"We met Sebastiano Mauri, the Italo-Argentinian versatile and charismatic visual artist, graduated in cinema, who faced less than 1 year ago the literature world issuing his first brilliant and acclaimed book “Goditi il problema” (Enjoy the problem), Rizzoli, 2012. Sebastiano opened the door of his eclectic house to the photographer Paul Barbera‘s photo-documentary project “Where They Create”, telling us about his personal and unique life.

You are a visual artist, but also a writer, and you worked in cinema too, how do you manage all these different roles together?

It depends. Sometimes I dive into a specific project and there’s no room for anything else, it’ll all have to wait. Other times, probably far from any deadline, I manage to work, let’s say, on my screenplay for a couple of hours, structuring, jolting down dialogues, then I might dive into one of my altars, and get lost in painfully slow processes such as composing mosaics or creating flower arrangements made of hundreds of tiny roses, and finally write a few pages of my new novel.

As much as I can, I try not to loose touch with any of these activities, so that I keep alert that part of the brain and/or body. But then reality kicks in, and this productive sounding, eclectic schedule is swept away by being unable to stop applying tiny lilacs to Ganesh’s temple, walking the dog who’d do anything not to return home, or answering emails about matters you thought resolved a year ago. Basically you end managing it day by day, the best you can, hoping nobody will realize you don’t have a master plan."

Read the full interview by Monica Lombardi at The Blogazine.

www.sebastianomauri.com