So the ink fills with words my screen after notebooks, stacks of sheets with drawings, sketches, projects. If there are many of them in sequence they usually become animations and, in the case of videos, however, these are born from sketches, screenplays and storyboards. All the different ways of expressing oneself that I have look for, learned and explored through curiosity or necessity -besides having to do with ink- have in common something more immaterial: "stories". I like stories: I like listening to them and occasionally creating them but above all imagining them. One of the stories which helped me to understand the potential of books (and thus the power of ink to transmit ideas) was "The man who planted trees" by Jean Giono, which I illustrated for Salani in 2015. I had to compete with several previous editions, including a recent one with beautiful illustrations by Tullio Pericoli. So I tried a different approach, discovering that Giono was a lover of calligraphy, and that his little book gave birth to the world's first environmental movement. What for me once were drawing and painting were transformed over time into illustration for children's books. It is a kind of art at the direct service of a story, often at the command of the words of others: it is not frustrating. It is a continuous challenge that I think makes sense only if the work of the illustrator adds something to the writing, brings other suggestions or interacts with it. A book is a complex and collaborative product, involving different figures in the production process. Last but not least, the idea of the reader that everyone has inside, maybe in different ways. Making books for children is a process of responsibility (and possibility), where the book is to be seen in its wholeness, graphically designed in all its contents. This is why I like to play with words and letters, even in a physical sense, with characters that are both fonts (letter design) and characters, or on the shape of the book itself. In the case of Giono, I had to confront with several previous editions (the last of which, very beautiful, by Tullio Pericoli). I then tried a different approach and I discovered that Giono was a lover of calligraphy (he established, together with Maximilien Vox and others, Les Rencontres Internationales de Lure, an annual retreat for graphic designers, calligraphers, artists and typographers) and that his little book gave birth to the world's first ecologic movements. In my interpretation, I have tried to illustrate the history of the solitary man who planted acorns in a wasteland as a game of mirrors between the book itself and its author —who, with his pen, creates and plants idea seeds. Which then blossom into change
