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

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

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

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

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

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

Marshall Allen; Daevid Allen

James Harrar; Daevid Allen

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

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

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

Daevid Allen's doodle

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

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

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

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

"Nine Feathers"… and a project behind it

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Felice – Lettere d'amore sull'armonia

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

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

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

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

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


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


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

A kiss to each skull

Heidi Harris – Animal Insect /// THE MUSIC VIDEO

quando ti chiedono cos'hai fatto, non dire che hai fatto un video. perché sarebbe come se a uno scalatore chiedessero: "cos'hai fatto?"
e lui rispondesse "ho fatto un buco e ho spinto la bandiera più in giù che potevo".

when they ask you what did you make, don't say you made a video. because it would be as if a climber were asked: "what did you make?" and he answered "I made a hole and I pushed the flag down as deep as I could".

*

Working on this project, I often smiled thinking about how it was sweet that a song from the other side of the Ocean was making me discover so much more Utrecht, the town where I moved around one year ago and that I'm loving so intensely each istant.

Two nights ago, when Animal Insect was already going online, I was a bit contemplating on the Internet the place in which the inspiration found Heidi Harris when she wrote Animal Insect: Brooklyn. She lived on its roofs till some weeks ago (now she's in another zone of New York City). I already knew that first New York was New Amsterdam, well, this something commonly pretty known, as the Dutch people was among who started the city of the current New York, but I found out only that night that the etymology of Brooklyn is "Breukelen". I guess that for a lot of you "Breukelen" doesn't mean anything, but Breukelen is a small place right in the province of Utrecht.


So one day I'll go in Breukelen with the fish made of shells that found me some weeks ago in my favourite magic antiek, De Oude Pijpenlade. And with some white yarn. It could be useful.


Meanwhile, I'm glad to finally let run around our creature…

••••

Animal Insect is part of the new album by Heidi Harris, Cut the Line, available here.

Our deep collaboration has a lot to do also with the vinyl, for which I have the honour of seeing my artworks going around on such a lovely musical object.

••••

I would to thank once again here each energy that brought us here.


Thanks to Erica Lanzoni, that shared with me some of her visions, months ago.

Thanks to Vere Van de Meerendonk, for all the unbelievable intensity with which went into this idea, since the first time that I mentioned it to her. 

Thanks to Jul Jackalope, the custodian that guides my consciousness between all the different levels of reality.

Thanks to Dorotea Pace, that importantly fed the story and sweetly, patiently listened my brainstorming, even if it went like a psychiatrical examination («Doctor, doctor, I saw a strange creature and some yards and and and [endless mysterious vague gesticulate] and and I don't know maybe something else but I swear I see something more just over there keep letting me talk perhaps I'm gonna have I'm gonna have it I'm gonna see it wait wait wait Doctor here we go it's coming it's coming it's coming, Doctor Dò, I really some maybe mumble tomorrow a day and an eye and uh, a "rocket", did you say?»).

Thanks to Cornelis Plet, for the object number 890431, that I payed with the sticker of a Unicorn.

Thanks to my chabbi, Carolina Farina, that came directly from Paris, taking many photographs (that will be around soon) and helped me with any kind of fuckin' bothering problem, also when I was losing a little little bit my focusing and I was probably sounding as a very annoying silly troublemaker. And letting me repeat all the time to everybody that we were basically celebrating our great meaningful 10th anniversary of friendship, tolerating my violent joy overdose. (No, unless that you met me, you probably cannot imagine how I can turn exactly in this kind of phenomena; I can be tiring for real.)

Thanks to Pema Tigelaar, that opened herself to all my requests and also helped me a lot – above all realising the old hope that I had when many months ago I secretly written her name on my ideas notebook.

Thanks to Dirk van de Veek, for respectfully letting me interpretate.

Thanks to Rudi Bonfiglioli, for that absurd moment in which I saw him so shocked contemplating the shootings with himself with Masha.


Thanks to Masha Rozhnova, that after fitting so perfectly the picture that I drawn for her, turned in one of the best art-mate of my whole life.

Thanks to Elodie Clemence Romero, for all her interior process and for that question for which I deeply wish a proper conversation together, one day… in Montpellier.

Thanks to Wilma Kun, for the rare calm seriousness with which she worked and, of course, for letting me freely film her artworks at her home. (And for the tasty launch!)

Thanks to Siggy De La Blues, because when I explained to him his role, he said «I knew».

Thanks to Iggy Antoine Fornerino, for his enthusiasm, his suggestions and his spontaneous reaction when I saw him watching the video still in the timeline.

Thanks to Patricia Elders, because after my tale to the phone about the concept, when I was still a complete stranger, she then just said «It's like my life». And, in the end, she loved our strange experience so much, anyway.

Thanks to Mechelien, even if in the end she missed the shootings. For her sparkling eyes in the basement of her shop, that unique afternoon.

Thanks to the best special guest ever, the random dog in the park! And thanks to Simone Franceschini, that tried first to finding a-not-so-randome-one.

Thanks to a kind of "reluctant messiah" with which certain concepts started.

Thanks to Cory Zaradur and to Inner Ocean Records – how couldn't I love a music label with such an evoking name?


A special thanks to the Municipality of Utrecht and to the artists Jan Hein Daniëls and Willem Hoebink, authors of the artwork that I filmed at the Pausdam, an installation part of the project Trajectum Lumen, that makes even more psychedelic and magic walking through Utrecht, enlightening some meaningful spots of this historical city.

 – The etymology of Utrecht, indeed, is the Latin word for "trajectory". And I smile again every time that I think about this, because totally looks like that this place is exactly supposed to be on the way, also the way of the bunch of people that comes from elsewhere and will go somewhere else again. –

So, in the end, thanks to Utrecht, this intense place where I'm finding so many inspiring homes.



And thanks to Heidi,
 for all her whole harmonically behave into an idea of creative process so nicely closed to mine, in which the art itself comes first;
 for deciding to share so much with me;
 for being able to see I what I see too.


Thanks to the magic;
thanks to the synchronicity.


And thanks to all of you, if you will enjoy the wave or if you won't at all, if you'll keep what it will generate for your inner world or if you'll creating a new sharing with it.

*

This was what Enda told me a few moments after watching the music video for Animal Insect.

This post isn't supposed to be my perception of the hole and the flag.

This would be eventually up to you, to let me see how they look from your point of view – because the art keeps to work and grow in the eyes of the watcher, to hopefully turn in something new.

Here I just wanted to whisper a few things about all the long tripping on the mountain and the friends that came with me – even if not the whole tale neither.

The whole tale is called "Life"

and I'm exactly wishing you enjoy it.

Sonic Dynamite II

The 9th of March I went to a very cool event at dB's: the Sonic Dynamite II, "The second edition of Utrecht's funkiest edition", with on the stage the Brothers On The Edge and The Sun Prophets.

As usual, my carnet was with me and I finally share my sketches online!
… With, also, some memories from the musicians, included a very ending note…

Andrew Weeks and Iggy Fornerino from Brothers On The Edge

Benjamin Moy and Leo Pourier

Peter Wienke and Leo Pourier

An old lady particularly enjoying the night dancing

Clément Savourey from Brothers On The Edge

again Geraldine Marmelstein

The Sun Prophets

The Sun Prophets

I really have a nice memory of that night, I remember that brought very intense energies.

But it left me the desire of portray deeply better Iggy Fornerino, the guitarist of Brothers On The Edge – definitely.

(Iggy is currently also the great guy that sometimes I scare for accident opening the door of my bedroom, going in our kitchen. Iggy: you have to know that for all my life I been the one scared for nothing by anybody and above all by housemates (just not my mother: I have a reason for being like this, after all…). So being now the one that scares someone else is a very strong emotion, to me.

Thank you.

Eta's Cardiogram)

пока!

I finally just finished my last shooting day for the music video for Animal Insect by Heidi Harris. I'd have one thousand of bunch of things to tell, about it and a lot more, wow, but right now I simply feel like to share one fresh memory from my post-huge-easy-deserved-dinner after all the efforts, with Rudi and Masha, and take my good big sleeping time (yep, still so black, no way to have more energies now, can camin can camin, spazzacamin…).

«Today is a dream day.

Filming all the day in a forest, coming home hungry and eating a lot!»
Masha  said.

I already know that one day I'll look to this picture with the sweeter tears of that particular healthy nostalgia.

пока!

(Va be', dai, almeno la ghigna mo me la lavo. Sogni d'oro a tutti i fusi orari).

/

That damned lovely great little girl called Rib. made a new poster for a contest, Cheap, and it happened that the photograph in which she worked is elegantly stolen from my profile.

Thank you a lot, Rib.

It's always an honour.

Eta's nose

(«See you at their bodies about 5 pm!»)

• zoom! •

(I desire so badly to create a longer story on this idea, but my list of project calls me up for something else. This is just a sketchy expression of all the pictures that I got today after reading a dream… Uh, the dream isn't mine, I do steal, yep, but I guess that is fine, as long that playing with the strangers consciousness it is too!)



… So, tonight your lesson is: next time that you have to take a flight, you do your check-in, you finally, tired, you seat in the waiting area and you feel unbelievable attracted by that stranger there, well, answer you where is from your feeling; there are strange powerful beings here around and inside, you better watch out!
Or enjoy randomness and serendipity.



(I wish you go for this one 'cause is pretty confortable to me, actually… Thank you a lot in advance.)

Beyond…

"Cut the Line" /// Pre-order the 12" vinyl, limited edition of 100"

Past week Heidi posted this vocal message:

Pressed on standard weight black vinyl in recycled cardboard jackets, with full color printed front/back artwork. *All pre-orders will receive a free print of the artwork printed on matte paper using high quality archival inks. Includes immediate download of 10-track album in your choice of high-quality MP3, FLAC, or just about any other format you could possibly desire.

Go on the Inner Ocean Records page to pre-order it, read more and already listen to three tracks!

I don't want to tell too much about it, but… there is also a surprise inside… surprising even to me. Ok, I seal my lips and I go back to work…

The stream is going in a shape

My list of current projects and ideas is always been too long, even before my high school age, I never known a moment in which jump and say "Yahoo, I'm free!". It's a bit frustrating, but I know that it's because I basically care of write down all my interesting ideas, seeing later what I can pick up and develop.

But since the beginning of the year my list crazily grown, riding the new tornado of my inspiration.

Finally the list looks like a life plan – and it's a mess, but one of the best that I ever seen as mine.

Probably I'll often update the blog still with easy sketches and photographs, but really a lot of stuff should come out in the next months, even if I'm not yet ready to tell what's going on.

Meanwhile, I show a little detail of the big illustration that I was doing yesterday night.

I made the sketch of this illustration in the past April and it born in my mind exactly the night from the 1st to the morning of the 2nd of April 2012, one year ago, the day in which I moved from Italy to The Netherlands, definitely the first day of my new consciousness way.

This drawing is very particular to me, for many reasons, included the time that is taking. I usually end an illustration in one working night, sometimes two when the sketch asks more. Instead this illustration wants me lost in the details and in the shading like in the old times. Because of my bunch of stuff to do and obviously also because of what my messages asked to my styles, well, it's a long time that I don't allow myself such a long joy with my pastels, in that old way that literally turns your nervous system to the best meditative state.

I was enjoying again so much this state of mind in which I fly when I draw in this way and I was thinking that I could fuckin' die of joy if I were one of that old naturalist that were also illustrator – spending the whole life descovering new species of flowers and butterflies and drawing for scientific reasons.
With this thoughts in my mind, I was taking some inspiration for my figures from some photographs on Google. And in that moment the little new green doodle took my attention:

Maria Sibylla Merian (2 April 1647 – 13 January 1717) was a German-born Swiss naturalist and scientific illustrator, [...]

Because of her careful observations and documentation of the metamorphosis of the butterfly, she is considered one of the most significant contributors to the field of entomology. [...]

[Wikipedia]

Anyhow, the fish in my new banner (hey, that young fish is a brave traveller, don't you see?, it travels through the consciousness between the time, the space and the changes) is another detail of my illustration… if you're still here and not contemplating the amazing work of Maria Sibylla. But you know that both of them call you back to the same great point of view: 
                                                                            the art of seeing.
  
   So, take a breathe around, now
        
                                                   ––– 

                                                                     (my Dutch Springtime is so moving! Ancóra).

Play The Game

Any social network asks you to define yourself, to distinguish yourself and you better know which is your favourite movie, your favourite football team, your favourite pet, your own special favourite quote and obviously your favourite brand.

Perhaps you are already a bit beyond this level, but maybe you're a thinker, or a creative, then you could be obsessed by the need of defend your unique skill, your special talent, your genius.

The fact is that you shouldn't build a wall; we're all connected and part of the same flow.

The fact is that you should see how what they call "ego" goes through our borders, from you to all the multiverse.

Anyhow, if you open your eyes in front of a mirror, you usually see always your face. Awakening up, you usually see your hands, your legs, your belly, under your chin.

So, be conscious of the bigger cycle in which you breathe and be conscious of your specific ship for your life journey too:

welcome in the enchanted loom – play the game, here and now.

A playing-self-portrait

PS. A kind of not common song – almost childish, in a way – is being even too touching recently with me: Ode to the Brain!

I evoked the "Fishes of Pleasure" to fly at Goodbye Blue Monday

My lovely fishes from my new sketch are flying to Brodway to enjoy the concert at 11pm of the 20th of April with Heidi Harris, Tea Leigh and Jac, at Goodbye Blue Monday.

If, like me, you can not join them, you can watch the streaming here.

But first try to hitchhike with my flying fishes, they're pretty generous!

Pictures from the goodbyes

These portraits come from a nice goodbye gig at Boothill Saloon, that was created to jam the last time in Utrecht with Felipe Iturrieta (here above) before his departure for a long long trip through Asia. If you feel like to follow his strange adventure, he just created Welcome to my Trip, a blog that is supposed to be updated every Tuesday (but don't freak out if he doesn't, it's hard that something unlucky happens to that lazy asshole…). Anyway, watch out: his hope is right to infect you with his travel mania. But, after all, you're already on my blog, that could inspire a bunch of bad bad stuff too!

Sief Giltay and Virgil Smit

Virgil Smit

Peter Sonnega

Peter Sonnega

Felipe Iturrieta

Sief and Felipe again, both not that complete…

Caio, really busy with looking busy

 I add also other pages from my sketchbook that are not from the same event, but from the same period of goodbyes.

Jules, among the most psychedelic people I ever met

After so many pictures of humans, the drawings of Tesoro (what a cute Italian name for a dog!) are probably my favourites. I miss a bit the presence of animals around me. I started to draw when I was child with my Grandma's dog and horse, my muses Lampo and Zivago. Their beauty is still unreachable. This is not time to have a dog, for me. But maybe it will be soon time to enjoy more nature. (Ah, shit, it just sounds like that a travel maniac bite me!)

"Hildegard You Have My Heart"

This my new illustration comes with a new song by Heidi Harris.

Enjoy!

The Elf footprint and a message by Art

It's now about two months.
It can not be a scratch.
Do you see it?

There, on my ankle, I can easily recognise a sole and a heel.

It seems that my skin is burned, but I didn't made anything by intention.

To me it looks clear. An elf came by.

That's probably because it's now definitely too much that I don't visit the forest.

In the early December, I made one of my spontaneous sketch on my book that I enjoy so much because I don't ask anything to me, and they come just appear, random ugly or sometimes meaningful.

After some weeks, I made another one, that fits the empty space that the other one created, waiting for an answer.

My 2012 have been a revolutionary year, for me. Every detail of my life is been thought again and the top of my doubt, what's easier to see from a stranger point of view, is probably about making art… or not. All the year long I was always even too inspired, but the point is that finally art is not a need: I found a state of happiness that let me be fine, without such an interior shout that screams for express itself. Now art has conquired a total different role in my vision. Though I know that is extremely important in society, I'm honestly wondering about how much it really is. Meanwhile, something else is taking a place in my life. But all this is "only" about how I should manage my daily time, according the fields with which our society divides our knowledge – that is what actually catches myself, when I try to understand it and when I try to communicate it. What I'm looking for is the truth and what I'm trying to communicate is the harmony. About the hypothesis that the truth doesn't bring to harmony, well, then the question will be about the sense of the harmony, but I perfectly feel that, yes, truth and harmony are located exactly on the same spot of consciousness.

Do you feel it?

I'd pay one thousand of kites to know which is my way.
The point is not strictly about any skill of mine, the point is mostly about the sense and the power of the ways that I could adopt.
I'd pay one million of melting clocks to meet an elf able to show me my way, without letting me have any doubt about his words.
Instead, I keep thinking that one of the best virtue is always considering any possible theory, that means that any doubt can find its comfort in my psychedelic endless mind… That means that my honest interior pirate has a hard job if has also to carry on the fragility of my interior mermaid (yeah, I'm a pirate and a mermaid at the same, as some good friends told me).
So, here I am, pirate and mermaid, brave and strong and hyper-fragile, I know that my questions seem too big and I might change my mind one billion times again, but the current challenge is this one: try hard on art this 2013, seeing where I go with it and meanwhile decide if I really wanna start a new path.

*Thank you again, Scobo.*

What's exactly such a new path supposed to be?

If the idea resists still for a long time, I will tell it here for sure.

Right now, the path is find the courage to leave my headphones with The Black Keys on, wear my loved pyjamas, don't laugh too much for how you English speakers say "pyjama", 'cause I actually feel like an imbecile putting such a weird stuff in it (you have just to be comfortable in a "pyjama", instead this word looks like a word with sunglasses!, in Italian we simply say "pigiama", fuck the hell!), and then roll on my bed watching an inspiring movie for my next videoclip.

…

Ok, stopping to laugh because of how you spell "pyjama" is still hard!

Maybe I should try to wear my pyjama even if I laugh… Probably starting to watch the movie I'll be able to be quiet. Yeah. That's brilliant. I feel so brilliant and cool that I could wear my sunglasses! Yeah, now it makes sense: pyjama and sunglasses.

B-)