BALBINA: slow and minimalist art
She is the creator of BAL LAB, a creative laboratory where she works with her own hands, combining her 3 great passions: art, design and photography.
She was born in Mallorca during the 80s, listening to U2 and Red Hot Chili Peppers while attending her weekly drawing classes with Teresa Matas. The influence of her parents - her father worked in the family carpentry shop and her mother made pottery and recycled objects at home - helped her to appreciate and value manual work from an early age.
Tell us about yourself and your work. Where did your vocation start? Any first memories?
From a very early age I was interested in expressing myself with my hands. At the beginning, in primary school, I was crazy about moulding with plasticine and I also loved to draw in any corner. Later, as a teenager, my growing interest in art made my parents sign me up for painting classes and very soon I knew that what I wanted was to study Fine Arts in Barcelona, without any doubt.
After graduating and specialising in audiovisuals, I spent many years working in photography and graphic design. As I learned to design websites and I love interior design, I also co-founded an online furniture company, getting more into digital marketing. But little by little I realised that all my work revolved around a computer and I had stopped being creative. I was travelling and choosing furniture and designs for the shop, but I wasn't creating them myself. Besides, I didn't use my hands to do anything artistic anymore and I really wanted to do it after so long, so I decided to close the furniture company and one day, without looking for it, I saw the old lathe in my mother's house that she had in her workshop (and in fact, it's the same one I still use today) and I went over to try it for the first time and I felt something inside me that told me that that was what I wanted to do from that moment on. At that moment I started researching in books, internet videos, ceramists that I started to meet on the island or through Instagram, etc... and that's how I started my path towards self-learning ceramics.
What do you find most satisfying about your work, and any that you are particularly proud of?
I really like the plasticity of the material. What I mean is that creating with clay for me is something more than a blank sheet of paper, you can feel it in your hands and, if you want, let yourself be carried away by its texture to mould something. Also, the processes that happen when you start to put a piece on the potter's wheel help me in a way that I would say is almost meditative.
The pieces I have made combining woven tin (palm leaves) and ceramics are the ones I like the most, as I am fascinated by the combinations of different materials and I think that my future work will have more examples of this type.
What is your creative process like, what are your sources of inspiration, any particular music while working?
Ideas come to me at any time of the day, although at night before going to sleep they come to me more. I have a few notebooks in different areas of the house and I make drawings there of what comes to my mind, but if I don't have a notebook I have a notepad on my mobile and there I also draw and describe the idea I have at that moment.
Right now I feel very inspired by nature, before I was more disconnected and unfortunately I lived more with my back to it, but these last few years I have moved to an area outside the city and I have reconnected in many ways.
While I'm working I can listen to almost any kind of music, but it's usually upbeat, I don't go for too calm music because it bores me at those moments and what I want is to be active. But I also have to confess that I'm quite addicted to podcasts and most of the time I'm at work I listen to programmes, whether they are cultural, feminist or pure entertainment.
Favourite colour, book, film and record - in that order! ;D
Blue.
The Little Prince.
Lucia and sex.
Neon Bible by Arcade Fire
Is your home a reflection of who you are? Tell us what it smells like, your favourite corner, your favourite decorative object or piece of furniture, if you treasure a collection... And if you have a pet, introduce it to us!
When you enter my house, you are immediately surrounded by a soft and pleasant smell of hay, and not because I have hay for decoration, but because in the living room lives Josh, a belier (lop-eared) rabbit who loves to eat hay shoots and aromatic herbs. He is a rather lazy but at the same time adorable eater who has been with me for more than 5 years now. He goes out of his way for a good piece of apple and comes to have his head stroked when he needs a cuddle. I've had him since I started with ceramics, and he is the star of a few videos on my instagram account.
On the other hand, I am a big fan of good design, especially Nordic design. I like furniture and objects in natural and matt colours. Having been a furniture saleswoman, I could not miss several pieces of furniture from HAY (one of my favourite furniture brands), Muuto, Menu... and some Spanish brands such as Dvelas or Vondom. I don't like to overload, but I do like to have some pieces that remind me of trips or experiences. I've had a collection of vintage cameras for a long time and I've recently started another one of ceramic pieces that I buy when I'm travelling and from artists I admire.
If you could buy anything right now and take it home, what would it be? Anything!
A new ceramic kiln. It wouldn't be for the house, obviously, but rather for the workshop, hehe. At the moment, I love mine and it works very well, but it is more than twenty years old and the performance of ceramic kilns has improved a lot in the last decades.
A great plan at home always includes...
A nice cup of hot tea by the fireplace (or cold smoothie in summer), an interesting read or a good film or series on the projector.
Do you have a signature dish?
Vegan chicken curry.
Where is your favourite place in your city and abroad?
As I am rediscovering nature, lately I enjoy walking in rural areas of Mallorca. Between the villages of Lloseta, Binissalem and Biniamar there are several paths that have become my favourite places to go to reconnect with myself and also to "collect" soil to create my latest ceramic works. On one of the walks, in Biniamar, there is a church that was left half built and is open to the sky, I think it is very curious to see.
Difficult to answer, as many come to mind, but probably my favourite place abroad is in one of Iceland's sublime landscapes. And if I had to choose somewhere more specific in a city, I would teleport myself to any cosy café with genuine Nordic flair in cities like Copenhagen, Berlin or Amsterdam.
