I was interviewed by Israeli Tamar Kosher for her blog and on line magazine. Annexed is the interview, so you can get to know a little bit more about me.
Don’t forget to visit Tamar’s blog, where there are nice inspiring things which can be inspiration sources!”
and here in hebrew:
1- Tell me a bit about yourself- family, job etc :) I live in Brazil, in a city called Sao Jose dos Campos, state of Sao Paulo. I´m 37 years old. I´m married and I have a 6 year old daughter, Isabela (a.k.a Bebel).I have been scrapbooking for almost four years and I´m totally addicted. Along these years, scrapbooking has provided me a great sort of artistic possibilities. In fact, I love this Art because I can stiil learn some new techniques everyday and it provides me to express myself in style, mixing paper, embellishments, colors, memories and a message.So, scrapbooking to me is not only a way to preserve my memories but, it's the way I do Art.In my Art I pursue something that has sense to me, which inspires me and that can be different, interesting, cute, creative, colorful and fun! My style is eclectic, crafty. I also love shabby and vintage styles, anything that has a great dimension. You can see my work at my blog:
http://www.lariscrap.blogspot.com 2- how did you first start? Well, I had my colorful agendas in my teenage years; full of stickers and attachments. I also used to make detailed notebooks with magazine clippings, book passages, pictures and drawings. After that, when I got married, as my husband has photographing as hobby, I started setting up albums of our trips, putting together a little bit of everything we brought such as tickets, stickers, post cards and so on. I even used some scrap products without even knowing the whole theory. When my daughter was born, I decided it was also time to tell the story behind those pictures. I set my first scrapbooking album during my pregnancy but, I made it with no techniques at all. It was only when she turned two years old that I saw an ad about a scrapbooking class near where I live. I got eager to learn more and nowadays I’m completely addicted. 3- What other arts and crafts you like? I love drawing and painting especially with watercolor, acrylic paint and now I started learning more about embroidery.
4- Do you like making arts for other and loved ones, or do you like keeping them? Is it hard for you to give your craft? I’m learning to get rid of my artworks. At the beginning, I was actually jealous of them but, I’ve learned that giving them as gifts brought great satisfaction. Besides, I’ve displayed some in public places and people’s feedbacks are very rewarding. The fact is, I don’t have any more space in my house whatsoever so, getting rid of my art works is becoming something more common.
5- do you like challenge? which ones? I love clever challenges especially those which oblige me to use new techniques or deal with themes I don’t know about. I love psychological and nature themes, something poetic, something that evolves the pleasure art brings to my life and, which is what inspires me the most. And that is what I do on the website Creative Therapy (HTTP: //creativetherapy.wordpress.com), the best thing that happened to me recently. Before that, I hadn’t reflected so much about my experiences, wishes, flaws, etc. The therapeutic art power is really astonishing.
6- from where do you take your inspiration? I’m used to getting inspired in absolutely every, everything! I pay close attention to movies, products, windows of stores, people, my thoughts, my daily life, alternate materials, works of art and I specially give attention to my inner emotions and to my daughter’s little childish world. I also believe to be very important to not only study the others’ layouts but also, to read art books and books that teach how to be creative. 7- Tell us a bit about your work process- do work with sketch? plan ahead or..? I never know what I’m going to create, I’m like Picasso. If I knew exactly what I was going to create, I wouldn’t even lose time with this. Sometimes it’s a paper that calls for something or an inspiring picture. I’ve abandoned any storytelling projects with my scrapbooking. What I really want to do is make art and expose my inner emotions, which are deep in the core of my being. They are things that probably only I understand. I don’t work with sketches unless I’m obliged by a purpose. I have some designs I like working with and I see I always end up taking this path. Nowadays, I set my scrapbooking pages with jigsaw puzzles, just testing. I always let my emotions flow otherwise, I don’t have much pleasure. I like creating without much thinking, which is the reason why I have so much fun with mini albums and other projects evolving collage, since the design of those pages is always something extremely hard to generate. I also accept mistakes, with no hard feelings, and I’ve learned it’s possible to transform everything. I just go ahead and test everything, really.
8- What are your 5 favored products? Paper, flowers, alphabet thickers, paints, blings.
9- Usually do you work on art just for fun or do you need a reason [birthday etc...]? I need to work with art everyday . I’ve lost the day where my chores prevent me from cutting some paper but, anyway, my mind is always planning something new. Today, as I work for just some design teams, I end up having many extra reasons to make scrapbooking. That’s why I’m only part of projects I adore and which inspire me.
10- Give us one good scrapbooking tip. Soaking paper, molding them and always adding dimension to your works. Besides, if you are not satisfied with the final result of something you can remake and add more layers to them. It’s the layers that make the differential of my work. Search, any way, always, the balance of the page.
11- tell me about your fav artist? Scrapbooking artists? Dina Wakley, Debee Campos, Céline Navarro, Jo-Anne Te Raa, Lucy Folch and Karine Cazenave-Tapie are great inspirations!
12- can you tell me a bit on your working space? how do you work? give us one tip on scrap-space:)! It was better not asking that one...actually, I have a reformation project here at home to create a space just for me. Today, however, the truth is that I have just taken a space that was destined to the house library…maybe that’s why I have altered so many book pages in my scrapbooking (lol). I’m messy. I love creating, on the floor actually, and spread things through the space until it gets completely surrounded by papers, tools, paint and pictures.
13- tell us about scrapbooking [art and craft] in your country Scrapbooking grows every time more in Brazil. We have some national companies that produce paper and great quality stores that sell imported papers at the big cities. We have social utility websites where people exchange information and display their works, turning art accessible to everyone. We’re also progressing on techniques and styles learning, however, scrapbooking is a very expensive art craft for most Brazilians so, I believe there is a limitation for the spread of this art around here. Brazilians, however, are very creative, know how to recycle everything and create tools from any scotch tape roll, overcoming those difficulties.
Espero vocês lá na Vale do Papel, para matarmos as saudades e, para quem não mora por aqui, aguardem, ainda este mês, o anúncio de uma aula "on line" que darei num site brasileiro muito especial, insinando a fazer páginas especiais, com as minhas técnicas, tudo decorado com lindos papéis!
Espero vocês lá na Vale do Papel, para matarmos as saudades e, para quem não mora por aqui, aguardem, ainda este mês, o anúncio de uma aula "on line" que darei num site brasileiro muito especial, insinando a fazer páginas especiais, com as minhas técnicas, tudo decorado com lindos papéis!
