We recently connected with Marco Romantini and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Marco, thanks for joining us today. Do you wish you had started sooner?

The short answer is I’m glad I started when I did. When it comes to a firm start date, it’s a little blurry. I’ve made art my whole life and worked in the arts in varying capacities since I was a teenager but for functional purposes, I’d say my “career” started somewhere around 2021. I spent a big chunk of my twenties in and out of school, bouncing around jobs, and making art that I would, on occasion, actually do things with.

I’m an autistic guy with some mental health stuff and it took me a few years to find my footing and develop my practice into something with some level of sustainable direction. Then 2020 rolled around and the odd jobs dried up and, brain-wise, I was really struggling to focus on anything other than miscellaneous creative projects. So after a while, I said screw it and committed to making those projects how I made my living.

So in that year or so when the gears of capitalism stopped turning for a bit, I dug my heels in and really started to push myself creatively, working art fairs and doing lots of commissions to keep the lights on. I was also doing a lot of protesting and social justice related work at the time, and started a small fundraising project where I made art to sell in support of bail funds.

I did that for about a year and while I’m glad I had that experience of doing my art full time, the need for constant creative output wasn’t the best for my mental health and having it tied to my ability to pay rent was starting to suck some of the joy out of making art. Luckily, that effort paid off and I found representation through Scout Gallery, who host an absolutely stacked roster of killer Milwaukee artists, who I’m lucky enough to call my peers.

Having a place to consistently show my work let me shift from making work to sell to selling the work that I make and that made a huge difference for me creatively. Nowadays, I split my time between my personal practice and working with local nonprofits to bring arts education to areas where it’s lacking and finding that balance of making own art and using that skillset to do something that feels like a tangible good really helped lock in on what I wanted to be doing with my life.

So, to answer the actual question, I think I started my career in the time and place I was able to start it. I hear lots of creatives talk about wasted years or feeling like they should have done more sooner and, personally, I just don’t think it works like that. You do what you can when you can and whatever you did before was needed to get you where you are now. You can kick yourself for whatever you did or didn’t do, which I certainly can, or you can plant your feet and keep moving forward. It’s not always easy but out of those options, I’ll choose the latter everytime… Well, as often as I can. Brain chemicals are gonna brain chemical. The trick is just figuring out how long to linger without getting stuck.

Marco, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I think I pretty much covered the origin story already but I was always an art kid growing up, alongside being the stereotypical neuro-spicy “troubled youth” type. Luckily, my family has always been very supportive of my creative nonsense and really helped set me up for success in that regard. Around middle school, I started working under the mentorship of local artist and good friend Jesse Engelbrecht and that was my main gateway to both taking my craft seriously as life path as well as getting into the punk scene which is still a big part of the DIY, radical acceptance ethos that drives a lot of my work.

As for my practice, my main medium is what I call Parallax Sculptures– paper doll style illustrations cut out and mounted to armature wire. While there are plenty of artists working in adjacent cut paper work– I started out in the tradition of wheat paste street art – the specific version that I practice now is kind of its own thing and having a unique medium really helped to establish myself as an artist as well as finding a client base that wanted things specifically in my style, as opposed to being seen as a generalist and having to work in styles that I’m less passionate about.

When it comes to what I’m proud of, I’d have to say it’s how wide the variety of work that I’ve been able to do has been. I teach, make art, have had short fiction published, released music of questionable quality, done murals, album art, and am probably forgetting a few things at time of writing. That said, in larger terms, the big one has to be in providing the kind of guidance and mentorship that helped get me through my early years. It has been a genuine privilege to work with all the folks I have, and I like to think I’ve left an impact with a few of them. Also right now I’m teaching teenagers how to sew and how mending clothes disrupts consumptionism in the fast fashion industry and that feels pretty rad.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

That there’s a right way to be an artist. We’re all just weirdos trying our best and trying to shoehorn that into a rigid format is bad for the creative ecosystem and life in general. Go to school if you want and can afford to or just make stuff and talk to folks at shows. Maybe it ends up as your job, maybe it doesn’t. All I know is that I spent a lot of time, effort, and stress trying to contort to a mold that wasn’t built for me. It got me where I am and I’m grateful for that but the biggest impacts on my life and career have been from people, not systems. Just find your freaks, make stuff you care about and do your best to be kind. When it comes grand life advice, that’s about all I’ve got.

Alright – so here’s a fun one. What do you think about NFTs?

It’s a past its prime pump and dump that lets you burn down a rain forest so you can feel like you own a JPEG. Try buying art instead. Or taking a screenshot.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://anxiousink.com
• Instagram: @inkbirds
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anxiousink/