn’t get hooked to anything because I wanted to work and build. Let’s be realistic there is no money when you are starting out in music; so even when I worked at bars, I was a bad cocktail waitress because I wanted my patrons to stop drinking. They drank, and drank, and drank. I would tell them, “listen buddy, you just had one…” and the bar owners would come and tell me “This is not Alcoholic Anonymous, you’re here to sell drinks. Be cool. Don’t be such a…”  Don’t be so conscious… “Don’t be such a good girl…” I love playing evil characters but in life I’m such a good person. I’m a softy and I’m very sentimental. You know what I mean? That’s my personality. In theatre I like to play the bad girl because I compensate for being so good in real life. How do you channel it? Your character in Julieta is so malicious. You can’t judge a character because if not, you wouldn’t be able to interpret them. In an interview with Almodóvar, they ask him how can he create such evil characters and he says that he humanizes them. He starts living with the characters; what they eat? What kind of music they like? Yes. Yes. You have to humanize. I already told you that I like playing with the subconscious. I am so at ease to work with Pedro. First of all, he re-enacts exactly what he wants. You have to be careful not to copy him nor imitate him too much because if not, then you look like you’re imitating Pedro. You have to take it to your turf. But, he will do what he wants you to do. Down to a T. He’s very precise. He knows what he wants. And then you’re at ease because he’s moving you around and if you slip he will say, “No, no I don’t want you standing there.” He’s also obsessed with the tone of voice. “This word is too low. Higher…; This one went too high, I want it lower…,”  “This one went too low, I want it higher.” Or “You’re dropping your voice.” Obsessed. He has an ear that works for him and it’s impressive what he can do with it. I let go. I surrender to him. Anyone would. You’d be surprised… Some can’t do it because they don’t have the consciousness to process that Almodóvar is directing them. The important thing is to flow. Absolutely flow. You have to be at ease. Almodóvar is directing you. He will be precise. Really, you just got to play… We played a lot with this character because the newcomers, Adriana Ugarte (who plays the younger version of Julieta) and Daniel Grao (who plays Xoan, Julieta’s partner) had never worked with him. Before each take, he’d tell me, “Now, don’t tell them anything but when I scream ACTION! You come in expelling and shouting random things like “You don’t have a bathing suit? Well, I have a pair of old bragas that you could use.” They didn’t know what to do. Dumbfounded, they’d ask, “Is this going in?” They didn’t know what was going on! We had so much fun. Even though there was a seriousness in the character, when we were filming we had a lot of fun.”

What’s the thing you like the most about New York? It’s that thing I was telling you. That the distance between you and yourself is the shortest one. It’s great to know yourself here. No one looks at you. Everybody minds his or her business. There is a connection between you and your inner self that’s very important to know in order to evolve as a person. To get to know yourself and who you are. I almost moved here before I had my kids, moved to Paris and destiny took me somewhere else. But I almost did it with my friend Dorothy who lives here. We almost bought a townhouse. Back then they were so cheap.

Back to Julieta, it is a movie that touches your core. It leaves an emotional well. It’s hard to swallow. Three or four days after seeing it you’re getting flashbacks. It’s the kind of movie that leaves a scar. Sort of an echo… don’t you think? A few days go by and boom, another flash. I left in a state of shock. I had to drive after seeing it and I was so worried to be on the road; because the film left me a bit loopy. I was distraught.

It makes you think. The silence. The secrets. All that is dragged down due to miscommunication. But, it’s a movie that you have to let it breathe. Like in the beginning when you see that red creature and you don’t know what it is just to find out that it’s her breathing through the red nightgown. Everything goes in… smoothly. There’s no need to time stamp “three years earlier” or “two days later”. Everything flows. Time just comes in by itself.

Through her hairstyles. Well, that towel seen is marvelous. Reading that scene in the script was already a gem. I’d think, “what a beautiful transition”. You were excited by reading it. And the ending, which I can’t talk about you’re like “oh my God” A bit shaken. The way he moves the camera. You need to let it breathe…

Everyone somehow, someway sympathizes with Julieta. We’ve all gone through those moments of silence, assuming situations and changing your life in order to carry on. Or people who never speak again. It’s what Pedro would tell us in order to understand where he was coming from. Try to investigate what makes two people stop loving themselves. They stop communicating. They can’t look at themselves in the same way. They begin to have secrets. A black hole comes between them.

They say that it’s because you didn’t give the other what he or she wanted. Who knows? Each relationship is unique. I think the root (of couples separating) is misunderstandings. It’s a chain of consequences of misunderstandings and people take it personally when some things shouldn’t be a certain way. And then each one starts to victimize themselves and they start a competition of who suffers the most. Right?

And they don’t sit down to think. “Wait a minute. My partner is suffering too.” Yep. And then you can’t get close. I am dealing with things in personal life where I cannot tolerate to have my arm twisted any longer. It’s now not a question of “I don’t want to be dominated because I was once a super softy that always ended up forgiving everyone and now I am at a moment in my life where I can’t have relationships that fail me. Know what I’m saying? Even if they are family and people who I’ve loved for years I cannot give them that power any longer. It’s like “enough is enough”. Not even God can fail me now. Anything that drives you forward, yes. Everything that, as the French would say”, baton dans la rue, clipping your wings… I don’t want that.

Even if I adore you; I can’t give you that power. Sometimes if you don’t get to that point it’s like you can’t ever go back but it’s not about that. You need to seal things. Let the other know that you need your space. It’s more of a male to female dominance, patriarchal thing. I’m in another moment of my life. I finally learned to love myself. Just recently, really. To really love myself.

Me too. And now I can’t lose any of this gained momentum. I don’t want anything that fails nor hurts me. And if you have to re-enforce yourself, you do. You put on an emotional corset, tighten that shell and “nobody gonna come in there. No more, darling.” No more. That’s it. It’s a way of loving yourself without stopping to love other people; of course.

Of course. You have to learn to love yourself. Of course. I think you really have to learn to love yourself before you can really experiment love from others and let yourself be loved. If you don’t love yourself the right way, no one will. I’m sorry. It’s the truth.

And especially in an industry like this one. I’ve always been an outsider in every industry. I’m free and willing; I’m everywhere but I’m not anchored anywhere. I like that thing of not belonging. I’m not compromised to any political party. I’m an individualist and an anarchist. I cut it. I eat it. I don’t know… a little bit of freedom… Just having to answer to one person; yourself.

I’m going through a very similar process. You see yourself through what I’ve been going through. How old are you?

Thirty-three. You’re so young, that’s good! Well, look… it’s better to go through it now than when you’re my age. I’ve taken longer. But the important thing is to make it. I may be 52 but I feel like a young girl.

You need to keep your spirit young. Absolutely! Curiosity is fresh and although we’ve all suffered and everything; my innocence is still very fresh.

It’s in your eyes… …of a child. Yes, yes. I can’t stop being a little girl. When we’re children, that’s when we’re more authentic, when we really get to be our genuine selves. You can’t ever lose that. Ok?

It’s so challenging to live in a world that doesn’t want us to be our true selves. They want us like cattle; all the same. That’s why you always have to rebel.

How did you start? I mean, let’s start with my nose… Would you like some? How about a nose and a half! Although, it did help me hide that part of me that was more complex, no one could really see me and they just focused on my aesthetic.

I meant to ask you about that. Talking about my nose is cliché, but we can talk about it if you like. Beauty is so relative. What is really beautiful is nature; flowers… How can there be evil in the world when we have flowers? A thing as beautiful as flowers.  ‡ Published in the February 2017 issue of Iris Covet Book.  Photography by Sophy Holland | Styling by René Garza | Art Direction by Louis Liu 

#rossy de palma #pedro almodovar #almodovar #chica almodovar #spain #actress #interview #iris covet book #icon #muse #sophy holland #rene garza #marc sifuentes #louis liu #miguel figueroa #miggy figgy #life #self love

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A World Apart When we think of Spanish ceramics our minds tend to automatically reference gaudy tourist dishes, someone’s grandmother’s fairytale figurine collection, arabesque bathroom tiles and even Star Wars: Episode II when Anakin Skywalker escorted Queen Amidala through Seville’s Spanish Square which was transformed into Naboo’s city of Theed in a galaxy far, far away. But, back in Planet Earth, in the fishermen community of Galicia, Sargadelos has been producing porcelain to devoted cult-like followers since the early 1800s.              

Antonio Raimundo Ibáñez - a mastermind, who earned his initial fortune working in Spanish infrastructure, founded the company in 1806. Ibáñez took notice of the popularity and sudden halt of distribution of Bristol china in Spain and decided to produce a similar product for the country. After his death, his son continued on with the tradition through great part of the 19th century, until operations were ceased in 1875. Then, in 1968, Sargadelos was re-launched by Spanish Civil War refugees who returned from Argentina eager to preserve Galician culture.  In 1972, the Seminario de Sargadelos was founded and it’s been destined to develop and promote ceramic arts. Throughout its history, the company has invited artists such as Camilo Jose Cela to stay with them in a live-in residency. The living areas include a Sargadelos ceramic swimming pool, currently under renovation. Their headquarters also include a well-curated museum that showcases each and every piece created by the company. Every day, in its female led O Castro factory in Cervo, Lugo ceramists from the ages of 21 to 63 continue to strive on the brand’s singularity. Each and every Sargadelos is 100% hand-made with the utmost of care and dedication including their Galician amulets, representing certain Celtic traditions and superstitions. And, although not everyone believes in these folk tales, if you need protection against witches or, for example, those who want to “kill our love”, do us harm, slander us, make us go astray, steal our food, rob us, deceive us with false actions or lead us down a dead-end street you can keep these, and many other amulets close to you so they can be of assistance on your path.              

But, not everything is hocus pocus; the brand has fantastic abstract figurines, theatrical masks and exquisitely simple china that express Galician culture throughout its history through mythical geometrical abstractions, fauna and flora figures and reliefs evoking the Celtic, Romantic and Baroque eras of the region.  Adorned with the signature Sargadelos iconography of waves, spirals and shells in their trademark cobalt blue, bright orange and marine green, Sargadelos’ figures stand the test of time. Pedro Almodóvar is one of Sargadelo’s die hard fans. In his latest film, Julieta, the Spanish director played homage to the brand, predominantly  showcasing it in various scenes. And, if you visit any Sargadelos shop you may run into vintage designs from more than three decades ago that are still visually relevantly mixed with newer pieces. Even in dire times, the brand has stood on firm ground to make sure they continue their cultural legacy. Collecting these pieces become a sport of religious devotion that transmit their concepts of design, culture, history and quality and sets them apart from the rest. Simply put; Sargadelos is rare, unique and timeless porcelain that’s to die for.  Published in the S/S 2017 issue of Hercules Universal - A New Light Photography by Coke Bartrina 

#sargadelos #ceramics #porcelain #decorative arts #spain #spanish #art #documentation #coke bartrina #hercules universal #miguel figueroa #miggyfiggy

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Braina Laveina Embracing Vulnerability  Harry Houdini, master of illusion, once said that the mind is the key that sets us free. To get to where we are right now, dragons have been slain, fears have to be confronted, desires must be met and released. If not, one will always continue making the same mistakes over and over again. And who wants to listen to a broken record? In a land where everyone chases the impossible dream to become the next film star, 26 year old Braina Laviena is walking on firm ground as an alien creature that was teletransported from the Caribbean into one of LaLaland’s most sought after models. Even though she’s been a muse to Kanye West, blessed by Carine Roitfeld and immortalized by Mario Testino; all Braina Laviena wants is being herself. Isn’t that what we are all searching for?  *this interview was held on November 9th, 2016; the day after the USA presidential election How are you? I’m very disillusioned with people. I’m not even angry at the fact that Trump won. I’m angry at the fact that there are people who actually hate women and minorities that much. Especially that they would hate seeing a woman in office so much that they would elect Donald fucking Trump… I feel sad. Yesterday, I literally cried. I don’t know. I’m kind of scared. Are we supposed to live in fear now? I think we’re supposed to do the complete opposite. If you think about it, we’ve been living in fear basically since 9/11. Totally, but right now people are discriminated against and already fear walking down the street because they know that shit can happen to them. Those people are going to be even more scared now. I went to see my boyfriend yesterday and he didn’t understand why I was so upset. He said, “you know he’s not going to change anything overnight. It’s not like tomorrow is going to be the end of the world.” But what he doesn’t understand is that it’s not necessarily about what he does or what he doesn’t do in office, it’s the fact that he represents… The country! He’s the face of the country! Exactly, and if he represents that, the American people that have beliefs similar to his are going to feel like they can do whatever they want now that law is on “their side”. So already there’s all kinds of crazy people blowing shit up and these people are going to be even more inclined to just go out and talk shit and hurt whoever they want because of their thinking. I’ve been harassed. I’ve been discriminated against. I was date raped. And knowing that the president of the United States is someone that is okay with all that; what are people who do that going to think? That it’s totally okay for them to do these things. Maybe before they were a little scared that there were precautions of the law. The flip side is that people are so angry that something like this would happen that maybe it’s a wakeup call for people to be active and outspoken about the stuff they actually believe in and take action. Absolutely. We’re in this fashion/entertainment bubble and activism can be seen as just another fad. But now it’s not the time to make politics fashionable. It’s the real shebang. In that sense it really pisses me off when I will try to express things that I care about within this industry, not related to the industry or other issues that I care about, and they’re usually like “you shouldn’t talk about these things” or I’m into things that I care about that don’t happen in fashion and it never comes up. It’s always cut off. What are these things that you care about that they always cut off? I really care about homeless people and mental health issues, like mental illnesses and healthcare. I’m bipolar and have anxiety disorder and they are hard things to control. I keep it intact. I’m on my medication and I have it under control but there is a stigma with it existing. And there’s also the stigma that if you take medication for it people will be like, “oh you’re just drugging yourself up”. Anytime I mention anything like that it becomes uncomfortable and that’s the whole point of why I say it. If it makes them uncomfortable it’s probably because they don’t know anything about it. More than anything, it’s not even about the stigma. It’s about how the stigma affects people who have those disorders. I’ve posted a couple of things about me having panic attacks or things like those and I’ve gotten messages from girls saying, “thank you so much for posting that”. It helped me see, understand and know that it’s okay that I have this. I’m going to get help or whatever. People are scared of accepting that they have problems, of accepting that they are vulnerable, and that that’s actually the best thing you can be. You should embrace that vulnerability. That means that you’re more sensible to things that other people ignore. If you embrace that vulnerability you can create better things.   Absolutely. The world is so vulnerable right now that I think it’s a duty for people like us to be even stronger than we’ve been before. We’re living in a generation of indifference; where everything is avoided and nobody ever says; “you know, I’m having a bad day”. People don’t share those things. You do. I’ve seen those beautiful self-portraits of you crying and they are raw, precious photographs. Thank you! I think it’s important, because there are people growing up in that conflict and are amazing. Happy people, people that have families. And I’m sure that if they feel bad, they feel ashamed because they don’t think that’s normal. And I think it’s important for people to know that it’s okay to be sad, it’s okay to have a bad day. You know? If you have problems, you can share them with people and get help. It’s also very important that people know how not to become a victim. You know, you have your problems. You lay the cards on the table and ask yourself, how do I fix this? What’s on the to-do list? The universe pays back when you’re vulnerable. When you allow yourself to be naked in that sense in front of the world. Is this also how great things have happened to you this year work wise? I mean, yeah. It’s like I was realising that things always look a certain way from an outside perspective, but compared with reality they might not be as glamorous. It has been a good year to realise. I have a new agency with an amazing agent. He’s a person I can talk to and I’ve been completely honest with him from the beginning. I’ve been in other agencies where I’ve said “this is something that I care about”, and they would tell me, “you know that’s something that shouldn’t be said, it will affect how people see you, it will affect how clients see you, they will think you’re not stable enough”. When someone says they are bipolar, people shouldn’t think about someone running through the street screaming at everyone all the time without any control whatsoever. I’m sure that there are many people out there and even people reading this interview who are bipolar and don’t even know it yet. They just go about their days but they don’t know it. Exactly. Or they know something’s wrong with them but they’re scared of accepting it because they think it’s such a bad thing because that’s how its portrayed by outside people. How do you go from being a girl from Caguas, Puerto Rico, into suddenly being one of the most coveted models in Los Angeles? I studied Journalism and Advertising and was working on the campaign for Puerto Rico’s governor at the time in its social media platform. Then I kept working with that creative team for about a year and half and I just got tired. It was a desk job. It was the best and at the same time worse desk job. I did have a lot of freedom to do creative things. I wanted to move to LA since I was 17 to model, but I couldn’t go because my parents forced me not to, they said I had to wait until I had a degree. So I broke through when I got my degree, which I ended up really liking in the end. Even though the people I was working with were great, I just wasn’t happy. So, I made the decision to move out here and try it because I had wanted to do it for years and I hadn’t done it. Better late than sorry, right? It was just being in the right place at the right time. Everything is 80 per cent preparation and 20 per cent being ready. That’s what it’s all about. If I had not gone to school, if I didn’t have a degree, if I hadn’t worked in the campaign for the governor or if I hadn’t done all those things, I wouldn’t have been able to end up working with Kanye and doing what I do now. Some people like to say that they regret spending time doing certain things and I think it’s the opposite. Everything is happening because it has to be happening, don’t you think? Yeah, you learn from everything. You can go through a terrible experience but in a way it’s good because you always learn something from it. Either you learn what you shouldn’t do again, or you learn that you’re strong enough to do things. I believe you always come out stronger in the end. That’s what it’s about. Now, more than ever, it’s about being a warrior. Exactly. I’m not lucky, I worked, and that’s why I am where I am. I got the serendipitous chance that someone walked in and met me or something, but if I hadn’t worked to know what I know, or to have the experiences that I have, I wouldn’t have gotten those opportunities that people think are lucky chances. You have to do your work. Right now I am at a good place in my life where I’m in control of myself, my career, and in control of the things that I’m doing. I’m doing my photography and I’m working really hard for it. I feel like I’m on the right track towards better things. Originally published in Metal Magazine (online) Photgraphed by Mara Corsino  Styling by El Lewis 

#metal magazine #mara corsino #braina laviena #vulnerability #bipolar #donald trump #el lewis #miguel figueroa #miggy figgy #interview #los angeles

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Bosco Sodi Featured in the FW 2016 issue of Hercules Universal - Wild World Photographed by Coke Bartrina Scroll down for versión en español. 

In some meditation practices, creating a legacy is the utmost goal that each human being should strive for. As you learn the fact that we’re all here to make this world a better place, so that future generations will enjoy it better when we’re no longer around slowly yet surely sinks in. By his early 40s, Bosco Sodi has achieved this affirmation. In 2014, the Mexican artist founded and funded Oaxaca’s Casa Wabi, an international and interdisciplinary oasis that welcomes artists during the beginning stages of their new projects. As any body of work that is focused on leaving a legacy, the craftsmanship behind Sodi’s artworks has been no easy task. We chatted last August while the artist was in residence at his Brooklyn studio in Red Hook.

How did you get here? My work is based on investigation and the process behind making the object. It develops slowly, yet surely because I’m constantly trying out other materials.

When did this exploration begin? I started working with sawdust 18 years ago and there’s always been a discussion with myself between matter and color. The matérico artists and formalists believe that matter by itself has certain energy and power. I’ve always wanted to merge these two ways of thinking, in a way of mixing colors with matter and at the same time adding the discussion of what’s organic and natural.

All of my work is based on the Wabi-Sabi theory which explains how accidents, losing control, the passing of time, organic materials and cracks within the work are the things that make something unique. It’s easy to industrially repeat something, but what we create in this studio is completely unrepeatable. We try to find that unique thing based on losing control. In my research, I’m always open to expanding my horizons.

How long does it take you create new work? My intervention is somewhat brief. I do all of my work when the materials are still soft. Therefore, I can start adding more and more layers and playing around with the piece. It’s a quite physical technique; I walk around the room, throwing things at it, discarding others. Then, when I see the first crack, I stop and let it be so it can go through its unique process.

The artwork grows as if it were a plant. Yes. It grows as an organic being, it takes its own personality and by then I don’t interfere with it anymore. This process usually occurs with the cubes and the rocks. During the process of the clay cubes that I build in Casa Wabi, I create a totally human form and then leave it there to dry for two to three months. As they dry up with the heat, different cracks and stains start to come about. I lose control of the process. It’s about using the four elements in the clay and rock process. When it comes to the rocks, I go to the volcano site, I see the shapes that the rocks have and according to those forms, I lower the rock, clean it, we paint it with ceramic and then we “bake” it. The process goes from an organic form that’s been forming for thousands and thousands of years and it’s completely unrepeatable.

Going with your team to pick up the rock sounds like a religious procession. Not only that, but also an archeological excursion, going all the way to the top of the mountain, with untamed grass that covers half of your body carrying our machetes to unearth the rock as if it was a deity.

The cube’s process is also interesting; starting from where we get the earth, how we turn it to clay and burn it. I’m interested in the physical process. I like to touch things and seeing a man’s work not only in the result, but also during the process.

It’s intimate and energetic. You elevate elements that are usually taken for granted. A bit shamanic, isn’t it?

Yes, indeed. Or perhaps I play an alchemist, don’t you think? Taking a common object and elevating it.

Also, your color palette – mostly gold, red and purple – are colors usually associated with divinity. I play with creating objects of desire, while at the same time playing with the concept of the art market; when I work with rocks, I’m paying homage to art povera.

How do you divide your work between each of your studios? In Mexico I work the cubes, but also do some of the wall pieces. In Brooklyn, Barcelona and Berlin I work the wall pieces as well. I love getting to each one of them, starting from scratch and gathering materials; sort of like doing a warm-up. This process gets me in the groove to start painting. It’s tedious, but at the end of the day, it gets me going. Just as writers go on trips before working on a book, I like to get there, set-up, arrange plastic on the floor, organize frames, gather the sawdust  and all the necessary materials. I enjoy it.

In other interviews you’ve talked about art without value yet your work is valued starting at $100,000. It’s a critique on the art world. You can find a rock anywhere. Get it? Also, clay is the simplest material that’s part of our daily life.

Is there any indigenous influence in your work? I compare my work to the Mayan stelae’s. What I want to communicate philosophically through my work is remind the spectator that life is temporary and these pieces will stand the test of time. Who knows what my cubes will look like in 200 years. Maybe they will be corroded mountains of dust.

Don’t you think that’s one of the biggest mysteries of the art world today? Collectors acquire and amass works of great value yet we won’t be around to see what happens with all of it. Exactly.

You’ve managed to make sure that Casa Wabi continues to run through a private trust so that it will continue once you’re not here. That’s very noble of you. Only a few of us artists are fortunate enough to live from our art. For me it’s a social obligation, but the reality is that in the art world there is very little social compromise. Art fairs are a waste. You need money to live, but you also have to give back to the community and in my case it is Mexico.

Casa Wabi is located in Oaxaca and recently it went through a major educational crisis. Yes, it did. These situations have been swept under the rug by the government because they’ve manipulated situations as they saw fit, but eventually these things will blow up especially from people who did not have the opportunities to have a proper education. Those who were manifesting were between the ages of 30 to 40, they haven't been able to go to school and everything stems out of a seed that turned gray. I don’t like to talk much about politics, but this is a crop that’s grown from years of exploitations, marginalization and forgetting about these people not only in Oaxaca, but also in Chiapas and the Estado Hidalgo.

If you think about it this is part of the inevitable uprising that’s happening across the globe. I totally agree with you. When socialism fell, capitalism grew and then there was no counterbalance. Therefore, capitalism has had the power to eat up everything that has around it. The richer get richer while the poor get poorer and without any type of social culture.

Is it our responsibility as artists to create this social and cultural conscience? It’s our utmost obligation. In essence we should be pure but we can’t deny the fact that sometimes we have drug and alcohol problems. We can’t turn our backs on the fact that the art world is looking for that marvelous essence of life that comes from that magical touch of changing souls. All art is important as long as it comes from an honest place. We lack this honesty and I suffer for it. If you create art to heal you’re seen with doubt. I think one of the biggest responsibilities of the art world this moment is to find this through some sort of balance. The time is now. Not only in the art world but also through religion.

You can’t also create art that’s easy to understand. A shoebox can be seen as many ways with a direct or indirect criticism. I think many artists haven’t realized that this is one of our obligations. Everyone is in this ruthless competition where money is the only thing of value. I can’t be a hypocrite and say that I have not benefited from this. I have to admit it and say, “Well, what can I do with all of this?” At Casa Wabi we welcome conceptual artists, performers, filmmakers and writers. It’s not about creating small groups, we want to be open to re-focus our energies to fix our country and be able to put in our grain of salt regardless of anyone’s political position. Artists need to be conscious about this. We are living in a moment of big responsibilities in the history of art and we are not grasping its power.

Perhaps it’s a matter of competition and egos. I understand the concept of competition. Sometimes I go to an artists’ exhibition, I like what I see and think, “this motherfucker”; but it’s not out of jealousy, it’s out of respect and in that process it pushes me to do more. It should never be to wish harm on anyone or paying attention left and right to see if someone is copying me.

Do you think social media has a part in this sort of anxiety? I recently went on a sailboat through Sicily with my family and the first thing I did was prohibit the use of electronics to my children. They turned into humans. 

Yes, yes. Everything changes when you let go of them. They were more aware and eager to explore. You become curious again and re-gain your sensibility in the process. We don’t have to be glued to a fucking machine that in the end is worthless.

You need to be present in order to connect with your spirit. They way your spirit works is the way the world will work around you. Exactly. Do you remember Wim Wender’s “Until the End of the World”?

I haven’t seen it. It’s a four-hour film from the early 90s about a scientist that discovers a machine that analyzes dreams. You plug-in and know exactly what the dream meant. The film ends with six humans livings in a pig-pen who don’t want to dream any longer, they just want to analyze them. I feel that’s what’s happening with social media. You’re in a concert and they’re filming it instead of seeing it or people go to vacations just to take pictures and see how they look in them and they spent the entire night analyzing them. The present over the present over the present.

Continuous gluttony. Exactly.

For someone who does not know about your work, what do you expect from them? I hope they come to see it without judgment nor convictions and they can feel the same way one feels when they are in front of a tree or witnessing a sunset. No one can tell you how to look at things. You see things according to feelings and from there you work on your conclusions.

When you go to exhibitions with your children you don’t allow them to read press releases. Yes. I also don’t let them listen to audio guides nor take many pictures. I like to absorb what I see. I believe in feeling things. Like walking barefoot. /// En algunas prácticas de meditación, crear un legado es la meta que todo ser humano debe trabajar por obtener. Durante el conocimiento de la afirmación, se afirma y re-afirma que todos estamos aquí para que este mundo sea mejor cuando ya no estemos en él. A sus 40 y tantos de años, el artista mexicano Bosco Sodi ha logrado hacer esto. En 20XX fundó su fideicomiso, la Casa Wabi en Oaxaca, un oasis internacional e interdisciplinario que alberga a artistas durante la gestación crucial de la creación de nuevos trabajos. Cómo toda obra enfocada hacia el legado, el trabajo detrás de las piezas de Sodi no ha sido fácil. A principios de agosto conversé con él mientras estaba de visita en su estudio de Red Hook, en Brookyn.    ¿Cómo has llegado hasta aquí? Mi trabajo se basa mucho en la investigación y en el proceso de hacer la obra. La evolución es muy lenta, pero muy importante ya que en todo momento trato de probar con otros materiales. ¿Cuándo comenzó esa exploración? Hace 18 años empecé a trabajar mucho con el aserrín y siempre hubo dentro de mi una discusión entre la materia y el color. Hay una corriente de los matéricos y los formalistas que la materia por si solo tiene cierta energía y cierto poder. Siempre he querido mezclar estas dos corrientes que se puede decir la mezcla del color con la materia y también, a su vez, metiendo el otro concepto que es la parte de lo orgánico, lo natural.  Toda mi obra se basa en la teoría Wabi-Sabi, que habla de cómo el accidente, el no-control, el paso del tiempo, los materiales orgánicos, los craquelados son lo que hacen a las cosas únicas. Es muy fácil repetir una cosa por su método industrial pero lo que hacemos aquí es completamente irrepetible. Tratamos de encontrar esa cosa única basada en el no-control. En mi investigación siempre estoy abierto a nuevos campos. ¿Cuánto tiempo toma crear una de las piezas? Mi intervención es más o menos corta. Hago todo cuando la materia está húmeda y empiezo a poner capas y capas de ésta y a jugar un poco con el cuadro. Es una técnica muy física, caminando alrededor de cuadro, tirando, echando. Luego, cuando veo la primera grieta, paro y lo dejo solo para que tenga su propio proceso. Así que el cuadro crece como si fuese una planta. Sí. Crece como un ser orgánico, coge su propia personalidad por la cual yo ya no interfiero. Esto sucede en el proceso de los cubos y las rocas. En el proceso de los cubos que hago en Casa Wabi a partir de la tierra, hago una forma totalmente humana como puede ser el cubo y ahí lo dejo secar por dos o tres meses. Al quemarse salen diferentes manchas y craquelados. Pierdo el control del proceso. Se trata de utilizar los cuatro elementos en el proceso del barro y las rocas. En el caso de las rocas, voy al volcán, veo las formas de las rocas que tiene y de acuerdo a esas formas, bajo la roca, la limpio, la pinto con cerámica y la horneamos. Parto también de una forma orgánica que se ha formado de miles y miles de años y es completamente irrepetible. El proceso de ir con tu equipo a recoger las rocas suena como si fuese una procesión religiosa. No es sólo eso, si no también una procesión arqueológica de ir arriba del todo a la montaña, con un pasto que te llega hasta lo más arriba de tu uniforme, tienes que ir con machete y desenterrar la roca como si fuese un ídolo.  El proceso de los cubos también es muy interesante; desde dónde sale la tierra, como hacemos el barro y se quema. A mi me interesa mucho el proceso físico. Soy muy de tocar y que se vea la mano del hombre no tan solo en el resultado, si no también en el proceso. Es un proceso energético muy íntimo. Elevas elementos que suelen darse por sentado. Es un proceso un poco chamánico, ¿no? Sí, sí. ¿O quizás alquímico, no? Estás tomando un objeto común y lo estás elevando. Además, la selección de colores que utilizas para tus piezas – los rojos, dorados y violetas – son unos que suelen asociarse con la divinidad. Juego con crear objetos de deseo creando también un juego con el concepto del mercado del arte de cómo una piedra intervenida juega con el arte povera.  ¿Cómo divides tu trabajo en cada uno de tus estudios? En Méjico trabajo los cubos, pero he hecho algunos cuadros también. En los estudios de Brooklyn, Barcelona y Berlín trabajo cuadros. Me gusta mucho llegar, arrancar en cada estudio, encontrar los materiales, hacer un tipo de calentamiento. Ese proceso me pone en el punto para empezar a pintar. Es tedioso pero al final de cuentas me pone a trabajar. De la misma manera que los escritores hacen un viaje antes de comenzar a escribir un libro, me gusta llegar, montar el estudio, poner los plásticos, bastidores, buscar el aserrín, los materiales. Lo disfruto mucho. En otras entrevistas has hablado del arte sin valor, pero tus piezas están valoradas en $100,000 en adelante. Es una crítica al mundo del arte. En cualquier lugar puedes encontrar una piedra. ¿Me entiendes? También, el barro es el material más simple que existe y es un material básico de vida cotidiana.  ¿Tienes influencia indígena en tu trabajo? Lo comparo con las esquelas Mayas. El punto final de la filosofía de mi trabajo es recordarle al espectador que la vida es muy temporal y que estas piezas seguirán ahí los tiempos de los tiempos. En 200 años, ¿quién sabe? Quizás los cubos serán montañas corroídas. ¿No crees que ese es uno de los grandes misterios de crear arte de este tipo de valor hoy en día? Se adquiere y se adquiere pero no estaremos aquí para ver lo que sucederá con todo esto. Exactamente. Es muy noble de su parte que Casa Wabi opere con un fideicomiso para que sea permanente. Somos pocos los artistas afortunados que podemos vivir de nuestro arte. Para mi es una obligación social, pero en el mundo del arte hay poco compromiso social. Las ferias de arte son un despilfarro. Hay que tener dinero para vivir, pero hay que devolverle a la comunidad y en mi caso es Méjico. Además, Casa Wabi se encuentra en Oaxaca, una zona que acaba de pasar por una crisis educativa. Sí, son cosas que han estado olvidadas por mucho tiempo porque los gobiernos han manipulado como ellos han querido, pero eventualmente habrán estas explosiones de parte de gente que no tuvo educación en colegios. Los que han manifestado tienen de 30 a 40 años, no han podido ir a colegios y todo viene de una semilla que se tornó gris. No soy partidario de la política, pero esto es la cosecha de años de explotación, marginación y olvido tanto en Oaxaca, Chiapas o el Estado Hidalgo. Si lo piensas es parte del uprising inevitable que está sucediendo alrededor del planeta. Estoy totalmente de acuerdo. Cuando cae el socialismo, crece el capitalismo y éste se queda sin ningún contrabalance. Por ende, le da el poder a rienda suelta de comerse todo lo que tiene a su alrededor. Los ricos son más ricos mientras que los pobres son más pobres y sin ningún tipo de cultura social. ¿Es nuestra responsabilidad crear esta consciencia y cultura social? Es la última obligación más que nada. En esencia deberíamos ser los más puros, pero no podemos obviar los problemas de alcohol y drogadicción. No podemos negar que el mundo del arte busca esta esencia maravillosa de la vida que viene de ese toque mágico de cambiar las almas. Todo tipo de arte es importante mientras tengas un punto de vista honesto. Esto hace falta y yo lo estoy sufriendo mucho. El arte para sanar se ve con sospecha. Yo creo que una de las principales responsabilidades más grandes del arte en este momento y tratar de lograr esto mediante un equilibrio. El momento es ahora; tanto en el arte, como en la religión.  Tampoco puede ser un arte totalmente digerido; una zapatilla se puede ver de muchas maneras con una crítica directa e indirecta. Creo que los artistas no han caído en cuenta que esta es una de nuestras obligaciones. Cada uno sigue en esta competencia atroz, es un mundo donde el dinero es lo que vale. Yo no puedo ser un hipócrita y decir que no me he beneficiado de esto. Hay que admitirlo y decir, “¿y qué puedo hacer ahora con todo esto?” En Casa Wabi son bienvenidos los artistas conceptuales; los de performance, cineastas y escritores. No se trata de crear pequeños grupos, queremos estar abiertos a re-enfocar las energías para arreglar nuestro país y poner nuestro grano de arena real, independientemente de la posición política de cada quien. Hay que concientizar a los artistas, es un momento de responsabilidad en la historia del arte y no lo estamos tomando por su poder. Quizás es una cuestión de competencia y ego. Yo entiendo el concepto de la competencia.  A veces voy a la exhibición de un artista, veo lo que me gusta y pienso, “pinche cabrón”. Y no es de celos, es de que bien lo hace y eso me propulsa a mi para hacer más. Nunca es para desear mal y estar mirando de izquierda a derecha para ver si me están repitiendo. ¿Crees que este tipo de ansiedad de estar en vela tiene que ver con el social media? Recientemente estuve en un velero en Sicilia y lo primero que hice fue prohibirle los electrónicos a mis hijos y se volvieron totalmente en seres humanos. Sí, sí. Todo cambia cuando los dejas. Estaban más despiertos a explorar. Vuelve a renacer esa curiosidad y sensibilidad que tienen todos los seres humanos. No tenemos que estar pegados a esta pinche máquina que no sirve para nada. Hay que estar en el presente para conectarte con tu espíritu. De la manera que éste trabaja, así trabajará el mundo alrededor tuyo. Exactamente. No sé si te recuerdas de la película de Wim Wenders “Until the End of the World”? No la conozco. Es una película de cuatro horas de los años 80 sobre un científico que descubre una máquina que analiza los sueños. Te la pones y sabes exactamente que quiso decir el sueño. La película termina con seis seres humanos como en una chiquera de cerdos que ya no quieren soñar, solo quieren estar analizando los sueños. Siento que es lo que pasa con el social media. Estás con gente en un concierto y están filmando el puto concierto en vez de verlo o van de vacaciones solo para tomarse fotos y ver que tal están en ellas y se pasan toda la noche analizando las fotos que tomaron. El presente sobre el presente sobre el presente. Es una gula continua. Exactamente. Para alguien que no conoce tu obra, ¿qué esperas de ellos? Que lleguen sin prejuicios, convicciones y que la puedan sentir de la misma manera que sienten un árbol, un atardecer. Nadie te dice como leerla. La vives con ciertos sentimientos y tomas tus propias conclusiones. Cuando visitas exhibiciones con tus hijos le prohíbes que lean los comunicados de prensa. Sí. Tampoco les permito que lleven audífonos ni me gusta tomar muchas fotos. Me gusta absorber lo que veo. Creo en sentir las cosas. Es como caminar sin zapatos.  

[miggy-figgy]

Letter from an Outsider

I’ve always been an outsider. I’ve never felt that I fit in. I did not study journalism nor did I major in English or Spanish literature. I was the overweight kid in junior high who listened to ABBA and Blondie in his Walkman to get through all the bullying that occurred each day from 8am to 3pm. Coming out was an outsider experience. I was fourteen, it was 1998 and I lived in a remote, small town in Puerto Rico known for it’s brief cameo appearances in a James Bond film, the X-Files and Jodie Foster’s Contact. Hell, I was an outsider from the womb. Legend has it that each of my mother’s sonograms never showed my sex. “You were always showing your ass or crossing your legs.” A poser and an exhibitionist from the zygote. To this day, I look at my parents and still try to figure out what I got from each one of them. Many people say that I look like the male version of my mother, but sometimes, when I shave or have a mustache, I kind of see my father reflecting back at me. I’ve been platinum blonde, dirty blonde, strawberry blonde, jet black, had a blue Mohawk, long hippie curls and went through a couple of Britney Spears 2007 shaved head moments. Each time thinking “I’ve let an old person go. Here’s to re-inventing yourself.” But, the truth of the matter was that through all the changes I was still insecure, doubting myself and thinking I was never good enough. In order to fit in I became promiscuous and have no qualms in saying how much I used to love cocaine, how I once in 2003 smoked crack with my lesbian cousin and spent that New Years walking around with a raging junkie hard-on, aisle to aisle at some random 7-11 in the middle of Orlando, Florida while she went to score some more.

Trust me, this letter is not for you to have pity for me or to be concerned for my well-being. Three years ago, a year into living in Brooklyn, my dear friend Silvia Prada introduced me to meditation. “I think this is going to help you out.” And it did, for as long as I was diligent about it. As soon as I fell in love with my last steady boyfriend, a photographer, I fell off the meditation bandwagon thinking, “I finally found what I have always been looking for.” When reality struck and I realised that I had gained almost 50 pounds and was nearing a crashing collapse of the relationship, I started meditating again. After the break-up, meditation made me aware without having to burn a hole in my credit card – impossible to do so, due to the fact that they were all maxed out for trying to sustain the lifestyle of a Brooklyn art husband who had long since run out of the trust fund that got him through four incredible years of living in Europe - with insane amounts going to paying therapists somewhere on the Upper West Side. As I look back on it, that break-up was the best thing that could’ve happened to me. It shattered all preconceived notions about love and finally made me focus on my sanity. I began to dance train and a year and a half later, I’m starting to see obliques. Also, the best part about meditating is that you get to discern. If you are a weak person who is constantly seeking the approval of others, you learn to know when to say no. Meditation acts like a silent wizard that halts any destructive patterns that you’ve had before. “Do you really want to date another alcoholic guy? Is this really what you want? I mean, c’mon Miggy Figgy, look at this dude’s apartment; let’s get the fuck out of here. You have deadlines...”

In a relationship, who’s leading and who is staying behind? Who’s the boss? Who’s the top? Who’s the bottom? “Oh, we’re both very versatile...” Oh, are you... Never in my almost 33 years of life would I have thought that I would proudly say that I am in open relationship with loneliness. It’s been almost three weeks since I’ve had sex with anyone – a three way with a couple, 40 and 50, both tops, divine – because in reality, that jerk off session in the middle of the San Juan marina aboard a messy boat with a captain who looked just like Hemingway in his mid-50s the day that my nephew was born does not count. Once again, an eclipse gave me the opportunity to escape, but this time, I did not. It would’ve been too easy. And I think the thought of sailing to Key West with a man who was an alcoholic and had erectile dysfunction would’ve been the death of me. The whole Natalie Wood murder mystery fantasy is not my cup of tea.

Who knows? Maybe that was my key to freedom. But, freedom is not deciding to repeat the same drifting and fleeting pattern, leaving everything behind for my friends and family to sort out. It’s time to live as an outsider. Become a newbie, a tourist on my island. You may ask yourself, how can I feel this way if I was born here? The answer is simple. Seven years outside your comfort zone will transform your life. And this is only valid if you fly the nest to spend time with other foreigners. If you leave Barcelona to follow the bright lights, big city dreams of New York City and you just end up hanging out with other Spaniards, it doesn’t really count. For real.

Leaving means letting go. In order to be an outsider you need to have been way in. Balls-in deep. You need to recognize the way the golden hour shines upon the Atlantic Ocean’s horizon from your hometown’s promenade, the sizzling smell of asphalt after unexpected torrential rain early in the afternoon, what color is street bought honey in the middle of a mountainous dirt road (dark, dark amber, stored in a recycled rum bottle) and you must know how the sun feels on your skin, as you lie on the beach in Ocean Park at 1pm. Leathery, sandy, salty, delicious, thirsty for the sea. Dehydrated, desperately seeking salt water. I came back home for the present time being because I needed to see what was happening on the island, politically and socially. The government is a mockery to citizens and many of them are either hypnotised by it or completely against what is happening. I am on the latter side, like most of the people that I used to consider my close circle of friends. Why consider? What has happened? Distance, time and a career happened. The result? Tropical jealousy. The antidote? Solitude. Time either makes you grow or constricts you. Anaïs Nin once said that the day when we decide to stop learning is the time when we begin to die. The more I fall deeper into consciousness, the more I’ve been removing myself from all the toxicity that used to surround me. As much as I miss the friends that saw me go in 2008, I cannot go back to being that person that I used to be. The brave reward of letting go is that the universe grants you the gifts of perseverance, resilience and new faces that are on the same path and wavelength as you are. And if you have come this far into the essay and are going into the same transformative process or thinking about taking the big leap into the unknown joys of the future, know this, you won’t regret it. Magic happens when you’re on the outside.

Just trust.

Originally published in the S/S 2016 issue of Fucking Young! Outsider.  

#outsider #essay #life #meditation #healing #miggyfiggy #miguel figueroa #fuuuckingyoung #fucking young #abhfya

[miggy-figgy]

FINN WITTROCK According to the dictionary, magnetism is a physical phenomenon produced by the motion of electric charge, resulting in attractive and repulsive forces between objects. It’s also the ability to attract and charm people. Out of the sea of modern day heartthrobs, Finn Wittrock has been brewing this insatiable force from the womb. Raised by a troupe of actors, he began his an acting procession from the basics, Shakespeare and from there he dabbled in the world of American Soap Operas. His incessant drive maneuvered him to work alongside some of the most important actors of our time: Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Phillip Seymour Hoffman and the gang at American Horror Story which includes Lady Gaga, Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates and Angela Basset for which he earned a Best Supporting Actor nomination at the Golden Globes last year. This golden guy evokes the on-screen charm of an early Tom Cruise and Rob Loewe. At 31, Finn Wittrock is right where he’s supposed to be. What’s the one thing that every actor must posses? The more and more that I do it, the more I realize how important listening is. To be a good listener is to be focused on what you are receiving rather than just what you are putting out. It’s not only important for a scene to work well. It’s also important for your fellow actors to feel like you are bouncing back what they are giving to you energetically. Being specific about the focus you have to your fellow actors. If you look at a good actor, like Al Pacino – when he’s listening to someone – it’s riveting. You can totally go to a scene where he’s talking to someone. Yeah! He’s telling you part of the story in that concentration. When you’re with an actor who isn’t reciprocating, it can be very exhausting and unfair. I try to be generous in a karmic way and hopefully your actors will be generous to you. The energy you put out is the energy that you will get back. Exactly. Must be one of the reasons why you’ve been so lucky to work with most of the living legends of our generation. I’ve been very lucky in that regard and I take it as an honor to have worked with the people that I have. It’s always been a reason to do something. To keep a track record of people who are on the top of their game or in the cutting edge of this art form. Do you set the bar up as you go from role to role? That’s always been a goal and recently I’ve been trying to do something transformative from the thing that I have done before. I think I’ve said this before in interviews but lately, when I’m interviewed people say: “you just came out of nowhere and now you are everywhere!” And that is so not how it feels in my mind. In my head, these last two years have been really great for me. It feels like the culmination of so many years of work is coming into fruition. I haven’t gotten to a high level of fame. I’ve been able to be under the radar for a little bit and do parts that are really different without people pointing me out like “Oh, he’s the guy from that thing...” This may sound snarky, but if a journalist tells you that, they certainly haven’t done their homework. You were raised in the theatre. You have done your research! [Laughs] I’m a writer. I like to investigate. It’s good. Your father is an actor. Did that influence your choice to become one yourself? Yeah, I can’t imagine that it didn’t. There was a time in my teenage years that I didn't want to, but as I get older, I realize how much I owe it to my dad and my unique upbringing. I grew up around all these wild actors, some of them raised me and I have a group of friends that I know since birth who are all the sons and daughters of actors. During the summers I would be the pageboy or the messenger child in plays and eventually we started doing Shakespeare. Starting in the theatre has certainly helped me shape into the actor I’ve become. Who is this actor that you have become? If you could describe him... [Laughs] When you’re doing Shakespeare, you’re exposed to a broad spectrum of human experiences. I hope I’m not sounding pretentious. No, you are not. I played Macbeth in High School. Macbeth, that’s some dark territory. Yes, it was. It requires a lot from you – physically, emotionally, verbally, mentally. It exercises your full capabilities as a human. Once you are exposed to that and you sink your teeth into that, you kind of crave it. You search for roles that will stretch you to those opposite extremes. In the last year you’ve gone from a rising quarterback who finds out that has cancer to a bisexual vampire. The possibilities are endless. There’s something for everyone! Watching you in The Big Short and My All American you see this seamless transformation between characters and you forget the one you had seen before. Oh, thanks! It’s great seeing your versatility. And then you jump to American Horror Story, which is insane. As a writer, I think it’s brilliant. Does it feel like going to a Toy Store everyday? [Laughing] That is a great way to put it! Maybe that should be the next season. American Horror Story: Toy Store. There you go! Tell them to call me. I’m gonna tell Ryan. Being on the show is like being a foodie. The writing is like a delicious meal. Ryan lets you go places that you never really would’ve expected. You’re also a screenwriter, so you get to see the scripts in a different way. Does it have a say in how you choose your work? I think it does. Writing for me was a great creative task for when I wasn’t working as an actor. No one gives you permission to write. There’s so much waiting when you’re an actor; trying to get the job... just waiting for them to tell you to do it. You are at the mercy of so many other factors.You are not as a writer. I mean, eventually you do want to put it out. But, the act of writing can be very creatively liberating. I haven’t in a bit. But I have written more than what I’ve shown. Knowing scriptwriting does help you understand structure. It’s important as an actor to be specific in the moment and be scene by scene. But, if you have a sense of structure, of where the scene fits in a larger whole it does help your performance a lot.That’s the hardest thing about film. Tracking an arch when you are filming so out of sequels. If you’re trying to think of a broader arch and it’s after a scene that you haven’t shot or a scene before or you’re shooting the end of the movie before anything else, it can become a guessing game. Having a sense of the structure of writing helps you fit in whatever you have to do, moment by moment. How long does it take you to memorize a script and prepare for a role from start to finish? I change my method part to part. Before I get into it, I design how I am going to get into it.  For Tristan, in American Horror Story, I was like “This guy needs to be off the cuff. A wild, rabbit animal.” I would walk around the crew, acting like him, fucking people around a bit. I listened to a lot of rock music and I allowed myself to be loose. For My All American, I was more centered. I talked to a lot of people beforehand, including his family, and did a lot of research. I was a little quieter on the set, just slightly more introverted. For Rudolph Valentino’s character in AHS, I developed an Italian accent. For The Big Short, there was a lot of heavy research involved. The writing in The Big Short is so intricate and well done. It’s a great movie for our quick mind, short-tempered attitudes. Or short attention spanned. That was the director’s (Adam McKay) idea, like “What if your pop icons from MTV told you really important stuff?” The scene with Selena Gomez is brilliant. I hope they get a screenplay nomination at the Oscars. [The day after our interview, the Oscar nominations were announced and The Big Short is nominated for five awards, including Writing (Adapted Screenplay).] Yes, I hope so too. Wrapping your head around all the jargon of what those traders do is a very esoteric thing to do, to just move money from place to place which are complicated forms of gambling, basically. There was a lot of work beforehand. The way Adam runs the set is that it’s so loose, so much improv. Lots of laughing, lots of fun. It was that thing that acting teacher’s say, “you prepare and prepare to get to that point where you can be free”. And it was so freeing, it was probably the most fun I had on set. The movie feels like you’ve spent the weekend hanging out with all of your stoner friends. Yeah! [Laughs] Or brilliant entrepreneurs... Is there any political aspect behind your roles? You were also in HBO’s The Normal Heart. You’ve had pretty interesting choices in your work. My ultimate goal is to make movies and be in movies that are socially relevant and have a political consciousness. It’s been mostly luck. I’m not at a point where I have a bunch of scripts in my agent’s desk and I’m like picking and choosing. Most of the stuff, I’m still auditioning for, but I do gravitate towards that material, specially like The Big Short, which was a really political film for me to do and for our time. I really believe in the story behind The Normal Heart. It probably isn’t some unconscious way. I probably do work harder to get those jobs even if I realize that I’m not doing that. If one wants to become an actor, what’s the one thing that they must be willing to let go of? In terms of the business, you have to adopt a sense of patience, which can be excruciating. You don’t have to let go of your ambitions, but you have to allow for your ambitions to not take shape in the form that you envision them. Because it will keep throwing you curve balls. It doesn't mean that it won’t take you to the place that you dream to be, but it will take you longer than what you want and not in the route that you want. So you have to be [stresses it] flexible in a way. Don’t assume your ambitions. Yes. That’s a way to put it. You have to be nimble and know that you’re an actor for the long haul. It’s actually a sport you can do your whole life. It does take a lot of patience and dealing with rejection and kind of getting a tough skin. You need to pick yourself up when you’ve been knocked down and keep going. This applies to all creative fields, whether you’re a writer, a musician. Oh yeah, anything artistic. I mean, on all levels too, even people who are unemployed. Think about Lady Gaga. She has to deal with so many things with herself and every single thing she does there are millions of people who have an opinion about it and she herself has her own set of hard choices to make. There’s a resilience you have to find within yourself when you’re dealing in an industry that just wants to beat you down. It’s interesting that you mention the word resilience. Yesterday I went to buy flowers and I told myself “I want resilient flowers, no more of the romantic kind.” Yes! The ones that last. That’s funny. They say that if you have “it”, there’s a fire inside of you that never really dies. Do you believe in this? Have you had any moments of quitting? To be honest, I’ve never considered giving up. I’ve been pretty low before. But I have been very lucky. I’ve had periods of not working and rejection where I’ve felt very low. I’ve toyed with the idea of what else could I do, but it was never a really serious possibility if I was honest with myself. You have to pick yourself up and keep going. Does being a Scorpio influence your work? [Laughs] Yeah, probably! [Continues laughing] Scorpios are jealous, passionate and sexual, right? Yes. Yes! Yeah, all of those things describe me. I say that I have a Ph.D in Scorpios. That’s why I wanted to ask you. Oh, really?? Ph.D in Scoripios. What?!? (And, in true Scorpio fashion, a challenge...) Who else is a Scorpio? So many people! [Still in awe] Specifically Scorpios? Yes, yes. 90% of my friends are Scorpios. Really??? I’m a Pisces. Mhm... you’re a Pisces... my wife is a Taurus. Scorpio-Taurus are a great mix. Solid couples. By the way, where are you? New York or LA? I’m New York doing a reading workshop of Tennessee William’s play, Orpheus Descent with Marissa Tomei. Erica Schmidt is the brilliant director, who’s married to Peter Dincklage. We reconnected during the Emmy’s and she directed me in a play during my fourth year in Julliard. Full circle. Yeah. I like to keep myself involved in theatre. You stay true to your roots. I do. And doing a play is hard. It takes a lot of you. I live in LA and leave for 3 to 4 months to come do this and you don’t make much or any money, which is fine, but you really have to love being in a play if you have to do that. Run me through the workshop. We work from 11 to 5 and we are rehearsing the play as if we’re gonna do it, but we actually don't. We’re doing a reading on Friday. We’ll see how it goes. Catherine Deneuve said in an interview that she picks her characters because they are an extension of her. Does this happen to you? Have you ever been haunted by a character you’ve portrayed? I guess, I do think that every part is an extension of you. But what I am interested in is extending myself as much as possible; exploring and seeing the parts of myself that I am not as aware of or comfortable with and exploring the uncomfortable, challenging thing. That’s one thing that I keep going for. What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned on set? I’ve learned so much. I remember I was losing a lot of weight to do Unbroken. It was the last time I saw Phillip [Seymor] Hoffman. I wanted to pick his brain for this part, my character dies mid-movie, loses his mind in the raft, I was interested in what he had to say and also, I just wanted to see him. We talked about it and I told him that I was going to start really dieting. And he was like, “You don’t want that physical stuff to overwhelm your entire process.”It was an interesting thing. I think what he was referring to was that a lot of actors think about that physical transformation and that overwhelms the entirety of their performance or, quote-on-quote, transformation that they think that getting big or getting smaller or putting things on their face or their body takes so much work and so much focus away from the actual act of acting and people get kind of caught up in that.Basically, he was saying, you have to do what you have to do, but just remember the person you are actually playing. It was a grounding thing to hear. He gave you a parting gift. He did. He really did. I worked with him the year before he died and this was crazy and that opportunity was really transformational for me. Professionally, it was a big break, but also, artistically, it opened me up in a way. He was a very specific actor and the way he talked about it influenced me in a way that I cannot explain. Originally published in the S/S 2016 issue of Hercules Universal. 

#finn wittrock #interview #interviews #actor #hollywood #ahs hotel #ahs #miggyfiggy #miguel figueroa #hercules #hercules universal

[miggy-figgy]

ALBERT MADAULA

David Hockney once said that “an artist might be attracted to hedonism, but of course, an artist is not a hedonist. He’s a worker, always.” At the ripe age of twenty-nine, Catalan artist Albert Madaula is a prime example of this statement. His portraits of dreamy men, celebrity portraits and still life’s evoke the playfulness of Hockney’s use of color, converging into Elizbeth Peyton’s gloom with a gash of Egon Schiele’s dramatic brushstrokes. But, Madaula’s work does not just limit to the canvas. He’s already published a magazine, shot his first short film, dabbled in photography and modeling. The blue-eyed painter has been at it since he was a child, but for many years he didn’t consider becoming one, because he did not want to follow his father’s footsteps. During our conversation, he told me that his rebellious heart was “trying to break away” from where he came from is part of the cycle. For Maduala, this was a natural process and from it, he was able to find himself through the past. “I used to draw cabins and was very interested in space.” And this led him to study architecture for three months before quitting to become a painter.           He continues, “Images and colors are easier for me. It’s easier for me to explain myself through a pencil rather than through language.” Starting with linear drawing, eventually he felt that he “needed more depth and color. Drawing was not enough.” Through painting he was able to expand his visual language. And what we get is Madaula’s version of his own reality. What his eye sees is not what the viewer may ultimately get. Literal representations “stress” him out. His latest project may be his biggest yet – Maduala is gearing up for his first shows in Hong Kong (solo) and Peking (group), both opening this spring and for them he’s crating new work inspired by tropical hotel culture. “I want to create people during their vacations and how they lose themselves in that hotel world and blend it with wild animals.”           In 2014, he began to experiment with the human savage in his sixteen-minute-long short film, Limón. Set in a bathroom, the film is about the breakdown of a couple. In previous interviews he stated that the reason why he chose to “lock-in” - à la Jean Paul Sartre’s No Exit - the final straw of a relationship, was that you go to the bathroom to “drop, literally, all your shit.” Since its release, Limón has been selected for 11 festivals, including ones in Alberta, Guadalajara and Budapest. The film was created alongside art director Carles Arnan and set designer Cristina Ramos Yeste, who are part of a young generation of Catalan tastemakers that are creating a new set of visual language. “We want to create new products through a common language.” Madaula’s influences include Ricardo Bofill, “for his simplicity of forms and strength of character”; Luis Buñuel’s 1962 film, The Exterminating Angel; and, of course, Pedro Almodóvar’s, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and 1992’s High Heels, Almodóvar’s melodramatic masterpiece about the torrid relationship between a soap opera star and her estranged daughter, a newscaster.           Madaula’s highly in vogue, yet he is not interested in working firsthand in the fashion industry.  “I’ve been very close to it, but I’m also interested in politics.” And, even though that he is now able to sustain himself as a painter, he doesn’t seem to be keen on the solitude behind painting, so he’s setting his energy gearing towards the act of collaboration through film. “Painting is like meditating. I like it. But, I also enjoy some stress. I want to live my work intensely with other people.” What drives him to the séptimo arte is the possibility, like William Klein during his glory days, of being able to include the worlds of politics, social message and fashion all together. “You can criticize everything at the same time.” When it comes to his subjects he looks “for gestures, someone that I like, a sort of flechazo (Cupid’s bow). I like showing off and playing with decadence, which I haven’t really worked that much yet. I also love color and depicting daily life.” Madaula, like many other great artists, is interested in finding subjects that he can represent throughout the passing of time. “I want to grow old with my muses. You can have your emotional partner, but I also need working partners that I can create things with.”

Originally published in the S/S 2016 issue of Hercules Universal

#albert madaula #art #painting #barcelona #hercules universal #miggy figgy #miguel figueroa

[miggy-figgy]

RICARDO BOFILL  (Scroll down for Spanish version)

If the architecture world was compared to Star Wars, Ricardo Bofill would be a Jedi Master, a sort of Obi Wan Kenobi of the world of construction. Bofill is an inspiration, not just to his peers, but to rebellious voices across the world. Expelled from his university, barred from working in his home country, Bofill became an international legend, erecting buildings in every continent across the world. From the W Barcelona to 77 Wacker Drive to his masterpiece, the Walden 7, Bofill’s designs set to change the way we view the world. Our San Juan – Barcelona conversation began chatting about an unfinished project he had design for the capital of Puerto Rico. The now cement infested Convention Center area was originally designed as a seashell like park that would’ve completely transformed the island’s urban planning. But, alas, it made it only to blueprint. For 45 minutes, we had a metaphysical conversation about the creative process, the importance of a nomadic life and why modern architecture, as we know it, is approaching its swan song.  

Ricardo Bofill: You’re living in Puerto Rico? Miguel Figueroa: Yes. I’m back. I lived in Barcelona for four years and three in New York. Like you do, I consider myself a nomad. Ricardo Bofill: [Laughs] The new nomads! MF: Yes, indeed. And very proud of it. RB: I follow the Tuareg’s principles. They were the ancient nomads. We are nomads of the soul. I met them during one of my trips to the Sahara. They are an ancient tribe and I explain in my past essays how they viewed architecture, space, their lifestyle, their intelligence and family customs; as well as other ideas on individualism. They are a matriarchal society; they form their families and leave once more. They don’t know the concept of a “normal” bourgeoisie family. I learnt a lot from them, but those were other times and today there are rules of formalism that do not apply to the Tuareg. It was the most beautiful trip I ever did. Anyways, what are we talking about? MF: I have a series of questions.... RB: Don’t mind me. MF: Why were you expelled from the university? RB: At that time Barcelona was a very sad, grey and ugly city. It was during Franco’s regime and I wanted to change things and change the city. Once I entered the university, we formed the first free labor union for university students. At the time, there was very vertical and Franco-driven union. We thought it was conventional to have one. It was the first labor union in Spain. We had a problem with the police, I was caught, thrown into a jail cell and was forbidden from finishing my career. From there I had to flee and go to Switzerland. MF: Was this the beginning of your nomadic life? RB: Yes, it was. I was very curious to know what was happening in the rest of Europe and in other countries. I worked, studied and jumped back and forth from Geneva to Barcelona. After that, I started the Taller de Arquitectura, which as a multidisciplinary that consisted of more than just architects: there were engineers, poets, writers, philosophers and mathematicians. We were all there to think about other types of architecture. We wanted alternatives to the architecture that was the norm at the time, which was uniquely austere. We thought that we needed an alternative and we thought about other movements that were happening in England and Japan. We wanted to create change through the liberalization of certain customs that were illegal at the time, such as sexual and personal freedoms, as well as a space for different forms of social unions and families. We did projects that broke from the bourgeoisie mold and allowed us to think of a different architecture that was not meant for mom, dad and their two kids. 

There were many possible forms for the community and matrimonies, so the architecture had to be for everybody. Not just small bourgeoisie families. This was the beginning of the Taller de Arquitectura and from there new projects began to surface. We also started to publish books. We got to work and created various examples of architectures that were possibilities. Eventually we did this whole theory of the city within a space from where the Walden 7 was our firstborn. MF: The Walden 7 is a masterpiece. RB: I wanted to create a different community for people and for this there were no promoters, builders, nothing. I had to take care of all the marketing and visibility. We had to create new forms of entrepreneurship. The Walden 7 had no property titles, people participated in certain actions from a society within and the building partners lived in the community. It was a specific democratic theory where at the same time personal freedom was the most important aspect. Homosexuality, abortion and euthanasia were fully and freely allowed.

The architecture had to reflect these ideals and when you’re creating something new, like when we tried to construct a Walden in Madrid, there was police intervention because we were still under the regime and Madrid’s mayor at the time barred me from working in Spain, so, I left once more. I went to France and Algeria. From there, I went to the north and worked from Sweden, all the way back to Africa, making my way through Holland, France, Luxemburg, Spain, Morocco, Senegal and from there, the rest of the world. Canada, Japan, China, the United States and India followed suit. This has allowed me to have a completely different vision from most people in the world. When you’re a nomad, and you should understand this, sometimes you feel isolated because you have problems with the people closest to you due to their endogamy. MF: Absolutely. After being away for seven years, you return wanting to educate and change your country.     RB: Yes, yes. That’s exactly what happened during my life journey. You always have to travel. It’s a different lifestyle. It has its pros and cons. The good thing is that you’re always curious to know and work in a new continent. If you want to be an architect, you have to learn the social, political, economical and cultural problems. They are all different. You have a polyhedral view of the world because you see it as a ball. You’re in a specific place, looking at the rest of it. You can be in New York, but you’re thinking about what’s happening in Africa. I remember the first building we built in Chicago. It was a 200 million dollar building and I thought, “This is the national debt of an African country.”  Through architecture you learn at the same time about the differences between scale and magnitude, but also about a country’s culture, its buildings, streets and human behavior. You see people and their culture as they are. The world gets smaller and smaller and we need to be wary of all the climate change. Everything is becoming so relative, but then you visit China, learn their culture from within and encounter these cultures that are over four thousand years old, speak two languages, have their own traditions and way of progressing. In every place there is a totalitarian vision that is different and it’s difficult to talk about it with other people except those who are like you and singers. Young people nowadays love to travel and it’s easier for me to talk to you guys than with a typical, bourgeoisie Catalan family. MF: It can be tough to talk to people from my generation who’ve taken the petit bourgeoisie route. I’m 32 and starting to see two roads ahead; one that’s nomadic and can be very lonely at times. Sometimes I talk with specific artists who have given up already at my age and I can’t fathom the idea of quitting. RB: When you choose a life like this one, you have to deal with loneliness. You must have an intense and important personal life and you must have an objective. What I’ve done – and I don’t know if it’s been the correct thing or not – has been to project my future, more tan reminisce, be nostalgic or bickering about what’s happening around me... MF: ... that’s awful... RB: It is awful! [Laughs] You must always have new projects, especially life projects; scope your next couple of years, plan what you want to do and how you can renovate yourself. Being authentic to yourself is not the same as being pretentious. At the end of the day you are visualizing your life ahead and the projects you want to build. MF: Seems that an architect’s life mirrors that of a writer or a filmmaker. How is the Taller de Arquitectura still going on? RB: Yes, my son is in charge with a new team. We work in different parts of the world and continue to work in China, India and the United States. It’s very important to have projects and complete them. MF: I returned to Puerto Rico for that; to finish projects that are pending and until I finish them, I’m not going anywhere. RB: You’re doing the right thing. The relationship you have with your family and the relationship that you have with the people from your country when you are a person like you are is more difficult as you go to places and travel, you notice how people tend to repeat themselves. They are caged in a circle, talk about the same things and at the end of it, they’ve been blabbering as if time stood still. What are you working on? MF: I’m writing my first novel. RB: Did you feel free in Barcelona? MF: Yes, I did. I’m really happy that I chose to live in the Old World before moving to New York. It’s that passing of time, what you were mentioning about China, which never helped to settle into the United States. It’s such a young country. RB: At least New York is an open, cosmopolitan city. If you go to other parts of the country, the xenophobia and prejudice that run rampant in the deep parts of the United States... MF: The thing is that New York is a bubble within the American mass. RB: The good thing about understanding the world is that it gives you a different way of seeing it. I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but you have a vision if the world that’s more global and a sharp perception of how people are. You have superior intelligence. You understand why we have wars and change needs is imperative. You understand why we revolt and there are discrepancies within societies. Now with all the climate change we’ve started to notice that there is only world, and if we don’t do something about, the results will be catastrophic. MF: It’s our only home. RB: These are difficult times if you’re an optimist or not. If the world ends or continues is difficult to have a perspective about it if you live in a world that is so self destructive and if humans are going to destroy themselves the way things are going now. It’s a type of uncertainty that’s been generalized and politically it’s starting to take notice in an international level. MF: There are so many changes. Not only climatic, but also political. RB: Information, new technologies, further class distinctions. We are swimming in world topics that bring great uncertainty and the changes prove that the 21st century will be very different from the 20th. MF: We can’t escape the gender revolution. What is male? What is female?RB: In a civilized society this shouldn’t be a problem because there are no distinctions. It’s all a mix. To certain degrees, we all have a masculine and feminine side. But, try getting an alpha male to understand this... complicated, but... [Both laugh] MF: As long as you understand it personally, the journey is set. It’s all about educating. RB: As you get older, you realize that time begins to shrink. You notice that death is not important. With age come a whole other set of new problems regarding the relationship between space and time that become very important and fundamental. MF: How does this reflect in your personal work? Do you feel the necessity to leave a legacy or do you see it as a continuum of humanity? RB: Well... You’re also a small molecule in the whole of the earth, aren’t you? And you also take part in its surroundings. This is also changing, but you maintain your basic, essential and original ideas. At the same time you become less utopist because you mix different utopias. I’ve tried to build them and it’s impossible. Sometimes I’ve ended up in the wrong side of the tracks and you become more realistic and you simply want to build the best things possible. But, the construction of your work is intertwined with the construction of your own personality. MF: Absolutely. RB: The work that you do – in your case, writing – is an extension of your personality and it must be built at the same time that your work is growing. You have to be your toughest critic. I’m not interested in people who are satisfied with what they do. I like it when people change and they do one thing and another. I always discuss Picasso and Miró as an example of this. Look at Picasso; he was constantly changing because he was never content and constantly wanted to change. Picasso wanted to change his own culture. He was his toughest critic. Meanwhile, Miró, always did the same thing and went deep into it, but his world was quite reduced. MF: Picasso’s plurality is impeccable. RB: Of course, Picasso was a painter who was constantly changing. Not being contempt with yourself is what makes you change and modify your ways. You have to be your toughest critic. In the long run, what other people say about you does not matter that much. What counts is your own criticism and your necessity to create and continue doing so. Creativity is linked to your personality. Creativity is constantly looking forward to your next project and criticizing for the way that you are. You have to try not to modulate your way of being. You need to construct yourself somehow. With your head you are able to construct your personality.  MF: Some people forget they have that power. RB: Yes, everyone does. I learnt it from my mother as a child. Everyone, from a shoemaker, to an engineer, a thinker, a philosophers... even Einstein and Newton had levels of creativity. But, everyone can be creative. One who puts his capacities to good use, does an activity well or has an ample capacity for abstraction and can generate mathematical or formulas from physics that are very complicated. We all have the creative capacity, and the need to keep learning and searching for new things. Isn’t that so? MF: I’d like to go into film eventually. RB: You have to be really specific with your steps. At your age, I also had different perspectives of things that I wanted to do. For a while I wanted to do film, then I wanted to become a psychiatrist and then I went through a politics phase. But, this is risky because when you jump from one discipline to another, your work offers diminish. Sometimes, you have to set yourself on a specific path. Keep writing. Write, write, write. This will eventually lead you one day to do film. MF: This is a great piece of advice. Thank you so much. RB: [Laughs] Now, don’t get nervous. You have to dive into your work and from there dive deeper into it and automatically your literature will be transformed into some sort of image. Many of the things you do as a writer will help you somehow, someway to do other things in the future. MF: Do you write often? RB: I do, but poorly or in a very disorderly manner. I don't like writing neither stories nor even writing about myself. I like to scribble my thoughts or try to write and formulate through words or ideas. I like that. MF: You’ve said that being in the military was worse than being in jail? RB: [Laughs] Yes, I did. Luckily, I was stationed in a beautiful unit in an isle outside Menorca. The scenery was beautiful, the light changed and the contrast between the earth and the sea was precious. But that type of order made me really nervous. I get claustrophobic if I have to do a line to do anything. For me, it was really difficult and when I could, I would sneak out for an hour to watch the sea and admire the earth. It was a short, but, torturous period. And yes, I said it was worse than being in jail, because, at least there you can hang out in your cell, laying down, thinking about your ideas and you are not so obliged to do be part of those formations that gave me severe claustrophobia. MF: I don’t get it. You’re an architect and architecture is about control, unity. RB: From an artistic point of view, architecture is the space. The difference between these arts, the construction of the space is the profound sentiment that’s architecture and I’ve always felt in tune with the space. I built architecture for the natural enjoyment of the space. I’ve never been into artificial spaces. A space makes you understand where you are, how you are going to react and look around it. Architecture teaches you to broaden your horizons. Unlike a painter, who focuses on a specific spot, we look at the 180. We really open our eyes and see the space, its object, and people within it and how they move through it. MF: Architecture can affect ones psyche. RB: Yes, yes. Back then; we used to do psychiatric tests with people who had psychological problems. We would record them and study them afterwards to analyze their reaction to the space and how it conditioned them. Through these tests we were able to understand how you can diminish someone by just the space that they inhabit. That’s why it’s important to change and to travel, to broaden your personality. MF: Nowadays a nomadic life is rare. The internet has made everyone so comfortable, that they barely go out of their homes anymore. How do you guys see this challenge at the Taller de Arquitectura in order to visualize the future? RB: We are trying to understand this new era. It’s an important change. Here in Europe, we are returning to the 1930s. There’s a sort of regression to that decade through the great European economic crisis, as well as with the recession, the technological changes, the Internet and all the new theories on information. This is creating a really strong process of change for the beginning of a new century. To a certain point, we are re-starting certain elements from the 20th century. It’s all cyclical, going back to what it was and in a certain way and in new cultures, as you mentioned earlier, it affects the way people mesh together through computers and telephones. Therefore, ways of living are changing.

There’s an unbalance between endogamy and globalization, as if both of them were two totally opposing vectors stressed against each other. We are living in an era of very rapid changes and discovering these and recognizing them makes it complicated to know where we are going and more so if there seems to be a very destructive vision that looks at men as we were back to the 18th century; the destroyer, the animal who could fix things is creating an atmosphere of doubt and antagonist psychosis. What's happening today is really schizophrenic. These antagonisms converge and depend on the moment. If you can be severely realistic you can live, observe and have fun trying to understand these changes. It’s more difficult than ever to make predictions and have a perspective in this moment than it was during the past century. MF: Do you see this as a challenge? RB: It is. When you are older, you can only imagine that you will find young people that are going to live through this and will be able to understand it and participate of the process. Of course it’s a challenge. Knowledge, understanding the world and yourself within this changing world and what is your position in it is the main challenge to understand de the construction of personalities nowadays. MF: I have a lot of young architect friends who’ve had traumatic divorces with the field. RB: The thing is that architecture of auteur, to a certain extent, is extinct. These are other times and architects now focus so much on the work, but aren’t able to express themselves. Firms are just a bunch of initials. They can't express their personalities. The world is too complex and the profession has become a certain type of partnership like lawyers. Arquitectura de autor... there’s so little left. And there’s even less in developed countries like the United States. Architects are now grommets inside a machine that’s fed by speculation, promotion, and marketing and within all of that lies the highly specialized architect. The architect per se, he who can start and finish a project is becoming extinct quickly. MF: Why have we reached such a definitive and final moment? RB: Well, because you build for people when society has the need to construct a determined model of society. France was built during the 18th century, Italy during the Renaissance and in China, lately, so much has been built but without an architect’s passion. Their drive is disappearing. They’ve become employees of money and power and this is how you lose your personality and your capacity for expression. MF: Is there any outlet that’s still available for freedom of expression and for being able to create some sort of change in the world? RB: I believe in the individualistic work of a writer, a painter or a thinker. These are people who are thinking about other places, other countries and currents that can speak certain languages and may converge in a common project. This is possible for someone who has the desires and ambitions that you have. Individualization and internationality, at the same time, are the way to go. That’s why I think you are in the correct path. At the end, your desire is not for money, nor fame or fortune. It becomes a specific necessity that’s related to creativity. Without your self, you are not capable of achieving this. MF: This is not a deal you do with the devil. It’s a pact you have with your own self.   RB: Yes, that’s true.

En Español 

Ricardo Bofill: ¿Ahora vives en Puerto Rico?

Miguel Figueroa: Sí. He vuelto, estuve cuatro años en Barcelona y tres en Nueva York. Al igual que usted, me considero un nómada.

RB: [Se ríe] ¡Los nuevos nómadas!

MF: Sí, sí. Muy orgulloso de serlo.

RB: Sigo la teoría de los Tuareg, que son los antiguos nómadas, frente a los nuevos nómadas, que somos los del alma. De todos los viajes que he hecho en mi vida, llegué a conocer a los Tuareg, que son los hombres que del desierto del Sahara. Era un grupo étnico muy antiguo y explicaba como ellos veían la arquitectura, el espacio, el modo de vida que tenían, la inteligencia, las costumbres familiares, al igual que otras ideas sobre el individualismo. Era una sociedad de matriarcado, formaban sus familias y volvían a marchar. No había una familia burguesa “normal”. En fin, explicaba todas estas cosas. Yo aprendí mucho de esta gente, pero estaba en otra época y en ésta hay unas normas de formalismo que en respecto a los Tuareg, que era el sitio más bello que había visitado. En fin, ¿de qué vamos a hablar?

MF: Tengo aquí una serie de preguntas.

RB: Pues tú mismo.

MF: ¿Por qué lo expulsan de la universidad?

RB: Era una época que Barcelona era muy triste, gris y fea. Eran los años del franquismo y había muy poco interés por ella. Cuando fui a la Universidad, empecé a enterarme de lo que ocurría. Tenía ganas de cambiar las cosas y de cambiar la ciudad. Al entrar a la universidad, formamos el primer sindicato libre de universitarios. En ese momento había un sindicato muy vertical y franquista solamente. Era muy convencional para nosotros y creamos un sindicato. Fue el primero de España. Hubo un incidente con la policía, me cogieron, me metieron al calabozo y me prohibieron terminar mi carrera. De ahí, me tuve que marchar y de ahí me fui para Suiza.

MF: ¿Este fue el comienzo de su nomadismo?

RB: Sí. Estaba muy curioso de saber lo que sucedía en el resto de Europa y otros países. Trabajaba, estudiaba, saltaba de Ginebra a Barcelona. Luego de esto, empecé el Taller de Arquitectura, que era un grupo interdisciplinario y no eran solo arquitectos. Habían ingenieros, poetas, escritores, filósofos, matemáticos para pensar en otras arquitecturas. Queríamos alternativas a la arquitectura que se estaba haciendo en aquel momento, que era una muy única y pobre. Pensabamos que necesitábamos una alternativa y pensamos en el mismo momento en los otros movimientos que estaban ocurriendo alrededor del mundo; estaba el grupo Archigram que quería cambiar la arquitectura a través de la tecnología. En Japón, estaban unos metabolistas y nosotros pensamos que había que cambiar a través de la liberalizar las costumbres que eran ilícitas en ese momento, como la libertad sexual, la personal, la de familias y uniones. Hacíamos proyectos que rompían con la célula burguesa familiar. Esto nos permitía pensar en una arquitectura distinta donde no había la típica mamá, papá y dos hijos.

 Habían muchas formas posibles de comunidad, matrimonios, así que la arquitectura había que hacerla para todo el mundo. No sólo para familias pequeñas burguesas. Este fue el principio del Taller de Arquitectura y de ahí comenzaron los proyectos a surgir. Comenzamos a publicar libros y a trabajar. Hicimos varios ejemplos de arquitecturas que eran posibilidades. Eventualmente hicimos toda una teoría de la ciudad en el espacio de la cual el Walden es un hijo de ese momento histórico.

MF: El Walden es una obra maestra.

RB: Yo quería hacer una comunidad distinta de gente y para esto no había ni promotores ni constructores ni nada, así que me tuve que ocupar de toda la gestión, de hacerlo visible y para esto había que crear unas formas empresariales nuevas. El Walden no tenía propiedad, la gente participaba de acciones de una sociedad y los mismos socios pertenecían a la comunidad. Era una especie de teoría democrática al mismo tiempo donde todas las libertades personales eran lo más importante. Permitíamos la homosexualidad, el aborto y la eutanasia.

 La arquitectura quería reflejar estas ideas y cuando se trata de crear, lo que hicimos con el Walden en Madrid, hubo una intervención de la policía porque estaban todavía en época franquista y otra vez, el antiguo alcalde de Madrid me prohibió trabajar en España, así que volví a salir. De ahí me fui a Francia y Argelia para trabajar. Después ya me fui para el norte y trabajé todo el eje norte-sur de Suecia hasta África, pasando por Holanda y Francia, Luxemburgo, Holanda, España, Marruecos, Senegal y de ahí, el resto del Mundo. Canadá, Japón, China, Estados Unidos e India. Esto me ha dado una visión completamente distinta de la que tiene la gente del mundo. Cuando eres un nómada, como tu, a veces te sientes aislado, porque tienes problemas con la gente más próxima que la encuentras un poco endogámica.

MF: Absolutamente. Luego de estar siete años fuera regresas con ganas de cambiarlo todo para educar y crecer.

RB: Sí, sí. Es exactamente lo que sucedió en ese recorrido que yo había tenido en mi vida. Tienes que ir viajando siempre. Es una vida distinta. Tiene sus ventajas e inconvenientes. Lo bueno es que siempre estás con curiosidad de conocer un continente, trabajar en él. Y si quieres hacer arquitectura, te tienes que enterar de los temas sociales, políticos, económicos y culturales de cada país distinto. Tienes una visión del mundo poliédrica porque lo ves como una bola. Estás en un punto mirando al resto de ella. Por ejemplo, estás en Nueva York y estás pensando en lo que está sucediendo en África. Yo recuerdo el primer edificio que construí en Chicago. Costó $200 millones y pensaba “esta es la deuda de un país africano.” La diferencias de escalas y magnitudes al mismo tiempo, a través de la arquitectura, aprendes de la cultura de un lugar, los edificios, las calles, los comportamientos de la gente. Ves como la gente es, que cultura tiene. Cuando estás en Chicago y ves el mundo, ,o miras de una manera que cuando estás en África, en Sengal. Lo vez de otro cuando estás en China, en Pekín, lo ves de otro. El mundo se torna más pequeño. Una bola pequeña y que es lo que está pasando ahora con todo el cambio climático. Todo se relativiza mucho. Cuando vas a la China y ves esas culturas que tienen cuatro mil años detrás de ellos, que tienen doble lenguaje y toda la tradición y una manera de progresar, entiendes las culturas desde adentro. En cada lugar tienes una visión de la totalidad que es distinta que es un poco difícil hablar con gente excepto con los que viajan muchos que son como tu y como los cantantes. La gente jóven hoy en día viaja muchísimo y se me hace más fácil hablar con vosotros que con una familia burguesa, catalana, típica...

MF: Puede ser duro también con la gente joven que se ha aburguesado rápidamente. A mis 32 años comienzo a ver dos caminos; el mío, nomádico, que puede ser muy solitario y trato de hablar con ciertos artistas que se han rendido ya a mi edad y yo lo veo como algo imposible. No nos podemos rendir.

RB: Cuando se escoge una vida así, hay que aguantar la soledad y tener una vida propia intensa e importante y hay que tener un objetivo. Yo lo que he hecho – y no sé si ha sido lo correcto o no – ha sido proyectar toda mi vida, más que recordar, ser nostálgico, sentimental o quejarse de lo que te ocurre alrededor...

MF: ... eso es fatal...

RB: ¡Es fatal! [Se ríe] Hay que tener siempre proyectos nuevos. Proyectos de vida, de cómo van a ser los próximos años, de cómo lo quieres hacer, de cómo te puedes renovar. Ser muy auténtico contigo mismo no es ser pretencioso. En el fondo te está proyectando hacia delante y hacia los proyectos que quieres construir.

MF: La vida de un arquitecto se parece mucho a la de un escritor o un cineasta. ¿Continúa el taller?

RB: Continúa. Lo sigue mi hijo, con gente nueva. Trabajamos en distintas partes del mundo. Construimos trabajando en la China, la India y los Estados Unidos. Es importante tener proyectos y completarlos.

MF: Yo regresé a Puerto Rico por eso, para terminar proyectos que tengo pendientes y hasta que no los termine, no me voy.

RB: Haces bien. La relación familiar y la relación que tienes con la gente de tu país cuando eres una persona así, se hace más difícil porque cuando vas a los sitios, vas viajando a lugares, tu ves que la gente se repite mucho, están encerrados en un círculo y hablan de las mismas cosas y al cabo de un tiempo, están igual, hablando de lo mismo, de las mismas cosas como si no hubiese cambiado el tiempo y están encerrados en el mismo rollo, la misma temática... ¿Tú que estás haciendo?

MF: Estoy escribiendo mi primera novela.

RB: ¿Te sentías libre en Barcelona?

MF: Sí. Muy. Estoy contento que decidí vivir en el Viejo Mundo antes que en Nueva York. Ese sentir del paso del tiempo, lo que mencionaba sobre la China, es lo que me sucedió cuando viví en los Estados Unidos. Sentía que era un país demasiado joven.

RB: Al menos Nueva York es una ciudad cosmopolita y abierta. Si te vas a otras partes del país, con la xenofobia y los prejuicios que hay en la América profunda...

MF: Nueva York es una burbuja dentro de la gran masa estadounidense.

RB: Lo bueno es que el conocimiento del mundo te da una manera de ver que es distinta. Yo no sé si es mejor o peor, tienes una visión del mundo que es más global y una percepción de quien es la gente. Te da una inteligencia superior. Entiendes el porque de las guerras y de los cambios. El porque de las revoluciones y las desigualdades. Mira, ahora con el cambio climático se han dado cuenta que el mundo es único y si no se hace algo, se va a estropear todo.

MF: Es nuestro hogar.

RB: Es muy difícil sobre todo si eres optimista o no. Si este mundo se acaba o continua, es muy difícil tener una perspectiva si vives en un mundo tan autodestructivo  y si la especia humana se va a destruir o si va a tener la posibilidad de seguir unos años así. Es una especia de incertidumbre que se está generalizando y que políticamente ya se habla de esto internacionalmente.

MF: Son muchos cambios. No sólo el climático, si no también el político.

RB: La informática, las nuevas tecnologías, nuevas divisiones entre pobres y ricos. Estamos llenos de temas y subtemas que dan incertidumbre y hay cambios que demuestran que el siglo XXI es muy distinto al XX.

MF: No podemos olvidar el género. ¿Qué es masculino? ¿Qué es femenino?

RB: Esto ya en una sociedad civilizada no tiene valor porque no hay esa distinción. Es un tipo de mix. Todos tenemos una parte masculina y una parte femenina en mayor o menor medida. Y esto, que lo entienden los machos alfa, a veces es complicado, pero... [Ambos se ríen]

MF: Mientras uno lo entienda personalmente, el camino está hecho. Es cuestión de educar.

RB: A pesar del tiempo, cuando te haces mayor, te das cuenta que el tiempo se acorta. Te das cuenta que la muerte no es importante. Con la edad aparecen otras problemáticas nuevas sobre la relación entre el espacio y el tiempo que se vuelven fundamentales y muy importantes.

MF: ¿Cómo se refleja esa evolución en el trabajo personal? Siente la necesidad de dejar un legado lo ve como un continuo en el discurso de la humanidad?

RB: Bueno, ¿tú eres una pequeña molécula en parte del mundo, no? Y formas parte de lo que te rodea. Esto va cambiando también, pero mantienes tus ideas básicas, esenciales y originales. Al mismo tiempo te vuelves menos utópico porque mezclas utopías. Yo he tratado de construirlas y es imposible. A veces he acabado mal y te vuelves un poco más realista y un poco más que quieres construir lo mejor de lo posible. Pero, la construcción del trabajo, está ligada a la construcción de tu propia personalidad.

MF: Absolutamente.

RB: El trabajo, lo que haces, en tu caso, escribir, creando proyector o firmas y tu propia personalidad tienen que ir construyéndose al mismo tiempo. Además, tienes que tener una crítica muy seria contigo mismo. Para mi, la gente que está satisfecha con lo que hace, pues no me gusta mucho. Me gusta la gente cuando cambia, cuando hace una cosa u otra. Yo siempre doy el caso de Picasso y Miró, por ejemplo. Picasso cambiaba todo el rato y es un artista que me gusta mucho porque no estaba contento nunca y continuamente quería cambiar. Picasso quería cambiar su propia cultura. Era muy crítico consigo mismo. Sin embargo, Miró siempre hacía lo mismo y profundizaba muy bien, pero su mundo era muy reducido.

MF: La pluralidad de Picasso es impecable.

RB: Claro, Picasso era un pintor que siempre estaba cambiando. No estar contigo mismo es lo que hace que cambies y modifiques. Tienes que ser crítico contigo mismo. La crítica de los demás cuesta poco con el tiempo. Lo que cuenta es tu propia crítica y tu necesidad de crear y seguir creando. La creatividad va ligada a la personalidad. La creatividad es estar constantemente mirando hacia delante, tu próximo trabajo, ser crítico contigo mismo por tu propia manera de ser. Hay que intentar no modular tu propia manera de ser. Tu mismo construyéndote al mismo modo de alguna manera. Con tu cabeza construyes tu propia personalidad.

MF: Algunas personas olvidan que todos poseemos ese poder de construcción.

RB: Sí, todo el mundo lo tiene y esto es algo que yo aprendí de mi madre cuando era pequeño. Desde una fabricadora de zapatos, un ingeniero, un pensador, un filósofo... hasta Einstein o Newton para poner ejemplos, hay niveles de creatividad. Pero todo el mundo puede ser creativo. El que hace muy buen uso de sus capacidades, hace un actividad muy bien o tiene una capacidad de abstracción más amplia y puede generar fórmulas matemáticas o físicas que son muy complicadas. Todos tenemos esta capacidad creativa y de seguir aprendiendo y seguir buscando cosas nuevas, ¿no?

MF: Eventualmente me quiero dedicar al cine.

RB: Con esto tienes que tener mucho cuidado. Yo a tu edad tenía distintas perspectivas adelante. En un momento quise hacer cine, en otro me gustó la psiquiatría, luego la política. Pero, tiene un riesgo porque cuando saltas mucho de una disciplina a otra la oferta profesional disminuye un poco. A veces, te tienes que colocar un techo, como una posibilidad en una determinada disciplina y ves que fue dentro de esta disciplina, sigues siendo escritor, escribiendo y escribiendo. De alguna manera esto te llevará un día a poder realizar cine.

MF: Es un gran consejo. Muchas gracias.

RB: [Se ríe] No hay que ponerse nervioso. Hay que estar dentro de tu trabajo y luego de eso profundizar en tu trabajo y automáticamente te saldrá a través de la literatura el trabajo sobre la imagen. Mucho de lo que haces a través de la escritura, te servirá después para hacer otra cosa.

MF: ¿Escribe a menudo?

RB: Sí. Escribo bastante pero de una manera desordenada o mal. No me gusta escribir historias ni mi propia biografía. Me gusta escribir mis pensamientos o intentar escribir y formular a través de la palabra o ideas. Esto me gusta.

MF: Ha dicho que estar en la milicia es peor que estar en la cárcel.

RB: [Se ríe] Sí. Pero tuve suerte que acabé en un sitio precioso. Estaba en un cuartel en una de las islas alrededor de Menorca. Había un paisaje maravilloso, de cambios de luz y contrastes entre la tierra y el mar que eran preciosos. Pero ese tipo de orden me pone muy nervioso. Me entraba claustrofobia estar en cola para hacer cualquier cosa. Para mi era muy difícil y cuando podía me escapaba una hora para mirar el cielo y el mar. Fue una época corta pero bastante torturante. Y sí, decía que era más agobiante que estar en la cárcel, porque a pesar de estar en la celda puedes tener ideas, quedarte tumbado y no estar tan obligado a hacer esas colas que me daban ataques de claustrofobia.

MF: Pero usted es arquitecto y la arquitectura es sobre el control, la unidad.

RB: Desde el punto de vista artístico, la arquitectura es el espacio. A diferencia con las artes, la construcción del espacio es el sentido profundo de la arquitectura y yo tenía ese sentido con el espacio. Yo hice arquitectura por la emoción ante el espacio fuese natural, no artificial ni construido. Entiende como estás, como te comportas en determinados espacios y como miras. La arquitectura te enseña a mirar con un ángulo más amplio. Miramos 180 grados. No es como un pintor que mira a un punto determinado. Nosotros miramos con los ojos muy abiertos y ves el espacio, los objetos, las personas dentro de éste y como se mueven.

MF: La arquitectura afecta la psiquis de una persona.

RB: Sí, sí. En esa época hacíamos pruebas con psiquiatras y personas que tenían trastornos psíquicos. Los grabábamos y los estudiábamos para analizar la reacción en el espacio y como condiciona a la persona. Nos explicaba como cuando una persona está en un espacio le puedes reducir su personalidad. Mientras que cambiar y viajar amplía tu personalidad.

MF: Y qué piensa de hoy en día cuando el nomadismo se ve como algo raro. La gente, por el Internet, cada vez está más cómoda, no salen de sus casas ni para comprar el pan. ¿Ustedes en el Taller de Arquitectura lo ven como un reto para visualizar el futuro?

RB: En este momento, estamos tratando de intentar de entender este cambio de época. Es un cambio importante. Aquí en Europa hay un regreso a los años 30 del siglo pasado. Hay una especie de regresión a lo que fue esa década con la gran crisis económica europea, con la recesión, los cambios tecnológicos, del Internet y las nuevas teorías de la información. Todo esto está haciendo que el mundo esté en un proceso de cambio fuertísimo en el cual están iniciando el siglo XXI. Se está de cierta manera reiniciando ciertos elementos del siglo XX. Es cíclico, vuelve a lo que había sido, en algún modo  y en nuevas culturas es relativamente nuevo como dices tu que afecta la manera de unir la gente por los ordenadores y los teléfonos y por ende, cambian los modos de vida.

 Existe la desigualdad entre globalidad y endogamia, como si se estresaran dos vectores totalmente opuestos. Estamos viviendo en una época de cambios muy rápidos y que al descubrirlo y reconocerlo es complicado saber a dónde vas y a veces se tiene una visión muy destructiva y se piensa que el hombre es como en el S. XVIII, un hombre más destructor o un animal que podía arreglar las cosas; es esta especie de situación de duda y psicosis antagónica. Es muy esquizofrénico lo que está sucediendo de alguna manera. Son unas antagónicas que confluyen y que dependen del momento con una posición más realista so severa puedes vivirla, observarla y divertirte intentando ver este cambio. Es más difícil que nunca hacer predicciones y tener perspectiva en estos momentos que en el siglo pasado.

MF: ¿Lo ve como un reto?

RB: Lo es. Porque cuando eres mayor, solo puedes imaginarte que vas a encontrar jóvenes que lo van a vivir más tiempo y que lo pueden entender y participar. Por supuesto que es un reto. El conocimiento y entender el mundo y entenderte dentro de este mundo que cambia y cual es tu posición en él es el principal reto para entender la construcción de la personalidad.

MF: Tengo muchas amistades que son arquitectos jóvenes y han tenido una ruptura traumática con el oficio.

RB: La cosa es que la arquitectura de autor, de alguna manera, se ha terminado. Es casi de otra época y ahora los arquitectos no más que participan de una forma para trabajar, pero no pueden expresarse. Los arquitectos de hoy en día se llaman por letras. Los arquitectos ya no pueden expresar su personalidad. El mundo es demasiado complejo, la profesión se ha vuelto un tipo de partnership como los abogados y por ende, la arquitectura de autor... queda muy poca. Y queda menos en países desarrollados como los Estados Unidos. Los arquitectos son rotitos de una máquina donde está la especulación, la promoción, el marketing y dentro de esto, entra el arquitecto que está muy especializado. El arquitecto generalista que pueda hacer un proyecto entero se está terminando muy rápidamente.

MF:¿Y por qué estamos llegando a un momento tan definitivo y final?

RB: Bueno, porque se construye para la gente cuando la sociedad tiene ganas de construir un determinado modelo de sociedad. En Francia, se construyó en el S. XVIII, en Italia, durante el Renacimiento, y en China, últimamente se ha construido muchísimo y con mucha pasión cuando ya no está, el arquitecto está desapareciendo mucho y se vuelve un empleado del dinero y del poder y pierde su personalidad y capacidad de expresión.

MF: ¿Queda en algún medio esa expresión para la libertad y para poder crear algún tipo de cambio en el mundo?

RB: Yo creo mucho en los trabajos individuales de un escritor, un pintor o un pensador, que son individuos pensando en otros de otras lugares, de otros países y corrientes que puedan hablar cierto lenguaje y puedan tener algún proyecto en común. Creo que se puede hacer para alguien que tiene las ganas y la ambición que tienes. La individualización y la internacionalización, al mismo tiempo, son las vías. Creo que en esto tiene razón como te lo has planteado. Al final, las ganas no son por dinero, ni por estatus ni por fama. Se vuelve una especie de necesidad que está relacionada con esta creatividad. Sin ti, al final, no eres capaz de hacerlo.

MF: Es un pacto con uno mismo.

RB: Sí, sí. 

#Architecture #architect #ricardo bofill #hercules universal #nacho alegre #miggy figgy

[miggy-figgy]

Miquel Vaquer and The New Wine Revolution Photos by: Daniel Riera

Miquel Vaquer is a true example of the eternal adage that is “You can’t judge a book by it’s cover.” For this six-foot-tall-very-handsome-and-oh-so-mediterranean-and-Spanish-poncho-wearing-leggings-rocking-cowboy-hattin’-have-you-seen-my-newest-sample-from-Bernard-Willhelm wine is a serious family business that dates over 100 years. In the past four years he’s turned his family cellar, Casa Mariol, from classic to a new design that stops even the biggest wine un-enthusiast dead in it’s tracks. For him, “Good wine is just as important as a well built dress, a nice perfume, an exquisite meal, and great music.” I recently caught up with him at one of his favorite Barcelona restaurants, El Noti, for a power lunch (finished with cotton candy ice cream) right before his first Casa Mariol Ambition Tour of the United States where we discussed all things vino.

Are you making a wine revolution? I think we’re definitely starting something. Perhaps our 2010 collection does not show the full extent of what we want to achieve, but it is certainly the beginning of a change in the wine industry. For us it’s very important to experiment and we want to start a new culture inside the wine industry. Ever since JO! came out in 2008 we’ve embarked on creating the types of wines we would like to see in our favorite wine shops.

And what would that favorite wine shop be like? It would be a place where the consumers could make a logical purchasing decision and be themselves. Products would speak to consumers on a one-to-one basis, where you’ll know every specific detail of the product, but not necessarily have a PhD in wine history. Although I believe that it is necessary to know at least the basics about wines just as you know about cooking, fashion, meteorology or even astrophysics. Everything is important, but we can’t expect for our costumers to be experts on wine because not even the Industry insiders are. We like to go beneath the surface of our Clients, who are bombarded by hundreds, or maybe even thousands of wine labels that all are selling the same image and that is “we are the best wine out there”, to know what they want.

So what does Casa Mariol tell it’s costumers that is so different? We don’t want our customer to be intimidated by our wines. Choosing wine should be as simple as picking marmalade for your morning toast. Our Company has always created wines that are for daily consumption. Good wine, nonetheless, but ever changing. We come from Terra Alta, a known fertile region of wine producers in Spain, which served as suppliers of grapes and wines to other companies.

How many grapes are harvested each year in your vineyard? About 25 million kilos of grapes each year.

How was it growing up in a vineyard? It’s funny that you asked that because everyone is always asking me how was it growing up during the harvest in the vineyard, but I was never there cutting up the grapes. To me the harvest season was working on the cellars, receiving the crops for up to a month and from there we would produce the wine.

But you would visit during harvest, right? Of course, we would go supervise and tell the farmers when the grapes, which have to be perfectly ripe with the right amount of sugar, would be ready for picking.

Which is the harvest month? September. During Winter everything is dead, now in Spring everything comes into bloom; flowers will blossom and from these a small grape will appear that will lead to more leaves and flowers that will grow into full robust trees that are ready for it’s September harvest. These grapes will turn into must than in just a couple of weeks it will become wine, but it does take up to 5 months to produce a suitable and sellable young wine. How is the aging process for your wines? They’re placed in oak barrels from 6 to 24 months depending on the time we see fit that this wine needs to be there. From the barrels it goes into the bottles that then are also left to settle for a while. 

When did you start working there with your family? As long as I can remember! I spent every summer cleaning up wine bottles. My parents would prop me up on a stool and place me on the assembly line to place the neck covers on every bottle.

Did you always want to work in the wine industry? No. For many years I worked as a journalist and as a scriptwriter for television programs. I left for Boarding School at the age of 13 after there were some sort of strikes that had canceled school for many weeks. I was very happy to leave for it because I longed to go into a Boarding School, even though I was privileged for living in my small town of Batea. Even to this day, I enjoy going back on weekends, and spending Saturday mornings in the farm with my father. Tradition is very important to me. All of my childhood friends are now proud farmers who are taking care of the land.

After Boarding School I went into my Bachelors in Humanities majoring in Audiovisual Communications because I wanted to work in the creative field. After my second year in college I went off to work for five years with various Production Companies for TV and Film working huge Reality T.V. shows like the Spanish versions of Show Me The Money, Deal or No Deal, Pop Idol…

No wonder you are a show man! Aha! When I saw that I might have been steering into a comfort zone routine I decided to quit television and move to Paris.

Did you enjoy living in Paris? Living there was great, learned French, made fabulous friends like Bernard [Willhelm]. During this time I realized how important my family’s business was and how productive I could be working for them. This was in 2007…

Of course, you’ve been given the opportunity to give Casa Mariol a full-on facelift. Even though I now work on sales, my job is highly creative. During my years in the television industry I learned to work on a product that reached to millions of consumers, but I was torn because they were products which I didn’t consume. I feel that I’ve given the company a breath of fresh air by coming in and re-launching the products. We wanted to create an ambitious project with Batea’s best grapes to create great wine, and, of course delivering an affordable product.

Yes, wine tends to be an upscale product, but, these are very reasonable for the image they portray. My father does not believe in expensive wines. If you ask him to produce a wine that costs 30€ per bottle he wouldn’t know how which ingredients to put in.

But what about these über-expensive bottles that are 700 – 2000€ per bottle? It all has to do with supply and demand. But what we should ask ourselves is why there is such a demand for a product that is so scarce.

What is your take on people who suddenly own vineyards?   These people don’t know what to do with all their money. They think that it could be a profitable mid-range venture when the reality is that it is not. When you are aging wine it takes a lot of money and years to have this investment, which is basically stagnant, start showing some earnings. To us, this is all quite foreign. All the fads, pop-up wine shops and collaborations with artists seem strange because we’ve simply been doing wine for over 100 years. When you are born and raised in a small town like Batea, you know that this is what you will probably do the rest of your life.

Tell me about the birth of Jo! and the Miquel Angel Vaquer era in Casa Mariol. My brother, José María, decided to plant verdejo in Catalonia. My father thought that he was crazy because nobody was growing this type of grape in this region. Once the grapes were ready for picking, my brother and sister did not want to launch just another wine, so they asked for my help and we started working on the concept development of this new venture. They were not aware of the magnitude of the product that they were making. I wanted to take advantage of the whole concept behind having fun with wine and not making it such a stiff and snobby product. When it came out, I was sure that we were making the most contemporary wine in the world. It was a well-developed experiment with a strong emotional background that wanted and continues to communicate a new culture in wine consumption.

How did your family react when they saw the iconic JO! neon green stream lined inspired crest? They have always been very supportive of my ideas and choices. I’ve never had to over justify the new artworks and products.

You’re continuing the Casa Mariol tradition, but, for today. I have great responsibility by having my family’s last name. Just as my brother has a responsibility over the quality of the wines, it didn’t struck me until one day I realized “this is mine as well” and then I felt the necessity to work on the communication and marketing of this company.

Did you juggle concepts before reaching the final one? Not really. In the contemporary wine industry you don’t really have to present many ideas since it’s such a young market, or, better yet, nobody is really doing what I’m doing. This is not as if I was working on an eyewear or perfume launch where there are many brand extensions. Traditional wineries are not really interested in keeping up with trends.

Do you feel like you’re then the big pink elephant in the wine fair? I have a lot of respect for this industry and I’m always very careful when I launch a product.

Your wines portray a very confident image, which at the end of the day, are an extension of yourself. When somebody meets you, they are not seeing your typical wine salesman. I believe that you are your product. I am my wines. Originally published in the S/S 2011 of Hercules Magazine (Now Hercules Universal). 

#jommelier #casa mariol #wine #winemaking #vineyard #spanish #catalan wine #hercules #daniel riera

[miggy-figgy]

Roberto Marquez, "The Sad Feeling of Not Having Enough Likes" at La Productora. Pristine, messy, goofy trippy technicolor ceramic and canvas work. Want them all. Young collectors take note, prices range from $100-$400. If I were you, I'd get my hands in a couple of these. #contemporaryart #robertomarquez #laproductora #islaestrella #crisisisland #puertorico 📷 @casey_ohh (at La Productora)

#robertomarquez #contemporaryart #puertorico #crisisisland #islaestrella #laproductora

[miggy-figgy]

My first video, co-directed with Claudia Calderón, for the 2016 Puerto Rico Queer Film Festival. The one-minute clip aired as an introduction to each of the films screened during the festival, November 19-November 25 at the Fine Arts Cinema Café in Miramar, San Juan, Puerto Rico.  Muchas gracias to Dale.Dale.Dale. for working their post-production magic.  

#short film #advertising #queer #queer film #prqff2016 #out is in #puerto rico #video #interviews

[miggy-figgy]

Nicola Majocchi Four years ago, while working in Madrid with Luis Venegas as his assistant, I asked him what would he do if suddenly a fire broke down in his apartment. We were busy cataloging a curated selection of Venegas’ impressive collection of books and magazines, and I was curious. The amount of paper per square meter was a pyromaniacs wet dream. Venegas quickly stood up from his desk, peeked his head from his office and said,  “Miguel, the only two things I would grab would be my computer and Passage. It is the most important book in my library.” Passage: A Work Record, is Irving Penn’s autobiographical monograph of his career from 1938 to 1991. Indispensable for fashion photographers, editors and enthusiasts, Passage is sort of what the Bible is to Catholics. Life-changing, dogmatic, magical and eternal.

Twenty-four years after the book was published, I proudly carried my withdrawn-from-a-library-and-bought-through-amazon-dot-com copy of Passage to meet with Nicola Majocchi, Irving Penn’s assistant from 1988 to 1992. As I pulled the book out of my bag, Majocchi’s eyes lit up with the same happiness that occurs when you see a lost, long friend you haven’t seen in years. The book took three years to produce and the workload was monumental. Majocchi had to go through each and every negative and/or slide of Mr. Penn’s entire career. Originally, he was going to spend only one year with Mr. Penn, but the 52 year old photographer told me that things changed “dramatically” once he arrived at the studio. “Mr. Penn was switching his whole studio team. He had 2-3 full time assistants and 2 freelance assistants as well.” Frictions with the new studio manager at the time caused the steady assistants to quit and Majocchi found himself in the eye of the storm and took over the role of both assistants. His years with Mr. Penn were non-stop. “We were shooting 4-5 days a week for Vogue, Calvin Klein, L’Oreal, Versace and Issey Miyake. Clinique alone took 2-3 weeks of the their studio time and with a smaller staff, Mr. Penn was able to become more active in the day to day activities in the studio. The energy in the studio was as high as the end of the decade of 80s excess. Christy Turlington, Cindy Crawford and Naomi Campbell were always around to strike a pose. During that period, Mr. Penn was in charge of photographing the iconic Issey Miyake and Versace advertising images. Majocchi reveled in the full cultural plate that was always coming in and out of the studio. “With Miyake, the Japanese crew would always come in looking impeccable, kind, respectful and humble. But with Gianni [Versace], it was Donatella… all his family! The seamstress, their friends, cooks, everybody. Gianni would come in and say ‘Ciao Maestro!’. The two of them would hug and it would be a week of a lot of food. Completely the opposite from Miyake’s camp.” Majocchi had the full experience as Mr. Penn’s assistant from on-set work, to working in the archives, and dealing with shipping and delivery arrangements of the platinum prints that he also handled as well. As he sipped a soda, he continued, “I wanted to be really busy. At the end of that first year I was ready to go back to Milan. But, Mr. Penn - who was infatuated with Italy after being there during World War II and who’s artist idol was Giotto -  sat down with me and said, ‘I know you want to go back to your country, but I want to make you a proposal.’” The offer was to assist Mr. Penn during the arduous process of editing Passage. It was an inevitable offer and the then 25 year old Majocchi ended up working at Mr. Penn’s studio for four more years. As we started going through the book, Majocchi proudly said, “My name is on the title page of that book. Passage means a lot to me.” In the book’s acknowledgments, Majocchi was one of the people that Mr. Penn thanked personally, saying that his former assistant was “...my right hand in putting this book together. I could not have managed without his strength, good judgement and his ability to organize.” Work with Mr. Penn was non-stop. Majocchi would be in the studio by 7:30 am. He would go through his to-do list and for the next two hours he would dedicate his time to office/gallery communications. By 8:45-8:50, Mr. Penn was in the studio from his commute from his Huntington Farm where he lived with his wife, the model and muse, Lisa Fonssagrives. Upon arrival, Mr. Penn would change into his work uniform - Levi’s jeans, Superga blue canvas shoes and his Issey Miyake blue shirt. By 9:30-10, it was showtime. Shoots would run through five o’clock in the afternoon. On non-shooting days, Majocchi would work at Mr. Penn's storages or visit galleries in the morning, followed by print and/or archival work in the afternoon. Mr. Penn’s work was housed in two storages in Manhattan. During the research, Majocchi would go through envelopes labeled by Mr. Penn with yellow masking tape and Uniball black ink-ballpoint pen with handwritten descriptions by Mr. Penn. Everything that he considered book worthy read “Material to be considered for chronology book.” In one of the prints that Mr. Penn gave to Majocchi through the years, he wrote “To Nicola, the great discoverer” because it was Majocchi who found an envelope with negatives from a trip to New Guinea that Mr. Penn had done in 1970 to shoot indigenous tribes from the country. The photographer thought that the film had been lost forever, but Majocchi found them. And that image eventually made it to Passage. After being a downhill skier during his teenage years, Majocchi decided to study photography at the age of 21 and enrolled in the Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara, California. During this time, he took a detour, went to the east coast, dabbled in illustration, advertising and still life before graduating in 1987 and by this time he was “done” with California. The reason? “It was too cutesy” he tells me. As soon as he arrived in New York, he started going to work interviews, but he already had Irving Penn, as well as Richard Avedon or Hiro as dream job opportunities. Luckily enough, he got a lead from an old college friend who was working with Avedon at the time, and had worked with Mr. Penn previously, and told him that the photographer was looking for a new assistant. Having nothing to lose, Majocchi called the studio and set-up an appointment. The next day at 10am, Majocchi rang the doorbell at the studio. “The door opened and it was Mr. Penn.” After a 45 minute interview, the photographer confessed that Majocchi’s hands scared him. Majocchi, an extremely handsome and broad Italian man, who stands over 6’1" had to prove that his large hands would be capable of handling minuscule yet extremely important details for photographing L’Oreal and Clinique's elaborate still lifes. “Everything was microsurgery. The water would not just hit the soap. Water came from a funnel which had a precise turn in a spiral shape to give the water a certain turn. And, behind the soap, there was a little metal plate that had some wax in a shape that made it look like the water was hitting the soap, but the water wasn’t really hitting the soap. It was actually hitting a wax behind the soap to give it a perfect splash. Everything was done with hot glue guns and tweezers.” Majocchi offered himself to work for free for a couple of days to prove himself. Afterwards, he returned to Santa Barbara. A month later, Mr. Penn’s studio came calling. What drew Majocchi to Mr. Penn’s work was his versatility. “Beauty, true beauty always stands in the highest form of simplicity. To be able to carry such a strength and be so powerful in so many ways whether it is a portrait, a glass of water with a piece of bread, a model wearing a Balenciaga dress, a picture of a kid in the street, or even the Bikers series. He would be able to capture the essence of each subject in front of the camera. Even if it was dead or alive, like the detail of a piece of dirt from the street.” Irving Penn started in Mexico as a painter and before he became one of the Masters of 20th Century photography, he was an Art Director for Saks Fifth Avenue.  His friend, Alexander Lieberman gave him a job at Vogue working alongside his peers, Cecil Beaton and Horst who weren’t exactly thrilled to be working with the young Art Director. After getting a hard time from them, Mr. Penn went back to Liberman, saying that the photographers were making his life miserable and Liberman offered him his first gig as a photographer, the cover of the October 1st, 1943 for American Vogue. The photograph, a still life featuring a leather belt, a white glove adorned with an oversized ring, a purse a top a hat box, a hanging scarf and a print of another still life featuring five lemons was a foreshadowing of what was to come of his career as one of the leading photographic voices in the story of the magazine. As our conversation about the book’s process progressed flipping through the pages and Majocchi sharing with me the stories behind specific photographs, Majocchi continued, “Mr. Penn had a precise idea of how Passage was going to look like from the first to the last page.” Challenges during the editing process was trying to get him away from his preset views of the book. “He was so into his work, he knew what he wanted and it was chronological, starting in 1938.” Their relationship was strictly professional but when we talked about Mr. Penn’s wife, the conversation shifted from strictly business to personal. “They had a beautiful relationship. Sometimes she would drive into the city to pick him up or he would call to tell her what train he was getting on so she could time herself to pick him up. When Lisa died, it was tough. She was everything to him. She was a beacon of light. After she passed, he was back on the set because that was his only way to continue living. That was the only time we hugged. He cried on my shoulder. It was a very personal moment.” Few months later, Majocchi also left. During his last day in the studio, he asked Mr. Penn for a word of advice and the master told the young apprentice three things, “Keep your overheads low. Remember, no matter who you are, what your passion is, what field you work in, the most important thing is to that you have to be a problem solver. That’s how you master your profession.” The last one? “You take the picture with your heart, not your camera.” After such a successful handful of years at the studio, I asked him why he decided to leave and he responded in his deep and certain Italian voice, “Nothing grows in the shadow of a big tree. Mr. Penn was a life mentor to me.” Even though they parted ways, Mr. Penn’s agents passed on jobs to Majocchi which supported his career and were able to make his portfolio grow. Majocchi always went back to the studio to visit Mr. Penn every year, once a year until 2008, a year before Mr. Penn passed away. Featured in the third issue of Assistant Magazine. Out now. 

#irving penn #photography #history of photography #nicola majocchi #miguel figueroa