Interview with illustrators MaricorMaricar
With Maricar’s background in graphic design and print, and Maricor’s focus on video and online, they’ve merged together to create projects which are a fantastic mix of their talents. Their projects include embroidered custom typography such as the images featured in this article, and the stop motion animation in the video below.
After a few years in different design studios, the pair were inspired to take the leap to focus on their personal work after a trip to Japan together. Their big turning point was winning the British Council’s Realise Your Dream award which allowed them to travel to the UK, make contacts and further their education in their specialist fields.
Maricor and Maricar now share their time between Sydney and London – and at the moment are packing up to head home after spending most of the year in London. They are represented by Handsome Frank illustration agency.
The girls explained that they are certainly most happiest when keeping their hands busy, so they love finally sitting down to set needle to fabric. And it shows. Just have a look through their website or blog and there’s oodles of projects with all types of creations and applications.
Check out one of their stop motion animation for the Big Green Idea below…
Describe your journey up to getting started with MaricorMaricar… We worked at a studio in Sydney together for about 3 years and knew that one day we’d like to set up our studio. It wasn’t until we went on a short trip to Japan that we realised we wanted to do it now. That was at the end of 2009, for the last year and a half we’ve slowly built up Maricor/Maricar, focusing on what we’d like to create and how we like to work.
In a few words, describe yourself… I’m pretty quiet, probably the quietest of the two. You can usually tell me from Maricor because I’ve had a wide fringe for a while now… plus big glasses so I look like an asian version of the Computer Says No character from Little Britain.
What are you spending your time on at the moment? I’ve just finished a magazine embroidery commission and now finishing of a website job. But i’m itching to get back onto an embroidery project.
Do you have a ritual for getting into the creative mindset? Or a creative process? I like to clear my desk and have a fresh cup of tea.
I also find wearing huge headphones helps me concentrate, with or without music playing.
What or who inspires you? Textile patterns, crazy landscapes and weird looking creatures.
What are you most proud of? It’s still early days for us as Maricor/Maricar but I’m proud that we took the risk of leaving our stable ‘9-5’s to venture on our own.
When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? I get teased about this a lot, but when I was really young I wanted to be a Nun. It was probably because we used to watch a lot of the Flying Nun. When I was in high school I thought it would be fun to be the person who writes the blurbs for movies or books then I realised it would probably be more fun to design the posters and book covers.
Maricor
Describe your journey up to getting started with MaricorMaricar… After graduating from University of Sydney with a Design (Visual Communications) degree, I worked in a couple of studios mainly in video and animation while Maricar worked in print.
Although we collaborated together on personal illustration and art projects in our spare time, it wasn’t until I joined Maricar at Mathematics that we worked together professionally. While I enjoyed working on a variety of projects these became more and more digital based and my drawing and illustration work I sort of left behind.
A short holiday in Japan was very inspiring creatively and was a big jolt to finally take a risk and set up Maricor/Maricar. It was a reminder to get back to doing what I loved. I’ve always enjoyed working with my hands and creating things away from the computer, I think this is the same for the both of us, and generally our aesthetics and what we’re drawn to visually are the same.
We always knew we’d end up working together as our own studio at some point in our career and I think we’d come to a point where we just had to jump and hope for the best.
In a few words, describe yourself… Hands on, I prefer to be busy with a scalpel, needle or paint brush rather than a Wacom and computer.
What are you spending your time on at the moment? Besides all the embroidery, I’m practicing my lettering, so at the moment I’ve collected a few different types of nibs to experiment with. I’m creating a lot of mess and I have to make sure to keep all the sewing away from my ink stained hands.
Do you have a ritual for getting into the creative mindset? Or a creative process? If it’s lettering I end up filling pages and pages with rough doodles and arrangement of letters. These are always pretty rough and if I run out of space rather than erase any mistakes I’ll just draw over things. This is a way to just get started and not be precious about ideas.
What or who inspires you? Woven textiles, patterns, colour and at the moment the London skyline
What are you most proud of? Our first solo exhibition is a huge highlight for me.
It’s a very scary thing – putting your work out there, but the response we got was so encouraging and showed us that we could make work out of play.
When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? I remember dressing up for a “career’s” day in primary school as a painter so I had plans to be in the creative industry since I was pretty young.