Bazar Masarin: Barnkonventionen
Monika V
Intervju: Susanne Sandström
at the riverside with my grandmother. I liked to note things that looked nice or strange or hilarious to me, then make collections of little books with my notes and images. Making marks and telling stories with my drawings have been an important way to comprehend and communicate the world around me, for as long as I remember. After finishing my high school studies I made a decision to apply to the Art Academy in Vilnius – that was a rather spontaneous decision, actually; I had been considering subjects as varied as ecology, geography, art history – but I think choosing art studies really helped me to make good use of my love for stories. Visual storytelling has been an essential part of my creative practice, but after finishing my studies in Vilnius, I rather focused on different commissioned and personal illustration projects. I did some posters, book covers, artworks for music bands, educational visuals and so on (and I still do).
Who is Monika Vaicenaviciene? I am an illustrator and now, as it turned out, picture book author – that is how I introduce myself profession-wise. I am from Vilnius, Lithuania, I finished my BA studies of Graphics and Printmaking at the Academy of Arts there, and currently am settled in this sweet city with my family. But I did my Master’s degree in Visual Communication at Konstfack in Stockholm, and had lived in Sweden for a while, and a part of my heart still lives here. I am twenty-eight years old. I like woods, gradient skies and medieval world maps. How did it all began…how and why did you start making pictures/picturebooks? It is hard for me to pin down the beginning. During my childhood together with my sister I used to do exhibition of our drawings on the old tile wall at our house, and go to draw 133
