We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Bianca Valencia Crisucolo a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Bianca Valencia, thanks for joining us today. What’s the kindest thing anyone has ever done for you?

The kindness of faith. I have Six people that have poured/encouraged/shaped me beyond what I ever imagined I would receive. They believed in me when I did not and actively supported me with wisdom and practical gifts. It is my greatest hope that one day I get to do the same.

The First Is my Mother. Without whom I would not be a fraction of the woman I am today. Her utter relentless belief in me and my calling as an artist, that unshakable foundation and groundwork she helped me set is the reason I am where I am.

The Second is Delphine Maillot. When I was in college this amazing Art Director for a luxury branding and digital creative agency in New York took me under her wing and showed me what it means to cultivate a young mind. As a near broke art student Delphine would take me out to eat and we discuss art, philosophy, and the dreams of my heart. It is here where she treated me to dinner, always saying “trust me it’s an investment, I know you are going to do incredible things.” The pride she had in me is one of the things I hold most precious.

Esther Mun is my third and one of the most influential kindnesses I’ve experienced. I dreamed and prayed for a mentor who I could turn to and seek wisdom from and then one day she was placed in my life. Not only has she been that but she has also been a friend. She has shared her time, resources and spaces with me. She has sat with me to teach me the most fundamental parts of our work and together we have shared dreams and encourage one another. Helping her to grow the artist collective Call to Gather has been one of the great joys of my young life. She has a rare heart for people and more kindness in her finger than others have in their whole being. I hope to return even a fraction of her friendship.

The Fourth is Makoto Fujimura. His writing fundamentally altered me as an artist, his work reframed my understanding of truth and beauty. But most of all his kindness to a young inexperienced artist and his willingness to look at my work and encourage my practice is indelible. Artists always have a few other artists who they admire, look up to and wish to emulate. That mine would actively take time to help me and connect me to those in his world, is a kindness not soon forgotten and an honor I shall wear well into my career.

The Fifth is Haejin Shim Fujimura. A powerful woman whom I admire. Her willingness to give me responsibility and her continuous encouragement of my passion is a permanent fixture in my self discovery. Because of her I learned how to better be a bridge for the voices of the voiceless. Most of all I came to know through her the kindness of a leader who is willing to build out a world of light for her team and those who she bears responsibility for.

I have received many many kindnesses in my life but these stand out to me. I am eternally grateful for the ways their kindness has molded major facets of my being.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I was raised in the small country town of Easton CT, and moved to NY for school: spending my early 20s living in Brooklyn NYwhile attending PARSONS School of Design as an Illustration major.

Upon graduation, I found myself shifting away from pure self exploration or personal narrative. To be honest I owe a lot of the transformation in my creative pursuit to my good friend Andy Wei whom I met at school and is an incredible artist himself. There were about 4 years I stopped painting entirely because I didn’t like the depth of darkness I felt I needed to operate in while painting. He continually encouraged me to paint again and for that I am incredibly grateful. Other than his encouragement I found my work shifted when my intentionality with the work did. Apart from the self, I had this urgency to the bridging of a gap between the spiritual and physical in an intimate which i’m sure is at least partially influenced from works and writings by Makoto Fujimura.

This visual language was further developed as I found a vision for art through my Ambassador work with Embers International as an Artist Advocate, training with the (IAM) International Arts Movement; Academy Kintsugi culture care initiative and working with the Interdisciplinary Artist Collective: Call to Gather under the vision of “Come. Make. Play.”

These spaces facilitated a desire to hold space for something more than myself, and a return to a childlike space of play; all things imperative to my work process. I think I find questions more interesting than answers and really enjoy the explorative process my work has brought to how I experience the world.

Each painting I do has an intimate meaning to me but on a grander scale I want someone standing before it to experience that the work carves out a space and moment for them. A moment to sit suspended in some semblance of peace. Not something necessarily positive or negative, but safe and content enough to perhaps explore something new or heal something old. Whatever happens after is beyond me. I think in a world where so many voices are screaming to say something, where darkness, anger and fear are normal I just want all that I create to offer a moment of respite and just maybe a little hope.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I touched on it briefly earlier but I stand on a strong conviction that my work, regardless of my personal narrative, at the most fundamental level facilitates the development of spiritual space. I just want all that I create to offer a moment of respite and just maybe a little hope to those who experience it. As I age I think about what gets left to the next generation, the generation of the hopeless future. I see it in their faces, in their rage and in their fear.

It may be aberrant to not yet be 25 and thinking of these things but I am of the mind that it would be callous not to not consider them at least a little bit. The quote that vibrates at the most deep hollow places within me is “A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit”. Though I do not presume to think I do anything so grand right now, I think it is best to always play two games at once. Do not neglect the short game for the long, because you will too often be thinking of “how to” and not just “doing”. And in turn it is as important to not forgo the long game for the sake of winning everything every time all for yourself; you will quickly have no one willing to play with.

In my work the short term is my personal narrative, the visual symbols that represent my feelings of romance, my questions of cosmology, and the musings of my young heart. The long game for me is that even if all these things are forgotten the work at its core offers the next generation a glimpse of truth, beauty, and the incredible unrelenting quietude of hope.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

I’m sure there are more than a few but one of the things that stands out to me most is the degree to which people believe this work is unsustainable. It’s not simply that they do not think it will work but the intensity with which they insist I have a back up plan is tiresome to address over and over. Is it difficult? Yes. but anything worth building from scratch and developing is. You don’t say those discouraging things to engineering students and they have a 50% drop out rate at the collegiate level. I find it a bit infuriating to constantly have to validate my base level life choices – even then I am aware that is part of the package that comes with this choice.

Also lets take a moment to dispel the notion that if you do what you love you won’t work a day in your life. No. You will work more, longer days, more holidays, more hours than anyone else. When your passion and your vocation merge it like the very air you breathe circles back around to it. Your friends are often contemporaries in your field, and you sacrifice much. There will even be days you hate what you do because of how you must wrestle to do it. And so it is a great adventure that I would have no other way.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ivorywolf.space/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ivorywolf/?hl=en

Image Credits
Photographer: Jhay Dorsainvil