NICOLE MOTTA
Founder, Fresh Mercado & Cafecito Initiative Creative Director
Brooklyn, NY
Peru
I've been keeping sketchbooks since 2009, and it's a place where I allow myself to be my messiest. The books carry all my ideas, notes, references, thoughts, and sketches. At NYU, I always carried my sketchbook on the subway and sketched folks on the train. It's where I allow myself to be authentic to my expressions and can see myself lay out ideas that have actually formed into exhibitions, projects, and larger goals in my life. It's also a wonderful timepiece. Crushes, breakups, heartache, yearning, frustrations, laughter, joy, and questions about who I am are all there, in a way that shows highs and lows, milestones, and big and small moments. The rain, overuse, and spills are all reflected in each book, becoming part of it in ways that remind me of the sensory moments that created them, and they tell a larger story about my life in New York City.
Fresh Mercado, my visual creative platform, was created back in 2017. I still have the sketches from when I first started brainstorming the name, and you can trace the idea forming over the pages of that early sketchbook. Then, in newer sketchbooks, there are sketches of how to mount an exhibition through Fresh Mercado. Sin Poder No Hay Paraíso at ICP was incepted and drawn into a sketchbook, and then brought to life with 12 New York native photographers. As an art director who works a lot with photographers and visual artists, it's a reminder that even creative leaders have honest, raw moments. I think everyone should carry a pen and paper with them at all times. Start with something non-precious to allow yourself to be messy in it. As a person who is always doing and creating, this is where it starts, and you can see a physical manifestation of my process. I find that re-inspiring as I look back to when an idea first started to seed, to seeing it in its place today. It grounds me to remember that everything starts small, and that it all started with me and the experiences around me.
What does A Great Day in Ñiu Yor look like for you?
A great day in NYC is spent with people I love. It's usually the unplanned adventures that start without agendas or timelines, and always involve local eats. As a Queens-born, now living in Brooklyn, my favorite memories growing up in the city are moments spent at the park until it gets cold, or going for breakfast and then walking around with friends, stopping in between, and seeing where the night takes us. As I got older and adulting filled my schedule, I realized how much I missed that unstructured time. I’m a very structured person, so there’s something about not having a plan in the city that opens everything up and opens you up to everything. You meet people along the wa,y and the memories build upwards like our buildings. I love quality time. If I'm alone, I'll do the same thing and usually start off going to museums, galleries or to places where I can sketch.
Photographed & Interviewed by Monica Patten
