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by Valeria Molinari 3
a i miei nonni
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contents Introduction
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Inspiration
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Trial & Error
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Ceramics
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Messages and Hand-Lettering
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Style & Book
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Surface Design
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The Exhibition
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The Future
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Acknowledgements
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There’s something unique about coming together over food
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introduction 7
Maternal grandmother cooking at Christmas time (1989)
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Paternal grandparents playing cards on the kitchen table. (1987)
Food has been such a big part of my life, even as a child, I would sit in the kitchen drawing while my grandmother would cook lunch, dinner, or just treats for whoever came over to visit that afternoon. As I grew older I realized that everything in my family was expressed through the act of cooking, and sharing food. Happiness, sadness, joy, or just a regular Sunday deserved its own dish. I have learned to cook many meals from all generations of women in my family, from my great-grandmother to my mom, and aunt. I never questioned why we all had to learn to make, and share all these dishes until I moved away to go to college.
The summer I turned 30 I decided to do two things. One: I would go to Italy, on a journey that would help me understand the places where my grandparents came from, the streets they walked, the food they ate, and the stories behind all the traditions that have become such an inspiration and a driving force in my life. Two: I would spend the rest of the summer learning from both my grandmothers all the little secrets that made every dish so special. And so, the idea for my thesis “Viva la Nonna� became an homage to my grand-parents and how their traditions shaped my life and the way I see food.
I was 4000 miles away from my family, and whenever I felt homesick, all I wanted to do was cook; make all those dishes that seamed trivial and mundane at the time, but now made me feel like I carried a piece of my home with me. So, it began; my obsession with documenting the rituals and traditions of my family. Not only the dishes, but how we serve them, when, how to share them, and their back stories. I also realized that I was inherently doing what my grandparents had done right after the war before they left Italy to emigrate to Venezuela.
Iin Italy having dinner with family I had never met before.
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Inspiration 10
I am an illustrator, a story-teller, and a maker of things. I went to grad-school to explore, to find my voice, and after a lot of searching, and experimentation I did.
I wanted to create everything, from the dishes you use to share your food, to the table cloth, and the food inside those dishes.
I realized I did not need to look far away to find the stories that interested me, the ones that filled me with joy, or that I would never get tired of illustrating; they were right here, in my family.
I compiled recipes, stories, anecdotes, pictures, and I started this process, of branding myself through my traditions, and my love of food and family.
I am an immigrant, and when I came to the US from Venezuela all I had with me to make myself feel at home were the traditions my grandparents had with them when they moved from Italy to Venezuela after the war. Now, just by the simple act of following these simple ritual and recipes, and sharing them with friends I have been able to feel at home, and build a community through food. I realized in grad-school that I was building the perfect experimental toolbox to approach this project from every angle. I wanted to build an imaginary kitchen, a food sanctuary, a place where you felt comfortable to explore, try, and share food. I set out to build a world, an ambitious project to say the least, but an interesting one. I wanted to build an imaginary kitchen that resembled those kitchens I grew up with, and I say those because I was always bouncing around between my house and both my grandmother’s houses.
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trial & error
ceramics Trial and error became a big part of the thesis process. From working with new materials, to learning new techniques, and exploring new concepts of design. I had a set of goals I wanted to accomplish, and being able to make vessels to share the food was one of them. I enrolled in class (personal directions in clay) in which I learned the first steps into creating my vision. My ultimate goal is to create a kitchen line that can have the warm feeling of family with my own design and contemporary feel. My first instinct was to make every piece angular. This approach failed almost as soon as I started, nothing felt the way I wanted it to, it was frustrating. But one night I was taught to throw on the wheel, and that moment changed everything. I thought about the vessels differently; they way you hold them, its shape, why and how you use them. In the end I created simple bowls that carried messages of love for food and its maker.
Learning to throw on the wheel
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A lot of experimentation happened with ceramics. I started to get involved in every single part of the process. I wanted to have everything to do with my pieces. I insisted in a color palette for my pieces, so I learned how to make glazes from scratch. Each tile tested the glaze with and without white slip under it. It also tested how the glaze would be different with one or two coats, and finally what it would look like with or without a clar glaze on top.
Test stoneware tiles with white slip.
Test tiles with unique recipe to match project’s color palette.
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Bowls ready to be bisqued fired.
One of the most valuable things I learned about ceramics was its unpredictability. You are only in charge of so much, and then the material and the kiln will do the rest, and as a artist that becomes liberating, if you learn to embrace it.
Glazed fired bowls.
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Messages & hand-lettering In the process of developing this entire project I came up with simple tag lines that would become central to the project. They were three to four words each, and conveyed a message of love, and care for food and the people who made it. The messages are supposed to be simple, inviting and to the point. They would be displayed in multiple surfaces form tea towels, cloth napkins, ceramics, tote bags, even posters. Lettering also became a trial and error situation too, were it became difficult for me to decide between cleanly set type, and a more loose hand-lettered approach. During this phase I experimented with different surfaces to display this message like textiles, paper, but also played with different techniques, like screen printing, watercolor, acrylic and gouache.
Screen printed postcard
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Screen printed tea towel
Screen printed postcards with various messages
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Watercolor original handlettered print.
Watercolor and gouache handlettered sketches
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style & book Style was a roller-coaster for me in this journey. Trying to find the unique way in which I draw food, in which I can tell a story that involves food. Everything seemed to foreign to me. I had never really drawn food before, and it became one of my biggest challenges. At first I tried fitting into a generic, draw-it-like-you-seeit approach, but I was never satisfied with the result. It looked like everything else. There was nothing exciting about it, and I could not relate to it because it did not feel like me. In keeping with my original style of flat, and angular I started simplifying the shaped to the bare minimum, and trying to play with squared, circles, and triangles, and of course a very bright palette. I also set out to create a cookbook that would have personal recipes that made me feel at home. I knew I wanted it to be illustrated, but I also wanted it to be functional, and so the journey of style began.
Gouche experiementation with angular vegetables.
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Top left: First round of sketches for recipe cookbook. Bottom left: Second round of sketches for book. Right: Gouache sketch of wordless recipe.
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I always felt the cookbook should be accompanied by stories, small snippets that explained why that recipe made me feel at home. Why it was important for me to pick those from the other hundreds I grew up with. I also needed to include not only Italian recipes, but also Venezuelan ones. I grew up in an household that was traditionally Italian, we even speak the language while we are there, but Venezuela is my home, is where I am from, and I wanted to express that too. There were so many struggles in creating the book. Its functionality, the format, the recipe, the story, the illustration. Should everything be illustrated? Should it be a mixture between photograph and spot illustrations? Should it be hand-lettered or type-set? It became a constant a constant design problem, when I fixed one thing five other problems arose.
Top left: Home-made jam photo and recipe card design
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After several meetings with a guest critics I realized that maybe it was all about the story, and not about the recipes at all. It could be a book about me, my journey, my family, the times we have around the kitchen. And so the book started taking form, I found a style I could relate to, and that made me feel like I was finally telling my story. The book dummy sits up right, and contains 15 recipe cards with illustrations of specific moments shared with my family, at the dinner table, the stories from each card are in the back.
Top left: Book dummy stand with recipe cards. Bottom right: Illustration “Sobremesa�
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Left: Sketches and handlettering. Right: Gouache illustration of sardines.
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surface design Growing up around three different kitchens (both my grandmothers, and my mom’s) I was surrounded by an array of different patterns. In one house everything was more Art Deco with green tones, the other was yellow with white accents, and a very classic look, and then it was my house trying to stay contemporary all the time. In this project I wanted to develop patterns that would be used in my ideal kitchen, with motifs that spoke to me, and that were created in my style, they should feel contemporary, but also classical. I wanted the designs to reflect simple things that relate to my family; like sausages that my grandfather makes from scratch, or pineapples which are one of my favorite tropical fruits.
Pattern designs on fabrics.
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Left: Skecthes for strawberry pattern. Top right: Strawberry pattern tile. Bottom right: Strawberry pattern printed on fabric.
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Left: Sketches for breakfast or bacon and eggs pattern. Top right: Bacon and eggs pattern tile. Bottom right: Bacon and eggs pattern printed on fabric.
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the exhibition 27
I had a clear vision when it came to the exhibition. I wanted it to feel like an inviting place, a place you would want to sit down, eat and share. This was an imaginary dinning room, and it needed to feel just the right way. Since the start I had envisioned this place being yellow, so I had two custom colors made in order to convey the warmth of the room. All the furniture needed to be untreated wood, so I decided to build most of it to look the way it did in my mind’s eye. I wanted to add nature, plants, ceramics, I needed the space to feel more like a lived in space than a cold exhibition display. Reviews about the space were positive, I achieved what I set out to do, and in the end it felt exactly the way I wanted it to feel.
Painting an exhibition kitchen with custom color yellow.
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Left: Close-up of custom ceramics, and surface design at the exhibition. Right: Close-up of table to with custom ceramics, coaster, and surface design patterns.
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Opposite: Exhibition space Left: Book display Right: Close-up dinner table.
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the future What come next? In a perfect world I would know exactly what the next step would be, but right now all I know is I want to keep branding myself through Viva la Nonna. I believe this is a substantial project that I can work on for decades. I know I would never get bored, because it’s mine, about my roots, my family, and the things I love the most. I want to start a blog to begin sharing my recipes and experiences. It would like every post to have its own illustrations. This would help me start a community of stories about food from different people, and cultures. I hope to eventually gain a following, and publish the book. I would like it to be interactive so people can add the recipes they want, or write their own. My immediate goal is to keep developing my ceramic skills, and create a line of vessels that is designed for sharing food. I would like to play with decal application, and keep developing the idea of messages with the pieces. Eventually I would like to create an entire kitchen line inspired by this project.
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I envision myself in the future of illustration more from an entrepenoureal standpoint. The face of illustration is morphing to embrace multiple disciplines, and I would like to be a part of this change. I believe this project will allow me to explore all these displines, and help me find my spot in the vast place that is illustration as a concept.
fin
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thank you To my grandparents for teaching how to carry my family with me everywhere I go, and to give me the courage to dream away from home. To my teachers and advisors Jaime Zollars, Rebecca Bradley, Lydia Nichols, Eric Leland and Whitney Sherman. I know I would have not been able to do this without your support, kindness and endless advise. To all the members of the MFA-ILP family for being a part of this amazing journey through gradschool, and for letting me share my favorite dishes with you. A special thanks to my parents Stefano and Felicetta, who encouraged me since I was little to follow my dreams, and allowed me to be myself, always. To my brother Stefano, who keeps me sane, every step of the way.
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