Elemental Being X Sally Patti

ELEMENTAL BEING

An interview with print artist Sally Patti

Q: As an artist, constantly expressing yourself through various mediums, what do you feel is your purpose?

A: My purpose. Is to constantly learn, to know, to feel, experience… to always be changing and within this change to be growing and expanding. If I succeed or fail at certain things it is always a lesson, the lesson is part of the gain of knowledge, my purpose is to express this journey, so to inspire others and to one day look back and smile.

Q: Among your creative pursuits what inspires your digital print art?

A: I’ve always been really drawn in by colour, pattern and lines. I love seventies Sifi art, Art nouveau, Turkish rugs, European churches, I love intricacy, staring into a Dahli painting or an Alex grey painting. I love fantasy, and magic. I love fine detail and how when detail, colour and pattern combined to me, creates a new world. I travel a lot, I love to see new places, textures, new colours.. The chalk blue of Chefchouen, the turquoise green of Canadian lakes, the fiery orange of the Nevada desert. Everything inspires me.

Q: To create can be a personal offering to the world, many feel inherently part of their creations. Do you feel this way?

A: Well yeah, but I more like it as a reflection of myself at that time in my life, I look back on old work years ago and remember who I was and what I was doing, where I was at with my self development. I have a terrible memory so my work helps me remember haha. I also feel that without sharing and letting go of your work you hold so much inside, I can’t, to move forward I use my work as a stepping stone to lift me onto the next. I believe that the offering of your creation once released soaks into others as they view/ feel/ wear/ experience it, hence they absorb the energy and life you put into it.

Q: What do you love about creating prints for brand Liberated Heart? What inspires you about the brand?

A: I love it because it’s something so different, so psychedelic, vibrant, and full of life. When I’m designing for liberated heart I just feel like it’s so right, it just flows and its fun! I also know we are all on the same page with what the end product of the print needs to be. If I’m not happy I know the feelings mutual, but by the end, when it’s complete its like this excitement that fills me up, I’m like yep this is epiccc!!! haha and I know the girls feel the same. I feel really really blessed every day to be working alongside people that are so driven and as creative as I am, the team at liberated heart are insanely talented and inspirational women and I think that shines through in everything they do. I think Liberated heart as a brand is really pushing forward, becoming its own, expanding… it’s so unique, its not plain and boring its energetic, it has energy, an energy that I’m very proud to be apart of. So all of this inspires me to want to do more and be supportive of the brand.

Q: You shot both the campaigns for each print you created for our Elemental Being collection. What was it like to shoot your own art?

A: It was really fulfilling I felt really nervous but when I saw it I immediately a. criticised myself for the print, what I would change, do differently next time, which I think is vital as a creative… and b. was really stoked and proud of myself I suppose, I’ve always been so so attracted to physical mediums, going from looking at something digital, to something on fabric was so exciting and inspiring. I’ve always wanted to create fabric prints so it was a really beautiful experience being able to photograph something I had put part of my soul into.

Q: What inspires you?

A: I think the most important thing for me, to remain inspired, is to always be changing what I am doing creatively. I play music, cook a lot, do some landscaping here and there with my mum on my property, surf, draw, travel, try to do new things, to challenge myself constantly. I’ve never really worked 9-5 in one job, I’ve always had multiple jobs going on, some people think.. that’s how you “spread yourself thin” but to me it’s all one massive beautiful strong spider web that I live in. If my web was small I would get stagnant and bored and end up not moving at all…So I suppose my main inspiration is change.

Q: What is your most recent infatuation?

A: My new tattoo

Q: What item of clothing can you not live without?

A:After years of collecting and buying and selling vintage, moving from city to city, living in a van, I’ve learnt to really really let go, I’ve had items sold / disposed of by my mother while I’ve been overseas, I’ve lost 70’s fur coats, let go of my most favourite leather patchwork backpack after dragging it through a week of burning man and leaving it in Canada, lost my collectors 90’s gaultier pieces to garage sales that were worth an arm and leg… sold for a coupla bucks ( devastating ) .. so I mean I could say I can not live without my Jimi Hendrix 70’s t shirt I have had since forever, or my vintage Japanese kimono, or my lace up boots… but in all honestly its jewellery for me. I actually could not live without my rings, I have one on every finger, two on a couple and if I lost them I don’t know who I would be.