There is something of drawing in note taking Małgorzata Kuśnierz interviews Ola Cieślak

MAŁGORZATA KUŚNIERZ: In conversations with illustrators usually a question about masters, inspirations, childhood favourite books pops up…

OLA CIEŚLAK: Today I think I was inspired the most by the calendars with women wearing shirts gaped open emerging from grasses, atlases of plants, Młodożeniec's drawings coming from the choice of American satires, James And  The Giant Peach with divinely gloomy illustrations of Murawski, La Fontaine’s fables with Stanny’s illustrations. And Butenko whose illustrations I obsessively traced on a tracing paper.

And what do you like in contemporary illustration? Do you appreciate anyone in particular among your colleagues?

My colleagues are disgustingly rich. They should be eliminated as soon as possible. Take Mizielińscy family as an example who are unusually consistent on the life and creation basis or Edgar Bąk who is faithful to lines-stripes, Monika Hanulak, who fortunately works very slowly, or impossibly characteristic Marta Ignerska. Everybody is distinctive. In my opinion, what they are doing is really genuine. I honestly can’t stand Ada Bucholc and Ola Niepsuj whom I don’t know personally, because otherwise I would have cut their hands off out of envy. And it would be better for Patryk Mogilnicki if he didn’t walk alone in dark streets… How dare you be so shamelessly talented…

Not only you illustrate books but you also write and design. I am wondering which layer of the book, image or word, is of more importance to you.

The most important to me is text. Right after it, come images. Cetainly, it happened to me that I was writing a text to a drawing, as in case of my last book Bad Dreams. However, I rarely work this way.

Which book was the biggest challenge for you?

What turned out to be extremely difficult, was working on the books inspired by Dürer and Strzemiński’s paintings: Hare by Grzegorz Kasdepke and Afterimages by Tina Oziewicz. It was like walking a tightrope between text and image, or even illustrating image, although it sounds unreasonable. Fortunately, I don’t have a subservient approach to artwork. It was only fun, a convention, scribbling on icons. I didn’t try to imitate Strzemiński but I was rather supposed to be a mediator who shows to a child that you can play with art, that a museum is not a mausoleum, that everyone has a right to his own interpretation. What the artist had in mind is his own business. The publishing house relied on free interpretation of master’s works, reasonably highlighting the need of their demythologization. There would be no sense in illustrating Strzemiński, because he is already painterly enough. Drawing seemed to me as an ideal liaison between a word and an image because there is something of drawing in note taking.

You mentioned Bad Dreams.  While browsing through this book, I was trying to count the number of materials you used. I even detected a textile and a receipt from a cash desk. This publication is a collage, a peculiar patchwork.

I am a collector, sort of a dustman who fishes for stories, some scraps. In Bad Dreams, there is a lot of collecting. There is a formula from a music postcard, a woman suffering from exophthalmos and parts of a used letraset, plastic hearts imitating expensive stones, women’s heads cut out of photographs (I found them in this form at an antique shop), a fragment of a cheese label and a lady from a Turkish publicity of a soup can, my friend Michael in the role of an expert and Copernicus playing the role of a man at a xerox point. I wanted to achieve this effect so it is not clear which pictures are mine and which are from a completely different story. I kept the receipt because of the beautiful full-faced letters. Besides, I really liked the caption “Banana chill”. I made some space in my head by compiling everything in a book.

Visual essay by Marcello is the next work within which you combined many techniques. Do you have your favourite one?

The closest technique for me is drawing but there is something sensual in creating with play dough. I am forming an ear and I feel how it is becoming red in my hands. I am entering worlds which I imagine. In drawing, I feel safer because a pencil is a kind of hand extension so in a way it is guided by the thought. I usually draw on a printing paper. Some elements come along which I integrate in Photoshop. In Marcello, I wanted to build a very diverse world. A photo from a hotel room in a little village where I slept one time, a cut up flyer from a community store, animal preparations inspired by a visit in an Austrian village school. You never know when something can turn out to come in handy and what will come out of the combination of everything.  When I am thinking about somebody, I have exactly these kinds of details in mind – a part of a foot, a curl, a color which I associate with somebody, or separate words, sounds, somebody’s typical face expression. I don’t have my focus on set on the entire person; it’s rather a set of free associations. Marcello is the first visual essay which I have prepared. However, I am planning to develop this format. I have many such stories which I would like to bring to light from my hard drive.

You are mainly associated with illustration. However, in reality, you are in a constant creative process, you are making many things: posters, websites, art workshops, installations, objects, soft toys (for adults).

Surrounded by such diversity, I need to detach myself from the computer, to think differently, to change the medium, to sew a doll or a dress in order to clear my mind. I wouldn’t like to choose and define myself too much in details. It’s good not to know yourself inside out and then get bored with yourself. Besides, sometimes I have these sorts of pickups, attacks of short-lived enthusiasm, and full boxes of unfulfilled concepts for life.

Marcello exists for real or in your imagination?

He is a real boy from a dating portal whom I have never met personally. We talked on Skype, we looked at each other through our cameras and it was a little romantic and scary at the same time. You click and then suddenly Internet starts talking with a human voice. And it’s a personal voice, intimate but still strange.

What intrigues me is his left ear … it is made of play dough and it sticks out …

Marcello was a very sensual boy. He just asked to be pulled by his ears, even online.

The entire interview can be found on the website: mocakforum.pl

Ola Cieślak (born in 1981)

A graduate of the Pracowania Projektowania Książki at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. She is a designer, illustrator and writer. She is an author of books: Love Story, Bad Dreams, From 1 to 10. A holder of the scholarship Młoda Polska 2011 programme. She writes a blog Ola z Bloku (Ola from the Apartment Block): http://olazbloku.blog-spot.com.