Tanya lives in Italy. She is the founder of
Frillyes Arts International which is a website where books, art exibitions and music are reviewed. We have conducted a short interview with her:
How did it all begin, from your interests to ‘Frillyes Arts International’ that is online now?
Well, my love for the arts dates back from childhood in all directions. Since very young I was a great reader, I loved stories and poetry, I must say that when I was young our primary school books carried many important pieces of work by great writers and poets. I remember I fell in love with the poem “Settembre” by Gabriele D’Annunzio, that started my love story with poetry and literature that has never ended. Also, during childhood we used to go to London every other year to visit our grandparents and when there we always went to the National and Tate Galleries, those visits have had the most dramatic influence in my life. The profound emotions that paintings generated in me nurtured my soul and my imagination, the perfection and accuracy with which paintings, in its many different styles, translate the essence of beauty, are the reasons for which I consider them the supreme form of art; only poetry can reach to beauty in the same way, but poetry slips away with the flowing of its words, it gives you a glimpse of beauty and it’s gone, a whisper or a breath. Painting translates beauty in its eternity.
As far as music is concerned, during childhood I was exposed mainly to classical while modern music came later, in my teens, it started with Duran Duran, I will always love them for this, and from then on it continued exploring more alternative sounds, jazz and blues, classical, etc.
Anyway this is my background, favoured by a family where art in all its forms has always enjoyed high consideration, my being a rather imaginative person has made it so that the role of spectator was not sufficient for me, I started writing very young, then came music making and finally painting. I love creation in all its declinations and computers have been a Godsend in this sense, I can create my own videos, the covers for my albums and books, my own websites and a whole series of things.
The idea for what should have been “The Frillye Freakalillie Centre for Art and Expression” came to me a few years ago. The original idea was to acquire a physical location where concerts, exhibitions and literature presentations could be held, that should have been supported and expanded by a website. Unfortunately my economical situation makes it impossible for me at the moment to buy a physical venue, so I decided to start from the web. I am doing everything by myself and have suffered some drawbacks so my project went online only a few weeks ago and updates won’t be as frequent as I would like them to until I manage to dedicate more time to it.
What is the idea behind your newest project?
The idea came from a reaction to what goes on around me. The mainstream channels are open just to a few and sometimes they are not even the best expression of quality; as far as music is concerned furthermore, even the most “established” independent labels often lack in personality so you end up having to go “very” independent, almost homemade to find original sounds.
So one motivator was the closure of mainstream channels towards most artists. The second one was that I noticed that many contests were addressed exclusively to people within a certain age range. I find this insufferable: art, inspiration, creative power have no age, nobody can be the judge of the reasons for which life brings a person to start his creative activity at 50 rather than at 18 years of age.
So based on the principle that everybody has the right to create, express themselves and communicate, I started laying down the basics for my project. The discriminant for my choice of artists featured on the site will be my own tastes, the originality of the work produced and a certain quality level (in literature for example, with print-on-demand facilities you can find pieces of work that are written so awfully, with so many mistakes that make your hair stand up). I am very much interested in original ideas, even if style is not at its top, a little constructive critique can help artists improve anyway.
My website is both in English and Italian.
What kind of digital artwork do you enjoy creating? Do you do installation art and interactive installation? What kind of software do you use to create your kind of digital artwork?
For the benefit of truth I will say I started creating visual art only recently and I don’t do installation art of any type. My digital work at the moment consists mainly of photography editing, that is, mild editing of land/cityscapes for my poster and prints activity and a more incisive editing for my sensual art poster and prints activity.
Every now and again, when I get the inspiration, I create a piece of digital art in its own right, mainly concept art.
Software – I use many, I like diversity and diversity of hues is the basis for art. I rely a lot on open source, such as: Photoscape, Photopos Pro, Gimp, but also Artweaver, Photoimpression and an old software I love, Ulead Photo Express. Finally I like using an exceptional software, which is actually a DTP program, Pageplus by Serif, I use an old version, n°9, a great tool, one of my favourites all round.
Comparing poetry, music and painting, which is your favourite form of art expression and why?
Difficult question, I suppose it depends from the emotional/mind state of the moment. They each have different characteristics to express emotions and that great essence which is beauty.
From an active point of view, poetry and writing in general come easier to me; I approached active painting only a few months ago, I never had the courage before, I love so much painting, it is something so perfect for me that I always felt in awe of it, I always felt the need to express myself by it but until now I never held the key to access it, I don’t know what changed that, it is just one of those sudden illuminations that happen in life.
Creating music is great, often when I finish a piece of work I don’t quite understand myself how it came about and I also enjoy very much the technical part; I believe I have a rather pictorial approach to music and sometimes also to writing, each instrument, timing or word is like a brushstroke. On the other hand I have a rather conceptual approach to visual art, which in some way brings it back to thought and words. It’s all an interweaving.
Intuition plays a great role in art on my opinion, both when you are the observer and the artist, it’s something sort of Zen.
Do you write books? Which ones would you recommend to our readers?
Yes, I have written eight poetry collection books and now I’m writing some prose. My books are all written in Italian, I will translate them someday when I have more time; they are all available as print-on-demand for lovers of paper books or in ebook format, much less expensive, on Amazon. On my site all links are available.
If I were to recommend some, well, being the author is not easy … but I would say these:
Un Giorno in Più Del Mondo Rappresentato
Lunare
… Tra …
Thank you very much for the chance of this interview and to everyone who took the time to read it.
More info on Tanya's initiative:
www.ediguvan.com
www.theroughandthevelvet.com
www.facebook.com/frillye.freakalillie
http://FrillyesArts.imagekind.com
