S/M

illustrations and stuff by Sarah Mazzetti

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For Nautilus magazine. Article about losing your native language. 

Thanks Len Small and Francesco Izzo.

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A poster I did for TOG, an organization that helps children with neurological pathologies. Write me if you want one, and I’ll put you in contact with them. Size: 70X100 cm

[sarahmazzetti]

From the Zeit Campus issue I illustrated earlier this year. The topic of the cover story was „Balance of power between employers and employees - Who is stronger?“, which I visually interpreted with the jungle metaphor and power relations between animals. The first image is the cover of the magazine (without design elements and typography of course), while the other illo needed to fit in with text. 

For what concerns the “style”, well I’m happy with it, let’s say I applied the image-making technique I usually use for more abstract assignment - such as Studio ones - to a more figurative topic. Still I’m a bit bored with this process lately, it’s hard to explain, but it feels a bit manneristic and too “designish”, what I mean is that the drawing is not so present in these images, they are more designed rather then drawn, the elements are like pieces of a puzzle that come together to create the final composition (this is not far from reality since I reuse bits from other illustrations to create the new ones), which is fine, but for me the highest form of art is drawing a cat with a funny face, you know.

Anyway, these are just thoughts of an overcritical person, please feel free to think that these look nice, which is good, and that’s it.

[sarahmazzetti]

I’ve just stumbled upon this pic taken by Sasso-Residency current guest German type designer Timo Gaessner (the one above), and immediately thought about the more or less same picture i took when I was there (the one below) . The place is the same, a small grocery store near Vairano, actually the closest in walking distance, but what we saw and experienced are two very different things, two different meanings for the same place. Which is a normal thing, but I love this coincidence built around a pretty much insignificant shop that most of the people wouldn’t bother looking at.

So this is what TG wrote and saw (you can read the original text here in “Week 02 — Rhythm and Flow”), focusing on the typography of the writing “COMMESTIBILI”:

It appears the sign painter of this shop also had a hard time finding his rhythm and flow. The width of the letters COMMESTIBILI (food) are varying extremely and provide a well fitting charm to the outfit. A good example of one of many unintended styles choices amateurs repeatedly are doing. I believe that it’s mostly due the fact that letters seems to be based on a mathematical schemes or forms, when it’s actually better based on optical decisions. 

And this is what I wrote is this post in which I collected a few photos I took during my stay.

The official language in Ticino is Italian, but the way they use it sounds quite odd and funny to an Italian-Italian person. This is an easily translatable into English example: they call the grocery stores “commestibili”, which means edible in Italian, and like in English it’s an adjective, it should not be used as a noun. It’s just as if every grocery store in your neighborhood was called “Edible”. And apart from sounding odd and grammatically wrong, where was the fucking bla-bla guy from the marketing office I can never get rid of that day?

Despite being an illustrator, I didn’t pay any attention to the aesthetic of the writing, for me it was all about the oddity and personal fun I got from noticing the meaning gaps within the same language, Italian. And TG’s words add something new to this: “...the letters COMMESTIBILI (food) are varying...”, he translated “commestibili” with food, which is not what it means in my Italian, but it’s an additional meaning it took in that specific context, a meaning that is completely new and actually sounds improper and clumsy to my hear, so improper and clumsy I wasn’t able to translate it for you as easily as he did.

Oh well, all very fascinating also for you, right?! 

[sarahmazzetti]

For this New Yorker piece about reading as a therapy. 

You know what, I really think that some people have a talent for making money. In the beginning I was a bit skeptical about the article, but now I get it, just leave the whole book-therapy thing behind, the real message here is: “some people are blessed with the talent of making money, you will be surprised”. And also “you are not”. 

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Serie of portraits for the Summer issue of Rivista Studio about Portraits. They follow last year’s issue about Writing, always illustrated by me, and Tommaso Garner, the AD, asked me to use the same technique, colors and shapes (where possible).

The people portrayed in the long form articles and in my illustrations are:

Matteo Garrone - the Italian director of Gomorra, the movie version of Roberto Saviano’s book/reportage about Camorra, the Mafia-style criminal organization mainly located in Campania. (Which is the region in Central-South Italy where Naples is. Am I good at figuring which Italian things might sound familiar to a non-Italian person?)

Miley Cyrus - you know Miley Cyrus

Tracey Emin - or the most boring feminist artist ever born. I mean, be funny girls, please, be Sarah Lucas.

Harlod Bloom - American literary critic, who I know nothing about.

Donald Trump - you know Trump for the same reasons you know Miley, the butt talk. Funny fact: his ex wife Ivana Trump was married to two Italian men and some years ago she took part in an Italian Reality show (L’Isola dei Famosi).

Renata Adler - American writer and journalist. Your know her better then me I guess.

[sarahmazzetti]

Sasso-Residency dump 

Pics from my 4 week residency is Vairano - Ticino (CH) - links below

From top:

1. House on sale? Girl statue on sale? House+girl statue on sale? 

2. Vertical statue, horizontal statues, logs

3. Umbrella

4. This require some explanation: the official language in Ticino is Italian, but the way they use it sounds quite odd and funny to an Italian-Italian person. This is an easily translatable into English example: they call the grocery stores “commestibili”, which means edible in Italian, and like in English it’s an adjective, it should not be used as a noun. It’s just as if every grocery store in your neighborhood was called “Edible”. And apart from sounding odd and grammatically wrong, where was the fucking bla-bla guy from the marketing office I can never get rid of that day?

5. You could buy the Herald Tribune along with a very typical doll and a plate shaped and decorated as a slice of Emmental cheese here before it closed two millions years ago. Seriously, this shop has been closed for a few years now, but inside everything is still there, any sort of gadget, magazines, typical stuff, lp, cds, canned food etc...

6. The cat that haunted our garden

7. A closer look

8. Sign on a woodshed, it says “Here you can’t (shit on my fucking pieces of wood, stupid white city dog. I can tell you’re from the city ‘cause you’re on the pavement and there’s a car behind you. We don’t have such things as pavements here, careless dirty white city dog. You’re the worse, you dogs from the city)”

9. Invitation to the Church’s Sunday brunch after the sermon. Anyway, I don't think a good Christian should be familiar with the concept of “brunch”.

10. Gelateria in Locarno

11. Men in Ascona

12. Fire ladies

13. Fire lady in action. The mansion wasn’t heated, and the first week was still pretty chilly (mid May), so we had to do the fire every day.

14. My room! I know it doesn’t show, but that bed was huge! Enormous! Colossal! And the pillows and linen also, it looked like the bed of a 20% bigger then average human

15. me swallowed by the bed

16. dogs

Info:

Sasso-Residency website

Martina Walther and Pascale Küng, my lovely residency-mates.

The cat who haunted our garden.

[sarahmazzetti]

I just got a couple of nice pics of my illustrations for a past issue of Rivista Studio I forgot to buy. My work for them has taken its own direction trough the years, I was encouraged to work more freely with shapes and abstraction, not focusing so much on the readability of the piece, but maximizing its aesthetic impact. I guess the main reason why I love my job is the chance to explore such different approaches to image-making and storytelling, which is something quite fundamental for me. Anyway, in these illo I juxtaposed Rome and Milan architectures: Torre Velasca vs Colosseo and Colonnato del Bernini vs Duomo di Milano.

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Hey! My Lorenz comic is published in English on Vice US! I originally wrote/drew it for Teiera Autoproduzioni’s book Ten Steps in the City, which you can buy here (ita with Eng subs).

And thanks Nick Gazin!

[sarahmazzetti]

For MIT Technology Review. Thanks AD Jordan Awan!

[sarahmazzetti]

Did this greater then football Weah for l’Ultimo Uomo. Did also this drawing that shows my image-making method and should make you understand my inner struggle whenever I’m asked to draw something that should look like a specific thing with unique features actually existing in real life.

[sarahmazzetti]

Today on the NYT Op-Ed, article about women in engineering. AD Matt Dorfman.

[sarahmazzetti]

WEBSITE UPDATE! 

I opened this Tumblr hoping to update it on a regular basis (unlike my website). Let’s see how it goes, I’m really bad at such things, but I know I need to force myself a little. The only social network I enjoy using for posting works in progress and quick updates - in a very informal way - is Instagram, if you follow me there you won’t be disappointed.

Also, I wanted to show some older works I quite like even if they’re not in my portfolio. But yes, for the pro stuff go to sarahmazzetti.com. 

[sarahmazzetti]

2013 Poster for Bolognesa-Spinnerei exhibition, with works by me and Giulia Sagramola. The exhibition followed our 2-month  residency in Leipzig, where I also did all these gifs!

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Cover and short story for 2013 Teiera’s Domodossola fanzine.

Here’s a little explanation of the idea behind D as Domodossola:

“Although the idea of  “D di Domodossola” (D for Domodossola) should be instinctively clear to an Italian person, it probably needs some further explanation for foreign readers.  You surly know the American TV game-show “Wheel of Fortune”, in Italy we had our own version, “La Ruota della Fortuna” (on air from 1987 to 2009), which was hosted during its “golden years” (the 90s) by Mike Bongiorno, one of the most popular TV personalities in Italy. It was during this period that the “D for Domodossola” meme was created: if every other letter of the alphabet was linked to a well-known place (R for Rome or F for Florence for instance), the city picked for the letter D was this really small – unknown to the majority of the population – town situated in a valley in Piemonte. Because the show was extremely popular, some of the things the host used to say became common sayings, TV memes so to say, and “D for Domodossola” is one of them. “

There are many funny facts related to the show, one of them is that our prime minister Matteo Renzi took part in the game in 1994. Please enjoy him trying to find out what the authors made up for the word “questioning”.

p.s. I used Cooper Black on the cover because that was the typeface used for the numbers on the wheel. I love Cooper Black, but I’m not the kind of person who uses it without a motivation, if you know what I mean. 

[sarahmazzetti]

My wooden giant for TICTIG exhibition at Casa Testori. More info here.

[sarahmazzetti]

My initial proposal for my Pinocchio piece for Wrap Magazine. I wanted to work on a pattern with the characters from the tale, but eventually I was asked to go for a more illustrative image. Still like these a lot though, I actually would like to use them for some other project sooner or later.