Tell us about yourself.

I am Valentina, and I was born and raised in Florence, Italy, a city rich with art and history surrounded by the Florentine hills where poppies regularly dot the hillsides with their vibrant colors.

Since I was a little girl, it was my desire to draw and paint, to create and to gift smiles and unexpected surprises.  I do not remember a particular moment when I started creating.  It just seemed to always be this way.  My Mother would say to me, “You are born with colors in your hand”, and I still remember today how my elementary school teacher would always ask, “In what world are you in today?”

In some way, a part of me has always been somewhere else.  I have always dreamed and imagined wonderful worlds.  This child still exists within me today and is the motivating force for each of my projects.

What inspires you?

As a child, I loved sitting in my mother’s garden in Tuscany admiring her amazing flowers and trees while dreaming of those magical places in nature.  I remember my mother would take an old tub outside to the garden where I would splash around with joy under the warm Tuscan sun.  The garden was rich in fragrant flowers of every type, fruit and olive trees, swallows, robins, chirping birds, and dancing butterflies of bright colors.  The magic of this beautiful life in nature fascinated me with its vibrancy, its strength, its beauty, and its lightness.

Growing up, I found myself frequently remembering my mother’s flower garden and my father’s vegetable garden with their hands scented by the earth, tired but happy and smiling.  These memories somehow awakened within me the realization that in my life now I was surrounded by the greyness of city life with colored automobiles substituting for colorful flowers.  When my son was born, I promised myself that he would experience a bit of that amazement I had as a child discovering that which is more beautiful than what surrounds us.  And, in some way, the desire began to grow within me to bring a part of that magic for everyone to see and feel in their daily life.

In 2019, supported by my family and my partner, that dreamy little girl took the form of a character, and she started to tell the story of nature through her eyes.  I imagined a tiny girl who could bring all of us to those enchanting places.  This character I called, “Minu”, a little human being, a creature with big green eyes in the form of a flower that would awaken the enchantment of those moments.  Minu had reawakened inside of me the beauty of simplicity and harmony of nature.

In my botanical watercolors, I let my imagination flow freely from fantasy to reality, creating art that not only is vibrant and sparkling but at the same time whimsical and romantic.  In this way, I can share the quiet beauty of my Italian countryside with the world.  Through the art of “Minu, Tiny Little Wonders”, I hope that people can stop for a few minutes to see through her eyes the wonders and miracles of the beauty of Mother Earth.

Tell us about your fabric.

Minu is a special collection for me.  It recounts the walks in the woods with my family always returning to the house with a joyful heart and baskets filled with chestnuts, mushrooms, and wild berries.  At times, I could hear the gentle voice of my father whispering into my ear to leave a few bits of food in the woods for the animals.   My hands at times were stained in bright berry colors from eating the wild berries we had just harvested.  I remember vividly one time when my fingers were covered with the juice of freshly picked berries.  I took my finger and began painting a flower on paper.  It was so beautifully imperfect!  It was that magical moment which changed my life in a profound way.

I created this collection for women of all ages, for women who do not have an age, for little girls who dream, and for the women who will be. My autumnal colors explode with the warmth of summer’s liveliness creating a feeling of contemporary romance in an “easy chic” home style. The warmth and richness of my Minu collection bring a feeling of calmness and coziness ideal for preparing home and life for the fall season. These whimsical illustrations carry us away into a magical fairytale where taking blackberry balloon rides and daydreaming are the norm.  The flowery explosion of berries and leaves on the textiles and fabrics feeds itself on creativity that renews itself tirelessly like nature.

Each new collection brings with it new emotions, a new awakening to forms and colors, and from this a new collection is born.  One of my collections is Minu’s Life at the Pond, magical yet elegant, a whimsical story woven in with hidden botanical treasures among the evocative corollas of water lilies for a fresh and contemporary look.

What advice do you have for the new maker?

I feel as though I am still part of this group of new creators for many reasons because each time I interpret a new project, I come across techniques and materials that I am not familiar with. I become a student again on a new creative path.  I never stop to learn or to confront my own emotions.

One piece of advice that I would feel freely to give is to study and then to forget everything.  Become familiar with the art of chaos, take the liberty to experiment, to shuffle the playing cards.  Learning to transform each mistake into an opportunity is as important as technique and inspiration. Distancing oneself from the initial idea is not necessarily a failure, but an exercise of creativity.

The most important rule of creativity is to always find a way to have fun and to give life to alchemy that transforms the work into passion.

Check out Yu.Me Design & Development’s newest collection: Minu and Wildberry