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kottke.org posts about Iancu Barbarasa

A Flower a Day

Every day for three years, Iancu Barbarasa drew a flower for his partner and recently he compiled all the drawings into this lovely short film set to Chopin’s Minute Waltz. I loved his acknowledgement of his sources and influences:

Questlove once said that “all creative ideas are derivative of another.” My project would not exist (or at least not in this form) without the influences of: Katsuji Wakisaka, textile designer and founder of SouยทSou, who has drawn over 10,000 postcards for his wife โ€” Christoph Niemann’s work and also his short film “A Tribute to Maurice Sendak” โ€” “Beyond Noh (Masks of our world)” short film by Patrick Smith โ€” “Plante” short film by Reka Bucsi โ€” and Philippa Perry’s “The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and Your Children Will Be Glad That You Did)”. Last but not least, the end credits are a tribute to Hayao Miyazaki’s wonderful “My Neighbour Totoro” film.

A set of postcards featuring the flower drawings are available from Barbarasa’s shop.


The Benefits of Collecting - “One Thing Leads to Another”

This video is a lovely little rumination by Iancu Barbarasa “about collecting, cycling caps, art and design, personal connections and why it’s worth doing something for a long time, even if the benefits are not clear at first.”

Many think some people are special but usually those people just put a lot more time in it than others. This applies to sports, arts, almost everything. It’s worth doing something for a long time, even if the benefits are not always clear. Good surprising things come out of it. You also learn about yourself in the process.

His inspiration in doing the film was to “inform, delight, and inspire”:

I mentioned above Milton Glaser’s “inform and delight” definition of art. It’s brilliant, but I always felt something was still missing from it. So I’d say that art โ€” and any creative’s work โ€” should aim to “inform, delight and inspire”. Hopefully my film will inspire people to start something of their own, or share what they’re already doing with other people. That would bring joy to everyone, and there’s never too much of it.

You can check out Barbarasa’s cycling cap collection on Instagram. I have never been much of a collector, but my 22+ years of efforts on this site (collecting knowledge/links?) and my sharing of photos on Flickr/Instagram over the years definitely have resulted in some of the same benefits.