Interview conducted by Yuko Shimizu.

1) I know you probably talked about this million times. But for the audience who is now encountering and fascinated by your work for the first time, can you speak briefly about your happy accident in finding your signature style/work method? It happened when you were an art student in SVA in New York. When you first started, did you immediately feel like you hit something? Or, did it take a while till it actually became natural part of your work process?

That happy accident happened when I was in my third year of studies in the Graphic Design department in NY’s School of Visual Arts.

I had originally come to SVA to study in the cartooning department but ended up choosing the Illustration Dept and after one and a half years I changed to the Graphic Design. Two reasons for that: 1) I was always frustrated with my drawing and painting technique and 2) I was always more interested in ideas than in the development of a technique. After my initial immersion into graphic design I had an itch to go back to drawing caricatures which was the original reason I came to NY so I took a class in caricature but I guess I was already thinking about it a bit differently.

That ‘accident’ was that while I was drawing Sadaam Hussein a box of matches appeared next to the illustration. The time was the fall of 1990; Saddam and Iraq had just conquered Kuwait and the whole world was getting ready for the Gulf War. So the matches seemed a perfect metaphor for that imminent war/fire coming. I knew that specific image looked cool and it was clear that I needed to try to develop this style and direction more. It took me probably another year to be able to create an initial body of work which had a consistent feel to it. But all that time I was still majoring in Graphic Design. These collage/caricatures were a side diversion for me. I was slowly doing more but there were some doubts that it could actually work well professionally (because it was taking me a long time to finish one piece).

When I graduated I had two portfolios: a Graphic Design and an Illustration one. I worked for a year as a graphic designer while I started to get commissions and assignments. So it did take sometime (2-3 years) from the initial discovery to the realization that I could actually apply it and develop the capacity to deliver it professionally.

2) I have been to your studio in Barcelona when we first met. My impression was…. It was like a toy store! You actually have a store-front as your studio, that is FILLED with stuff. When you create, things come first then create images from them, or you come up with concept and then find the right things to make pictures? Can you even walk down the street without noticing things, picking up things for your work?

I do notice things on the street but I am usually too lazy to pick them up. I am not really a junk collector. It is probably hard to see that, but I am usually focused on what I need to get for my specific needs. And all the stuff you saw in my studio is usually the result of stuff which was brought in for a reason at some point.

What happens though is that when I am in the look for something I bring more than just ONE thing. I believe in opening options constantly.

The more options I have at the beginning the more chances I have of finding really the right object. So stuff accumulates and now I have a huge collection of things in the studio and many times I just find in the studio what I need..

3) You are from Uruguay (by the way, I visited there last year and LOVED it,) brought up in Israel, went to art school in New York, and currently living in Barcelona, Spain. Not to mention you travel around the world for workshops. You are not just living in different countries, but you have been living in multiple continents with completely different cultures and history. Do you think this is affecting you as an artist? Do you create differently in different culture/country?

I think that moving around has affected the capacity of my brain to be flexible (probably you can relate to it as well). Flexibility of the brain IS an amazing quality to have as a creative person and I think by constantly moving I have became more flexible, simple by the need to adapt.

The capacity to adapt I think has helped me a lot. Adapting is growing.

It is not to constantly try to change the world to fit your needs but listening to what the world brings to your front door and finding a way to use it in your life. Being less philosophical about it, I find that a good metaphor for this in my work is noticing and using the object which happens to be put in front of my eyes by chance. It doesn’t mean I will use any object which ‘falls’ on me, but I would notice and consider it.

4) You travel all over the world for workshops, and they are not just for artists, but with children, with seniors, with patients in hospitals…. Can you talk about how these workshops became part of your life as an artist, and what you can give to the participants, and what you get out of them?

This is another one of these un-planned turn of events which just ‘fell’ on me. It is a huge gift to my life in so many ways. It started just with me visiting schools and kindergartens as many authors and illustrators do. But slowly the ages of participants went up and different types of offers of workshops came my way: hospitals, companies, environmental centers, museums.

I realized that the power of the workshop is giving the participants a very easy to use tool with which the can express themselves and tell a story. The fact that it is A LOT of fun just smooths the whole process and makes the ‘hardships’ of creation almost unnoticeable.

The stories told could be from simple ‘show and tell’ with younger participants to sharing difficult stories of hardships due to illness, to even ways of improving the performance of an organization or company.

What do I get out of it? SO MANY things! The basic rewards of teaching, human interaction, traveling around, constant growth as a human being and as an artist, many many new friends and on a professional level, some sort of second side-career.

Above all I feel so lucky to have this opportunity come my way. It is something I haven’t planned nor pushed, yet when I saw its possibilities I fully embraced it!

5) And now, the iPhone app!! I almost thought of buying an iPhone just to get my own Piven app! It is very interesting, because you seem like the most low-tech hands on artist, and then you got into this 21st century gadget earlier than any other artist I know! How did this come about, and how do you feel about the marriage of this super low tech and the super high tech?

I REALLY AM LOW TECH! for example I have had the same Power Mac 12″ for 5 years until this month when I finally changed it for a new one.

The reason the development f the iPhone game happened is that through the whole workshop path I came across many people in the gaming and high-tech industries, specifically speaking the Israeli DOT COM industries. Israel is a very innovative country with a crazy proportion of Start Ups per capita, which is unmatched anywhere else in the world.

Once these types of people were exposed to my work they started offering me ideas to create projects, games sites, etc and I have been wanting for a while to create ‘a kit’ somehow to give people the experience of what happens in the workshops in their own space and home. I rejected quite a few of ideas until a really good offer from someone I felt I could work with, came my way. The medium – the iPhone is perfect for this and once we started working on it it just flew!

But high tech or low tech it is all the same: I have a very simple way of working and of teaching. It is basically looking at the stuff around us in the world in a playful way and try to do something with its forms. So that basic premise can be applied in many different ways (an illustration, a book, a workshop, a tv program, an exhibition, an interactive iPhone game). I must say that for me there is a lot of logic entering this direction now when the illustration world is suffering so much. For me that need to adapt is not new: since I left NY in 1996 I had the opportunity and need to do other things beyond traditional editorial illustration. Not being in NY caused me to get less assignments than what I was used to getting. On the other hand being in Israel opened many new opportunities for me because that is the nature of that society: a small creative, and less specialized society. That began for me a professional path which was tailored around my needs, and my strentghs. This new venture is only natural in that path of constant trying different things.

6) Ok, so you have the iPhone app. Then, what’s next for you??

I believe the iPad will bring lots of opportunities for illustrators and for me with its interactivity possibilities and its large colorful screen. I have been wanting to break into TV in the USA for some time (since I have done TV programs in Israel and Spain) but haven’t really pushed it enough. I believe I have an interesting TV language with my hands creating. So that is a pending issue.

I am still interested in doing books for children and have a couple of projects waiting for me to start them and I am sure I will still develop more of the workshop to more different types of crowds. Also I am writing now a book which is supposed to be a workshop with me an introduction to collage with reused objects and how that type of work really can teach you a lot beyond art. Another type of projects I’d LOVE to do is designing interactive exhibitions for children in museums. I made one long time ago in Israel and it is an experience filled with possibilities.

You might notice that Editorial illustration is not in the list…well it is as it has been all along in the last 18 years but I find that nowadays I am less inclined to count on it and plan on it. Whatever comes from the editorial market is great but I feel that my opportunities and interests for the future lay somewhere else.

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Find more of Hanoch Piven’s work here, and read his blog here.

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