I like conversations with people whose brains I desperately want access to. Not necessarily because I want to understand them completely, but because I want to know what goes on in there when nobody is asking questions.
I met Valentina over a bottle of wine in Paris, and we ended up talking about almost everything except what I had originally planned. New York, Amsterdam, sisters, stolen clothes, hamburgers, Jane Birkin, painting, growing up, making mistakes, and the very serious business of having an imagination.
Valentina is one of those people who can spend hours inside her own head without getting bored. She tells me about crying in front of a Kandinsky painting when she was twelve, borrowing her older sister’s personality whenever she needs a little courage, and hiding her own paintings because having someone look at them feels almost like standing naked in front of a stranger. I find all of this terribly interesting.
We also talk about the cities we choose, the people we steal little pieces of ourselves from, and whether being happy sometimes makes us less interesting artists. Somewhere along the way, Paloma gets involved, we discuss the emotional significance of a really good burger, and the conversation becomes something quite different from an interview.
I think that’s what I like most about doing this. You sit down wanting to know certain things about someone, and you leave with a hundred things you didn’t even know you wanted to ask.
Anyway, this is Valentina. Or at least, a little bit of what goes on inside her head.
A DOG, A BOTTLE OF WINE, AND A MEETING PLACE
Y: Ok, let’s order a glass of wine.
V: We can take a bottle. I always take a bottle. Off the record.
Y: This place feels very Milan, but also a little Parisian.
V: Is red okay?
Y: I only like red.
V: Okay, fantastic.
Y: Ok. So, a question I always like to ask: why this place? Why this time?
V: My roommate, who is one of my closest friends, lived on this street, so we’ve always come here. It’s close to both of us and to another friend whom I would come here with a lot, who used to live here. So it’s the perfect place to meet. The atmosphere is lovely. You feel very at home because it has something Italian about it, but it’s French too.
BETWEEN PARIS AND NEW YORK
V: It’s almost a little touristy, but I think that’s part of what makes it nice.
Y: And how long have you been in Paris?
V: Since last September, and now I have to decide whether to go to New York next September or stay in Paris.
Y: For work?
V: For work, because I graduate in June. I did my first year in Amsterdam and I studied Global Arts, Culture and Politics, which is more philosophy, sociology, and all of those things. It’s super interesting because I adore philosophy, I find it fascinating. But I wanted to do something a little more practical, more art history, more art in general, the art market. So I found this university, and I already had all my friends here in Paris, so I immediately thought okay Paris... And you, have you been in Paris for a long time?
Y: For two years.
V: Oh okay, two years, okay, okay.
V: And how did you make that decision? What was the...
Y: Because I knew I wanted to live here, because I actually had to live here.
AN ORDINARY DAY, MORE OR LESS
Y: What’s your typical day like?
V: I wake up five minutes after my alarm, while the phone is already ringing, and realize I’m late. So obviously I have to get ready in a hurry. I go to uni, every day from nine or ten until five. And sometimes, like twice a week, I have French too, so I finish around seven. Actually, yesterday I skipped.
Y: I feel tired already, so happy the wine arrived I need it.
V: Wine fixes everything.
A CITY AND A BOTTLE OF WINE
Y: When did you realize this?
V: When did I realize that wine fixes everything?
I used to live in Amsterdam which to me is a little village, and you’re doing very wholesome things with your friends. And then night comes, and it’s like havoc. I think Paris has a similar drinking culture to, like, Italy. For example, when there’s an in-between, but I feel, I love drinking wine. I love wine. It makes me happier to share a bottle of wine with someone than to just have a drink, or drink a beer.
READ WHATEVER YOU WANT
V: Sorry, I keep on getting sidetracked. I wanted to fully answer your question on my day.
I forgot to mention I go to uni and just mind my own business, or I read my Kindle. I actually bring my Kindle to uni and I just read the whole time. Because I feel like a lot of the things they can just upload it to a PowerPoint or something.
Y: You’re a big reader.
V: I absolutely love reading. But I also feel like people should read more what they actually enjoy.
I read something recently about people trying to dictate what everyone should read. And I think we’re at a moment where there’s a lot of people reading a lot and a lot of people not reading at all. So I think if you want to read, just read whatever you want. It could be, I don’t know, a book about fishing, a book about how to open your own restaurants, how to be more confident.
It’s the same with music and it’s the same with art. I don’t want to be staring at an art piece and trying to think about it for half an hour, to just, you know, prove something to the world. I want to look at something and enjoy it fully.
Y: The book that you sent me was City of Girls. Are you still reading it?
V: No, I finished it a while ago, like a year ago. But it’s a book that really changed me because it talks about this girl, her name is Vivian Morris. And she’s living in New York.
And it’s a lot about her discovering herself and living her own life and making a bunch of mistakes, very big ones, huge ones. I just love reading about people making mistakes because no one ever talks about mistakes. I think no one ever talks about, you know, fucking up or treating someone badly or all these things. Everyone talks about, I don’t know, oh, this situationship, this internship; everyone tries to put the front that they want to show to the world. But she really is truly herself. It’s very natural in that sense.
GIRLS, MISTAKES, AND FICTIONAL WOMEN
Y: If you could spend a weekend - an absolutely chaotic weekend - making mistakes with three women of your choice, who would they be and why?
V: Holly from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Jane Birkin, and Dakota Johnson because I love her dry humor. And I think this weekend would have to happen in New York City.
NEW YORK CAN BE ANYTHING
V: I love New York. It’s a city you can live in a thousand different ways. Based on your life, your people, your emotional state, your intellectual preferences, your cultural background. Whatever, it can be so many different things! I think it’s a place where your personality really shows itself.
You can have everything in New York. Chinese food at 6 a.m, you want to party until 4 on a Tuesday you can party until 4 on Tuesday.
Y: I’m excited about your New York address book.
V: To me a lot places in New York are underrated and overrated at the same time, depending on what moment of the day it is or how the crowd is.
Because I feel like in Paris if you go to a certain spot you know that you’re going to get a certain experience, and in New York if you go to a certain spot a lot of the times you get a completely different experience than the last week you went there.
One thing you should know: I have a burger hierarchy in New York. I love burgers so much. I also love sushi, I think if I could eat one cuisine for the rest of my life it would be Japanese food, but burgers just touch a specific part of my soul.
SISTERS AND THE PEOPLE WHO KNOW US
V: The moment I land, I need to have a 7th street burger. A very greasy delicious burger, hard to describe because there’s nothing quite like it, and the fries are perfectly crispy but soft on the inside.
I’m a huge foodie, and my sister too. My sister is a big part of my life, I love talking about my sister, like I could talk about my sister every day.
When she’s in the room you can really feel her presence, she can talk to anyone and she’s the person who, regardless of the conversation, you are listening to her because it’s just the way she is. It’s her aura.
I love asking people this question, so I will ask you this question as well.
If you lost your memory, didn’t know your name, your last name, nothing, your experiences, and you had to pick one person to tell you about your whole life, who would it be?
Y: My sister. I love her so much - she’s everything, she’s my babysitter, she’s my accountant, my manager. My therapist.
V: I don’t know who I would be without my sister. Does your sister live in Paris?
Y: Yes but we don’t live together We live at like 5 minutes distance.
V: That’s so nice. Oh my god I’m so jealous of you.
I’m so jealous, I can’t wait to be close to my sister.
LIVING INSIDE YOUR HEAD
Y: I have a question because it took me 45 minutes by walk to get here and I listened to music the entire time, but maybe too much and then I felt nauseous. I realize I always have background noise, when I’m cooking (pretending to cook), commuting, writing, etc. I can’t disconnect. Do you ever. disconnect daily?
V: 90% of the time of my day I’m disconnected.
Y: I’m so jealous.
V: I’m in my own world.
Y: So you walk without music and stuff?
V: Yes. I don’t know, I have a lot of imagination.
Y: I love that.
V: And I just entertain myself.
Y: Where does your imagination take you?
I think about a lot of ideas, I think about people and the way they influence me or the way I might have influenced them. I love thinking about my choices and my future choices, I love hyper analyzing every single thing in my life. I think sometimes because when something difficult happens in my life I tend to rationalize it before I even feel it.
PAINTING, FEELING, AND CONTROL
V: I love painting. I used to paint a lot. If I start, I can’t stop painting until it’s finished - so the moment I sit down, I know that it’s going to be like a 10 hour thing it doesn’t matter if it’s 8pm, it doesn’t matter if it’s 10am, I’m cancelling on all my plans to paint and I’m not stopping before I get my spark back.
Most of the times it works.
Y: Do you keep your paintings here in Paris?
V: I have a lot of them in Italy but I don’t like looking at them too much.
And I keep them kind of hidden away because I feel like it’s very.. I feel naked when someone looks at my paintings.
A PURPLE OUTFIT AND A BORROWED PERSONALITY
Y: Why didn’t you bring anything here?
V: Partially because I have a lot of clothes.
Y: It happens to me a lot. I’m thinking of that purple corset you showed me a picture of, what’s the story behind it?
V: I was when I was living in Amsterdam and I needed a Halloween costume and my sister buys a lot of stuff - her wardrobe is beyond the size of anything you could imagine. I was like oh I need a Halloween costume I don’t really know what to wear, and she kind of started scavenging through her closet and found this purple corset. I was like “oh my god this is me, in a piece of clothing”. I so I took it and I wore it and she was like you know what, you keep it.
Y: You stole her mug.
V: I stole her mug, I steal her personality at times. Her confidence.
I love channeling my inner Isabella.
IF YOU WERE A FASHION HOUSE
V: I think my mom has a huge impact on my style, but also my dad as well. My mom has a very modern look but also kind of classic.
And then my roommate. She’s my style icon, I love her so much. She has an insane taste but everything she wears you know that it’s her. I love looking at people and every outfit that they wear whether it’s super elegant or super laid back or going to the gym or going to run an errand whatever, you can tell that their outfit is theirs.
That’s what I’m trying to achieve.
I asked her this question, if you were one brand, what brand would you be? We were talking about it for half an hour, she eventually said Dolce Gabbana. Then I asked her okay, what would you say if I asked you this question, and she said Etro and Ralph Lauren nice.
Y: I love this combination, because one is all about patterns, which is what you’re wearing, but there’s this classic RL touch you have too.
V: For you, I think you would be like Tom Ford or YSL.
ART THAT MAKES YOU CRY
V: I get so inspired by fashion, and art.
Y: I’m interested in the first thing you ever look at that made you go like, “wow, I’m feeling something”.
V: This Kandinsky piece, when I was I think 12 years old.
I remember just standing there, I started crying.
I discovered later in life that Kandinsky was really into philosophy, and he really cared about how viewers reacted to his paintings. He wanted people to react the same way you would cry to an opera or a piece from Beethoven, or whatever, so I just started hysterically crying and, that was the moment where I was like I need to make this part of my life what.
What’s yours?
Y: I cried when I saw this James Ensor painting I was obsessed with as a teenager, it was the cover of my French copy of Animal Farm. I lived Brussels for nine months and you know he’s Flemish they were doing an exhibition at Bozar. Same thing when I discovered Leonora Carrington at a tiny exhibit at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.
RAPID FIRE
Y: This is me asking you questions where you give me a straight answer.
V: Yeah.
Y: What’s something slightly embarrassing that you find chic?
V: Having I think baby rash cream as a part of my skincare routine.
Y: I actually use baby shampoo. I don’t know if it’s like cleansing my hair properly but I wash it everyday so yeah.
V: Me too.
Y: Would you rather read someone’s diary or their entire search history?
V: I think the search history is crazy.
Y: What fictional woman would be a nightmare to have as a roommate?
V: Rory Gilmour. Or maybe Carrie Bradshaw. She’s so toxic. Imagine you come home, and you’re like my boyfriend of four years just broke up with me yeah and then Carrie Bradshaw is like BIG IS MOVING TO PARIS.
Y: A song that makes you feel attractive?
V: Pearls by Sade.
Y: What’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever done to impress someone?
V: I think I try to stick true to myself.
Y: A piece of clothing that should be illegal? Lol.
V: I think maybe, ugly socks!
Y: If your life was a movie, what would its title be?
V: Lost in translation. I love the movie.
Y: Let’s move to your address book.
V: Okay.
Y: A café where you could spend three hours doing absolutely nothing?
THE ADDRESS BOOK
V: Bistro St Dominique!
Y: Your best friend just broke up and she’s depressed, where are you taking her?
V: It has to be a place where she forgets, but at the same time, I don’t know if I would want her to completely lose herself in her breakup. I’ve done that. It’s not ideal.
In New York, I think I’d take her for a drink and talk at Bar Pisellino.
Y: A restaurant for a date you’re not entirely sure is a date?
V: That’s a crazy question.
I feel like the obvious answer would be like Balto, Mazarin but I feel like. Good for ambiguity.
Y: A museum or gallery that feels like it was made for you?
V: It would have to be a museum and it would have to be the Louvre because there’s everything; you can walk around for ten hours.
Y: Any weird thing you do that you’d like to share?
V: Um, I drink the water from pickles.
Y: What?
V: Yes, sometimes I don’t know what to eat and I love salty foods so I kind of like drink the water from the pickle jar. And I love making martinis so I make pickle-tinis, instead of the olive I do pickle.
I love pickles.
THEORY, BOOKS, AND WHAT WE DO NOT KNOW
V: I’m also obsessed with like cultural theory. I studied it in uni the first year in Amsterdam. And also architectural theory and I love how it’s based on human needs; and philosophy, of course.
There’s so much to learn, I think the one thing that people need to be doing more is realizing that they don’t know anything and they need to expand; they need to learn, they need to read.
I think art just does that and what you’re doing right now, I think does that a lot.
Y: Thank you!
ONE WORD FOR EVERYTHING
Y: One word for Vale?
V: Vale.
Y: One word for me.
V: For you, I would say... Vulnerable.
Y: That’s super nice.
Y: And last question, your favorite word in any language?
V: Ecstasy.
Palomita Office is an independent editorial project built around conversations with people whose brains I desperately want access to for an hour. Friends, strangers, artists, people behind places I love, and people I simply find fascinating. It’s a growing archive of people, places and all the little things we choose to keep.