An interview, woohoo!

2017-04-14T20:27:00.001-07:00

Alright, it all happened in 2016 but it's still surprisingly up to date. The original can be found here: click!

Where are you from?
From Wrocław. I’ve been oscillating between an estate full of monstrous post-Soviet blocks of flats and rather wealthy suburbs and it stayed with me a little bit: I like to be in-between.

Who do you feel you are?
Hm. As Jonathan Franzen once said:

A personality is a collection of modules. There is no unitary 'I.' Neuroscience, the ultimate authority on such matters tells us that there is no unitary 'I.'

Taking into account my own experiences and my general trust towards studies, I think it’s the truth even if not particularly intuitive, and thanks to that knowledge I’m able to understand, why I feel variously. At this moment, for example, I see the length of my replies for all those questions and I feel like narcissistic asshole, natural born memorialist. I also feel like a proponent of computer games. A handmade artist. A human being. A lazybones. Perhaps I feel more shaped by three years of my Polish Studies then by African Studies, although I have a degree in the latter.

What are you doing?
I guess I’m a product of internet / my times / both, because I’ve been doing everything, though now I see multiple weaknesses of that approach. I’ve started with drawing, then my interest switched to digital photography, then to analogue, after that I’ve started creating jewelry: at first it was made of felt, then I’ve included bead embroidery and a regular one, bead weaving, polymer clay, leather, plywood, acrylic paints, spray cans, copper and a bit of silver. I carve linocuts, I’ve been writing short stories, a few embarrassing poems (some of them were printed. Dear God, why?), a micro-reportage. Since 2012 for three years I’ve been reviewing newly published books for Polish biggest readers’ portal, Lubimy Czytac... and that’s all. Now I focus exclusively on crafting, but I still tend to jump sideways, so pretty much I could say I still do everything, I’m just having long hiatuses in this or that medium.

How have it all started?
I was born around 26 years ago and I suppose it was a breakthrough for me.

Oh, that was cheesy.

Okay, let’s try again.

I started to draw when I was 7 or 8 years old, to take pictures when I hit my 13th birthday, to sew – being around 18. I didn’t have any particular talents nor lean towards arts when I was a little kid. I didn’t plan to make brooches either; I just entered one of the bookshops to buy a book, spotted felt, thought: „Oh!” and it was all over but the shouting. Material straight from dreams, with wonderful colors, nice texture and, last but not least, it doesn’t frail. Loobeensky is my Polish surname in quasi-anglicized version; I don’t remember how I came up with this but it was years ago and I still think it suits me well. There was a time when felt hearts and uteruses were my most recognizable designs but it’s long in the past now.

Where to find you, where to watch, where to follow?
Alright, time for litany (or enumeration). I have a crafting blog: http://www.loobeensky.blogspot.com And another one for photography: http://www.neniadt.blogspot.com. My jewelry can be bought on Etsy, DaWanda, Pakamera and many more galleries, just search for the brand name. There’s Instagram and official page on Facebook. Constant collections on both Patreon and Patronite.

Who or what inspires you to create?
It’s horribly difficult to trace it and pin down, because everything converge and I’m under the impression that I’m constantly swimming in a soup consisting of many different things, from which something just jumps out from time to time – and sometimes you have to pull it out by the ears, sweating like a pig. You know what, maybe I’ll just scribble down what and whom I throw into that soup. Flaubert (Madame Bovary is so far the most important book of my life), Nabokov, Franzen, Foster Wallace, Bringhurst, Jerzy Stempowski, Zadie Smith, Juhani Pallaasma, Leonard Susskind, Peter Zumthor’s architecture, things designed by Sottsass, “The Atlantic”, „Tygodnik Powszechny” and „Charaktery”, pink acrylic vase by Shiro Kuramata, also, the glass one Alvar Aalto made, Breughel, Bosch, Memling, gerewol ceremony, Dogon and Inuit masks, album „Howl, U.S.A” by Kronos Quartet, Amon Tobin, Undertale, Elliott Erwitt, Cartier-Bresson, Richard Kalvar, Martin Parr, Taiyo Onorato and Nico Krebs’ collaboration; I think my tendency to “rubbery” aesthetics couldn’t be born without the book called “The Vastness of the Mathematical Imagination” from which I got to know roughly what is topology. Oh, and I can’t forget about stupid house, italo disco, disco-polo and Polish feast songs that are also there, creeping somewhere on the bottom.

What is the most important thing when it comes to self-realization?
Making a decision, diligence, willingness to being taught and critical approach to matters of ego that are constantly surfacing when you’re in the middle of a creative process of any kind. Intellectual curiosity is crucial as well, as it helps to peek behind the system of simple tags and commonplaces we use daily and how could we imagine making anything new without it?
„The point here is that I think this is one part of what teaching me how to think is really supposed to mean. To be just a little less arrogant. To have just a little critical awareness about myself and my certainties. Because a huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded. I have learned this the hard way, as I predict you graduates will, too.”

What is your goal?
To get to know who I am. Among other goals. I just hope I’ll manage to do this before I die.

What is your main source of energy to keep going?
Pills. But, more seriously: many things. I have lots of plants and a dog, it’s working. I also have huge bookcase.

What makes you laugh?
Primitive jokes, good sets of colors and absolutely uncontrollable bouts of high-pitched good humor.

What’s everyday Alexandra?
Inhumanely stubborn, perverse, a tad disturbed, unbelievably lazy. If I could, I’d lay for the whole day and play computer games.

What kind of advice would you give to people that are still looking for purpose in their lives?
Oh, I have hyper-aphorism for all of you, the most universal advice of the world:
Sometimes that what you think you wish for, is really what you wish for. And sometimes it isn’t.
And another one: „You get to decide what to worship.” (That’s David Foster Wallace again)
And another: stop scrolling Facebook.

Random Composition With Absolutely Zero Hidden Meaning

2017-04-05T10:42:00.000-07:00

Not Really a Crab

2017-04-05T10:30:00.000-07:00

Cor

2017-03-30T12:06:00.000-07:00

Wings

2017-02-11T10:19:00.000-08:00

The Head

2017-02-08T07:58:00.000-08:00

The Egg

2017-01-23T08:05:00.001-08:00

Up!

2016-10-21T05:46:00.000-07:00

Hand-cut, drilled and painted plywood brooch.

Loobeensky's on Patreon.com!

2016-08-12T11:29:00.001-07:00

Hello guys (& gals),

I'd like to let you know that now I've got a profile on ‪Patreon‬ - a site where you can pitch in to help one nice crafter from Poland to collect money for a furnace [(almost) seriously] or sharpening stones. If you don't want or don't need a new piece of jewelry or don't want to spend so much or whatever, but you like what I do - you can help me there!

https://www.patreon.com/loobeensky

Luchadonna

2016-08-10T13:46:00.000-07:00

Ooo-pa!

2016-08-02T09:15:00.001-07:00

Brooch made of two layers of painted plywood.

Asshole

2016-08-02T09:10:00.002-07:00

Two layers of plywood, painted. Channels in outer plywood are of course cut not painted. Keeping those unobstructed (no pun intended) when putting one layer of paint and lacquer after another was driving me mad ;).

Foot

2016-08-02T08:31:00.003-07:00

It's a brooch made by me of painted plywood.

Layers

2016-08-02T08:30:00.000-07:00

Two layers of painted ply. I liked it when it was raw but I like it when it's painted too. So I guess it's going to be made once again ;).

The Beardie

2016-08-02T08:18:00.000-07:00

This time it's single layer of plywood, but hand-cut & painted too. I went to my favourite shop to buy two and just two more shades of paint but I saw wonderful Luftwaffe's Rot (RLM 23), slightly muted when compared to standard red pant I use. And here it is. With wonderful, cold grey-ish brown which looses some of its brown tones when put next to the cobalt blue.

Vroom!

2016-08-02T08:12:00.000-07:00

Vroom is made of plywood, hand-cut and painted by me. It started as comb-like shape, then I turned it into antlers but something bugged me about it so here it is:

Drops

2016-07-18T08:01:00.003-07:00

Ebbs, Flows and Stones

2016-06-14T15:01:00.002-07:00

Another piece in progress. Another wooden piece in progress, to be precise. Polyclay elements are glued with epoxy adhesive so they're basically un-tearable.

Lalala

2016-06-14T14:58:00.001-07:00

Brooch in progress. Han-cut and painted wood.

Soon-to-be Earrings

2016-06-14T14:54:00.000-07:00

These guys are made of hand-cut, hand-painted wood and shrinkable plastic.

Everything together!

2016-06-11T12:20:00.000-07:00

Bulb the Bulbul

2016-06-11T12:17:00.001-07:00

The Depressed Person

2016-06-11T12:16:00.001-07:00

Fairly Meaningless Nevertheless Pleasant Composition.

2016-06-11T12:14:00.003-07:00

loobeensky • Übercute trinkets for humans