{"id":614,"date":"2009-02-11T22:03:27","date_gmt":"2009-02-11T22:03:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hip97.com\/wp\/?p=614"},"modified":"2012-10-31T23:19:56","modified_gmt":"2012-10-31T15:19:56","slug":"interview-irina-troitskaya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pikaland.com\/staging\/2009\/02\/11\/interview-irina-troitskaya\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview: Irina Troitskaya"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We have a special guest today, the lovely Irina Troitskaya<\/a> who I am absolutely a big fan of. As in CRAZY<\/span> big fan. Her personal projects have always been a favourite of mine — from her birdie and bear face masks<\/a> to her painted matryoshkas<\/a>. I’ve always been a little curious about Russia too, and it’s part of the things that Irina talks about in this round of our artists’ interview. <\/p>\n

I hope you’ll enjoy this as much as I did!<\/p>\n

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Name:<\/strong> Irina Troitskaya
\nLocation:<\/strong> Moscow, Russia
\nWebsite\/Shop:<\/strong> www.irtroit.com<\/a>
\nBlog:<\/strong> www.irtroit.com\/blog<\/a>
\nIllustration media:<\/strong> Pencil, ink, gouache, digital <\/p>\n

Tell us a little more about yourself!<\/em><\/strong>
\nI was born in Izhevsk, industrial city deep into Russia, full of dead ends, sad electronic music and Finno-Ugric cultural roots. I spent my childhood on our dacha<\/a> with my grandmother. Last year I went there for vacation and re-discovered it for myself. I finally understood where I saw all those patterns and colors I use now in my pictures. Old houses were covered with wooden carvings, door and window frames, dried up wood and faded colors. Endless source of inspiration! <\/p>\n

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My great grandfather was a carpenter and helped to build and decorate some of them<\/a>. There are no illustrators in my family except me. My grandmother was a teacher of Russian language and literature, grandfather once made copies of famous paintings of that time, but never became an artist himself, my aunt is very talented in crafts and embroidery, but works in a personnel office and my mother is, probably, the closest to design in our family, she\u2019s a dressmaker. Once she told me: \u201cYou can be whatever you want to, except an engineer. I beg you!\u201d Well, what can I say \u2013 I did as she told me. <\/p>\n

What stands out about living in Russia, and what is your daily schedule like?<\/em><\/strong>
\nWell, Russia is wild and unexpected. No rules, no laws, no safety guaranteed. It\u2019s in the middle between Western and Eastern cultures and I like its Eastern part more and more with the lapse of time. It\u2019s beautiful in its width and a little bit scary for the same reason. You need a week to cross it by train by the way. Needless to say if you\u2019re going to do that, you\u2019ll have to deal with people a lot and in seven days all the passengers at your compartment become your new relatives. I tend not to love Russia some years ago, but do you remember that \u201cLove it or leave it\u201d thing? I chose love. I also in love with all that national stuff like balalaika, valenki and matryoshka<\/a>“. And yes, we have wild bears in the streets! <\/p>\n

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What about my daily routine, I try to wake up early \u2013 the day is longer then and you can catch some sun light in the morning. In winter it\u2019s very important, coz we don\u2019t have much sunny days: at 8 a.m. it\u2019s still dark and at 4 p.m. it\u2019s already twilight. There\u2019re two ways to spend my black-letter days \u2013 to stay at home and work as a freelancer or to go to the uni and be a tutor for two dozens of students, studying Visual Communications course. I like to do both. If I\u2019m at home \u2013 I work on my editorial pieces and play with my sketchbooks. If I\u2019m in uni \u2013 I try to encourage my students to do something new and exiting they\u2019ve never tried before. This term we have a lot of workshops on linocut, monoprints, embossing and collage let alone drawing and painting. In the evening I usually do my yoga classes, meet friends and like to drink a lot of tea with ginger right after it.<\/p>\n

How did you get your start in illustration?<\/em><\/strong>
\nIt was a long way. Can\u2019t say exactly when did I start to draw. Seems I can do it since I remember myself. My love of drawing led me to a university, where I studied arts about five years. However it gave me nothing but weariness. For the first time in my life drawing became my abhorrence. Drawing and painting were regarded as quaint relics from the past. I felt disappointed about all that stuff and surely didn\u2019t want to join endless row of realistic fine artist drawing still-lifes and landscapes. On the other hand I had no idea what to do next. On graduating from uni I quit drawing and worked as a TV journalist for a couple of years. But I always preferred pictures to words and went to Moscow to find a job, which was more appropriate to me. I began to revive my drawing skills (if you don\u2019t do it every day, hands tend to forget) and filled out sketchbooks with awful drawings (I mean it!). I was going to work as an assistant designer, but suddenly my friends asked me to draw some pictures for their client. I fulfilled their request and unwittingly became an illustrator. <\/p>\n

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Could you tell us more about your thought process when you start a piece?<\/em><\/strong>
\nIf it\u2019s editorial, I begin by reading a brief, then reply with \u201cyes, I can take this job\u201d letter if I\u2019m interested and go to sleep\/for a walk\/have a cup of coffee with a friend right after. I rarely start to work immediately if there\u2019s no urgency needed. I like to live with this task for a while to think about it, to find something personal in it, to make it part of my life. Of course I read and look at whatever materials I can find if the theme of the brief isn\u2019t familiar to me. Anyway it\u2019s always good to make a research. Somewhere along the way an idea for the illustration pops into my head from out of the blue. It doesn\u2019t let me go further until I put it onto paper. With personal pieces it\u2019s all the same except the fact of getting a brief. I can’t really explain that part, it\u2019s always different. In fact I don\u2019t believe there\u2019s an accurate way to describe this process. <\/p>\n

Do you keep a journal\/sketchbook, and would you mind if we had a sneak peek?<\/em><\/strong>
\nOf course I keep it! Moreover it\u2019s the most important and exiting part of my work. <\/p>\n

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I can’t go anywhere unless I have my sketchbook in my bag, even if I never open it. My checklist before I go out looks like \u201ckeys, money, sketchbook, pencil\u201d. Because I carry one everywhere, I tend to misplace them sometimes. One of the most terrible fears for me is to loose my current sketchbook. Luckily I never lost any. But I guess it\u2019s only because I always do some kind of sketchbook monitoring. <\/p>\n

What or who inspires you?<\/em><\/strong>
\nIt could be anything! Really! National costumes, old Soviet posters, handmade toys, Eastern patterns, music, nature (chestnuts, acorns and maple seeds), children\u2019s drawings, tiny found objects (especially if I can\u2019t identify them), animals, books, vintage dresses, Russian animation, other artists\u2019 works, abandoned buildings, old photographs. But most of all people. The way a girl smoothes her fringe, an old lonely lady holds her mongrel, the way a boy tries to speak his phone in subway pulling his coat on his head for better hearing. I can watch them endlessly. And secretly draw everything I see. <\/p>\n

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What keeps you motivated?<\/em><\/strong>
\nMy friends and the man I love. <\/p>\n

What’s your favourite tool?<\/em><\/strong>
\nA pencil. It\u2019s true! There\u2019s no other so simple yet so versatile medium. It needs you to be fearless and sensitive at the same time. <\/p>\n

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Are you a full-time artist?<\/em><\/strong>
\nYes and no. Yes, because it\u2019s some kind of philosophy. You can dye a scarf, cook a pie, make a bag or knit a pair of socks and be an artist in it. Even when I cook I need my borsch (a soup traditionally made with beetroot as a main ingredient) to be that beautiful red color otherwise I feel frustrated. Can you imagine how good red borsch<\/a> is with white sour cream and green parsley? And it\u2019s tasty! So yes, I\u2019m a full time artist. <\/p>\n

To be a little bit more serious, no, I\u2019m not. It\u2019s nearly impossible to be a full time artist in Russia. I can\u2019t live on that money I get for my works. It\u2019s more like my hobby than my profession from this point of view. All the artists I know run their design studios, teach or work full time jobs in design agencies. <\/p>\n

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What advice would you like to give people who are interested in being an artist full-time?<\/em><\/strong>
\nBe patient and carry on. This is one of the most exiting pastimes and you can do it all the time while others have to do their job. <\/p>\n

Where do you see yourself within the next few years?<\/em><\/strong>
\nI\u2019d like to make a couple of illustrated books for children. I also have some other plans, but don\u2019t like to speak about them, until they\u2019re done. <\/p>\n

What message do you want to send out to people about your work?<\/em><\/strong>
\nIf the work is good, people will understand all I was going to say and may be a little bit more. If it\u2019s bad, there\u2019s no need to mention about it. <\/p>\n

Tell us something random about yourself!<\/em><\/strong>
\nI have Kalinka<\/a> ringtone on my phone. We went to Syria last year and discovered nobody uses standard ringtones there (those you usually get together with your phone by default). Each and every person we met had something very national. If you\u2019ve ever heard their music, you\u2019ll get what I\u2019m talking about. I found it exciting, came back home and now my phone rings absolutely Russian and I like it. <\/p>\n

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———————-<\/p>\n

{Thank you so much Irina!}<\/em><\/p>\n

++ To read other artists’ interviews, see here<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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