DEL.ICIO.USThe Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 06/05/08
For more than three decades, Vicente Wolf has made his name in interior design through a simplicity-driven aesthetic.
His clients may include such high profilers as Clive Davis or Carl Bernstein, and he may have designed top-notch hotels like the Luxe Hotel in Beverly Hills, but if you ask Wolf, photographing the people and countryside of Ethiopia or Madagascar is where he finds his greatest artistic release.
 Vicente Wolf / Special | ||
| A luxuriantly landscaped courtyard in Syria inspired Vicente Wolf to do something similar in a bathroom. | ||
 Vicente Wolf / Special | ||
| This Long Island bathroom has the same stylish feel of the courtyard in Syria. | ||
 Vicente Wolf / Special | ||
| These gourds, sitting next to a straw-roofed hut in northern Burma, are a blend of light and dark tones | ||
 | ||
| Wolf replicated the theme when he decorated this New Jersey kitchen. | ||
|
The Cuban-born designer and photographer regularly leaves his New York life behind to explore the less-traveled worlds of Africa or the Far East. What he sees on these trips informs his work.
"When I've traveled, it's broadened my point of view about how I live," Wolf said. "I'm not just looking at visuals. I'm trying to dissect what I'm looking at and how to incorporate that into what I do."
Wolf came to Atlanta this week to discuss his latest book, "Crossing Boundaries: A Global Vision of Design," and how he translates what he sees in the world into a room.
"I try not to be literal about what I see, but pick up the essence of what I'm looking at," he explained.
We sat down with him after his chat with interior designers and retailers at AmericasMart.
Q. What came first – photography or interior design?
A. The photography came first. I used to be a model many years ago before I went into interior design, so I was working with photographers and I was always more interested about what was happening behind the camera instead of in front of the camera. And then I put that to rest and got into design.
There's something about the immediacy of a photograph. It's so amazing, the capability of capturing whatever it is at that split second and each time you look at it that second comes alive again. It's just to me so wild.
Q. Film or digital?
A. I use film ... A Pentax (medium format camera). I can't read instructions, I have to learn by the experience and it has to become sort of second nature, because if I stop to say 'what am I doing?' then I get confused. It took me six years to learn the camera and do it instinctively.
Q. Which countries do you think have most informed your work?
A. The Far East, whether it Burma or Bhutan or several countries in Indonesia; and it's not just because of the religion, but the sensibility of dealing with minimal things in natural, creative way. If you go to Europe, what you're looking at has been so honed and polished and evolved. I like the basic-ness of seeing people living in a very simplistic way and still being able to be magical.
Q. What can we learn from your latest book, "Crossing Boundaries?"
A. The first one was called "Learning to See," and I think that the message is to try and get people to really look around themselves. And when you read this book, it tells you about the experiences I had in these countries and how that particular country altered my perspective of design. But it's again trying to let them understand that it's around you.
When I am in a flea market I say to friends 'It's here somewhere, but can we find it?"
Q. If a person could go to only one country for design inspiration, where would you send them?
A. There would be a few questions I'd ask. How do you like to travel? How much inconvenience can you put up with? What are the things that light up your heart? I think once those questions are answered, then I could say where you should go. Is it to the jungles of Papua, New Guinea and stay with natives in a hut? Or go to Florence and just blown away by the beauty? You really have to know what turns you on.
Q. What are the things that light up your heart?
A. To get away as much as possible from what my every day reality is — to places where I am learning something. I think when you have a company, you are like a gas pump and you are feeding everybody. I want to go someplace where I am being fed.
Next week, I'm going to London for three days to present a job, and I know I'll go to the Tate gallery and all those places, but that is just a reaffirmation of what I already know. I want to see things that I don't know or experience things that I (haven't). And in doing that, it just stretches my vocabulary a little bit.
Q. Is there a type of piece everyone should look for while traveling?
A. You have to not look at the thing that will stick out in your home like a sore thumb, but the things that will blend into what you have. They don't have to stick out for you to recapture the moment. Things don't have to be outrageously different to express where you've been. They just have to be the things that speak to your common sense, your common taste. And then, they can blend in.
In whatever country I go to, I go to the museums in the capitol where they show the history of the country, what the crafts are, what primo objects this country has produced, so when I'm traveling around, I know what I can use as a benchmark. And that helps me to sometimes eliminate what at first may seem interesting, but I know 'Well no, this isn't really what should be the right shape or right color." I try to get a mini-education of the values of the art of the country.
Q. What are your tips for someone who is well traveled on how to blend different cultures in one's space?
A. Well, if you look at those rooms (in my book), there are things from around the world. But the unifying thing is again that I'm choosing them with the same point of view, so that same point of view picked the couch, picked the fabrics, picked the overall look of the space. Look at it this way —if you have a choir, they're all different kinds of voices. But for the choir to be successful, they have to still speak with one voice. And that is what I try to do with design, so when it all comes through in the room it's still talking with one voice.
Q. Do you have a favorite color combination?
A. It's not about a formula of what works for me. You have to look to see things like if you like the colors of the ocean. Do you like the colors of, I don't know, this bouquet? There must be colors that appeal to you right away over the others. You have to think about what is your point of view. That can happen from walking around. Go to museums and look at paintings; when you see a painting that blows you away, analyze it and see —what are the colors? What is it that makes you react that way? That's part of how I got an education, by going to museums and looking at paintings, and when one really struck me, not because of the workmanship but because of the coloration, then I studied it. I became aware of what I was looking at.
Q. Do you think the South has a distinct design style?
A. What the South has is gentility. And that gentility, I think, translates to a sense of graciousness, a sense of warmth, and I think, not necessarily a traditional sense, because I don't think of traditional. I use traditional objects, but always in a modern way. I think that the South is more and more taking all those adjectives and reinterpreting them in a new modern way, which is so different than the rest of the country.
Q. If your home were on fire and you could grab one thing, what would it be and why?
A. Photography. It would be between the Dianne Arbus, the [Edward] Steichen, the Dorothea Lange, the [Roberto] Palladini .... And the cat, Nene."
Vote for this story!
Services »
