Alice Socal
Illustrations by Alice Socal for Essen A Taste Magazine©
In a map of trusty people from which she let her drive, Alice studied drawing, illustration and comics in Hamburg. Luke, has been published last year – a story about an old Luke Skywalker – The Bread and Haarkugel and illustrated some covers – including the magazine Illyword . Knowing Alice and read her stories is like having the access to the parallel worlds everyday possible .
It ‘s been a year since we spoke the first time and you were in Hamburg, has anything changed in the meantime? You are about to graduate?
I’ve been here for 4 years and since last year many things changed , for example, I speak more Italian than German. For the past year I also no longer attend classes and now I’m working on my bachelor’s degree that will be at the end or beginning of April. There will be an exhibition with other 2 artists and designers classmates (and friends). It will be followed, I hope, in some way with a publication in German and also an Italian version in the future.
Can you tell me about your trip to Japan?
The trip to Japan took place through the University that I attend. Me and 3 other classmates by Anke Feuchtenberger (with Stefano Ricci is the reason why I chose to continue studying here) we were guests of Kyoto Seika University, twinned with an internal course with specialization in manga.
We actually had little to do with the school and local courses: we were staying in a traditional Japanese house outside Kyoto between mountains and bamboo forests. One morning we were awakened by an invasion of monkeys.
It was an exceptional experience, very magic.
It was all so incredible that I did not know how to better manage my time, I wanted to stop every moment to be able to assimilate. I would have loved to have more time to observe obsessively the clothing, expressions, posture, gestures and ways of speaking of the people around me.
I wished I could draw anything that touched my eyes. I tried to walk alone, walking along the Kamo River, visit Buddhist temples, Zen gardens, paths, and lose myself in situations sometimes a little ‘scary. I would, however, just had to turn round, starting from walking around the house where we were staying in increasingly large concentric circles, until you get around the narrow streets and houses with gardens, not to miss anything and never get bored. I tried to suck in everything systematically.
I was in an constantly altered, emotional state: it all seemed so different and far from what we are accustomed in Europe. Beautiful, moving and mysterious.
We also created a group with Japanese artists and with them we have experienced the nightlife of the place, we were very young people to listen to music tangles of wires and microphones huddled by staying in contact and without shoes. Of course, sipping hot sake.
In addition to the matcha you’ve found some curious good places or things that you can eat?
Sure, of course food was amazing .. I love rice, so that even the typical cheap to buy snacks at seven-eleven or family markt (little supermarkets which are always open) that is a triangle of rice with fish or wrapped in seaweed were perfect. I tasted things slimy, gelatinous, unidentified, good things and things that puzzle.
In a restaurant we ate very good sashimi and beautiful soup with tofu, seaweed and various buds. Sake was poured up to the brim of the cup and sometimes overflowed in the saucer square. Everything was prepared with an attention to aesthetics. The colors, contrasts, alternating of things, all deserved a beautiful picture and all willing to put as harmoniously as possible.
A Note to desserts. I belong to that category of people who like Mochi and are not afraid that the enjoyment can turn into tragedy from suffocation. This pallocca is madewith sticky rice and sometimes contains green tea-colored beans and mashed sweet very elastic and sticky and therefore not everyone receives a positive feeling. I do not know why, then, the macha green tea and all branch and variations on the theme, such as ice cream, cookies, sandwiches, soups and so on have not yet arrived in the West upsetting the canons of “tasty” we are used to.
It seems that the person in your stories is always isolated. as if in a newspaper full of questions and everyday things which are also bizarre together. Are you like this?
Yes this character is me, but when I’m really in the practical and in the moment when I concentrate totally on my work. Then whings come together enough
There, returns to the drawing board all the experience and the present and I can play with it however I want, that I am privileged to be able to dwell with the design and process of thoughts and ideas can reasonably be classified as “useless / irrelevant things.” Obviously they are not useless knowledge, we have to save everything in the creative process.
Who is Pallas? and what does he eat?
Pallas is the character of the comic book I’m drawing. He takes his name from Peter Simon Pallas, who took over the first Palassiti, iron meteorites . It was the name the hero, while with meteorites, end of the world and astronomy have not done anything .
I do not know yet what he eats. I see no great cook in himI think he often takes some frozen food.
What do you do there in Hamburg besides studying?
In addition to drawing, I try to learn things that I do not know: Sound and singing teenage sad songs on the guitar, I try to learn to meditate upside down and sometimes I go out.
I really like this picture you have on vuoto recipiente , tell me something about the picture
I liked the subject, and the dynamics. A man who plays golf alone along the Kamo River in Kyoto.
I like to occasionally print some digital photos at Budnikoski downstairs (a kind of “home soap” or “schlecker”), two by two.
How was Luke?
I think well, I have had some positive feedback. But I haven’t been able to follow much the publication, always staying here in Hamburg.
It was an exciting experience, however, once you see your book printed, with your story, many copies on a table and display your artwork on the walls, there comes a monkey who tells you that this is the coolest thing in the world and now you have to do something new and even better. Making books is nice, it translates into a tangible object that part of your life and realizes it.
Three places where you love it in Hamburg
This summer I loved very much Fruhstuck Club (Frühstück, broadly speaking, it would be breakfast) at Gängeviertel or vegan buffet with a thousand kinds of things spreads made with vegetable-tofu-seeds, salads, desserts, fruits, soups, an anthology of flavors and mixtures. You eat something here and there as long as you can, a DJ provides some music and you chat under a shy summer sun. And everything is offered for free. I think the Germans have no great culinary tradition so they just go on with wild experimentation of great imagination almost always surprisingly functional. At least those vegans. The site includes, for example, herring salad recipes without herring.
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