Elena Juzuleinate
EJ: Elena Juzuleinate
INT: Interviewer
INT: Introduce yourself
EJ: I am an Artist and based in Newham. One of my main media is painting. I’m also interested in engaging the community in my activities. I facilitate workshops, I create artworks that are co-created with community organisations and local residents. In particular, I enjoy making maps about lesser-known stories from working class women and minority background people, yeah that would be all connected the Rosetta.
INT: How did you hear about Rosetta?
EJ: So, I found them at in the Arts Newsletter and at the time. I was living on the boat and I was doing some paintings of nature and stuff that inspires me, and basically, it’s really hard to do that on a boat especially if you paint with oils. You literally get your house into a complete catastrophe like straight away and so I don’t know, I almost manifested a place like Rosetta, cos I really needed a studio, but at the same time I couldn’t really afford one and I really, kind of, needed a step forward having more space to create. When I found their artist-callout I just said to myself I need to get on to this one because that is the one, I really need in my life! So yeah, that’s how I got in touch with everything.
Yeah, so the beginning was very slow here in Rosetta, like I just kind of like, I straight away I moved in like next day. When we had first lecture and I already had my canvases and everything and I moved in like literally straight away because I was so keen to work and to use the space – like I was really really serious about this and I was really serious about like everything, about creating projects because I’m an individual artist and I’m like I’m quite good in things I do. I’m quite good in delivering things and in managing my projects and so on, but I am an individual artist, I don’t have an experience of an organisation of 30 years and the, you know, the reputation, so like I was really keen to work with Rosetta, and in the beginning things where really slow and I think, maybe, it takes time to kind of like really showcase your skills and prove that you are, like, serious about things, and you know and to be taken seriously. I think by the end we really became close and I think people kind of know me well the people who were here I have been coming to studio a lot; it’s like it’s my workplace and it’s the center of gravity for me and over this time people have seen like different things I have produced. I was given more chances here as well and create amazing projects that I’m really proud of and I think in many ways I experienced that transformation. Like, I used to do much more commission art and even though like I was already very serious about my practice and about this being my main thing in my life I think I have never had, like, the chance to truly dedicate so much of my energy just because, as Virginia Woolf, said a woman ‘needs her space of her own’, so that was the component I didn’t have in my life and I was given this here.
When I was given this I was able to dream bigger. I was able to just make more things and experiment more. I was doing less commissions or I was doing a mix of everything, not only commissions, but also my own experimental work. So, I think I am coming out of this and today is the day when I am actually moving out of this studio. I am coming out of this having, like, really different like I’m on a different step now and I’m looking forward to starting a business. I have many ideas, I have more connections that I am going to go through my ideas to make them realities and yeah, feel like I’m just burning with everything and it’s just wonderful and, yeah, I feel like yeah it’s been like amazing chance for me actually and I think that a lot of people here like me at Rosetta and they have they got given different chance and they think according to their like what they need some people come here once a week to the ceramic work and some Saturday, and they make a pile or they make a box and, and they go like this is the highlight of life and some people, are like me, who like just really need to grab this with both hands and do something because you know this is the component that you need in life and not everyone is given me same things in life, so if you have a chance like this, for some people, that will be a chance.
INT: What’s in the future?
EJ: Yes, so basically I have been looking for a studio for like a lot, a long time in advance, from December, because I knew this time is coming and I’d better be prepared because I am not coming back to it, and I’m doing my step forward not back. So yeah, a lot of studios that I found they are quite expensive and there is something wrong with them usually, so there’s no heating or there is no space, yeah, something’s I don’t want and I’m not gonna deal with it and then I almost manifested my next studio which is wonderful! It’s very cheap quite big it has a space for starting something like drawing classes and so on, and over this last year in Rosetta I have been developing a workshop programme for academic drawing so it’s the kind of drawing almost like the Leonard DaVinci style. I really like this style where you learn from you learn first step, you learn perspective and you learn to draw a simple shapes like cubes or bars any kind of shape like a sphere. Then you learn how to cross-hatch it as well as the. Next step we learn is an anatomy of a face, so you learn how to draw a skull and you learn face parts one by one so you don’t get overwhelmed, and then the final step, is when you actually draw an entire head but you don’t approach it from the point of view of life. What is the surface of the thing that you see, but you actually draw it like a 3D object because of all the other steps that you do and that’s a method that is not taught in this country, and so I really see this as a niche for a business and my next studio is where I’m going to start my business for academic drawing. I have also some ideas of other classes as well. I want to make fabric books about family heritage and yeah, I will see I have other ideas as well, so that’s what I’m gonna be using for my next studio work for.
INT: Is there anything else?
EJ: I don’t feel I’ll be coming back as this would be a step back, but I think that we will be in touch and I will be coming to do some clay. And, er, see you later.
