Claudia del Olmo
Y: Hello Clau, can you please introduce yourself?
C: My name is claudia. I am co founder of Casa Balandra and I consider myself as a citizen of the world. I was born and raised in Mallorca. My dad is spanish and grew up in belgium. My mom is american, but technically half japanese, half italian. So I've kind of taken all that with me throughout my life and now applied it to my own project, which is Casa Balandra.
Y: Can you tell us a bit more about Casa Balandra?
C: Yes! So Casa Balandra is currently a kind of a playground where we are testing things for larger scale projects and continuously changing and developing what it really is. At the moment it’s a guesthouse and an artist residency. We focus on experiences that revolve around food, art and conviviality.
Y: Could you share with us your creative process? How did you come up with all these ideas to create Casa Balandra?
C: I think the hosting aspect came very much from like birth, in the sense that my mom was always an amazing hostess. And she always had an open door policy for me and my friends and my sister's friends. All of her friends would always be here. So it was super communal from the beginning. In that sense, that came super naturally. I've always been a creative. I was always painting from the age of five and cooking and so that kind of fit into the residency part. I didn't really know what was exactly an artist residency until I found one that I was going to work at. And I was like, oh great! This is exactly what I want to create and it's called an artist residency. So it kind of came within me. I feel like it was just something that spoke to my personality.
Y: Do you have any precise early memories of creativity ?
C: I was always painting from a very early age. there was a painter in the town (pórtol). and my parents knew him and he was teaching so i was always taking classes with him.then i did ceramics classes when i was a bit older, and again, went to painting school throughout my life. aside from that, my cooking practice was always very strong. i remember my first time trying to make filled pasta, i must be 12. it was a bit too thick because i didn't have like the right rolling machine. i was always testing. on the TV, i'd always watch the cooking channel or the home decoration channel. those were my things. so i think i've always been creative. I can't pinpoint, like a moment that I particularly was like, wow, that's what I want to do. I kind of wanted to be an artist when I was growing up, and then it was a bit too scary for me. So I was like, Okay, I want to do something creative and practical. in that way, I went to study architecture for a year and then I went to study design, which was way more abstract than I thought it was going to be. And yeah, so it was always kind of like having to be creative, but not an artist.
Y: Where do you get your inspiration from like people or any kind of mediums?
C: Probably just through observation of everything like people. Obviously, instagram is a source of inspiration. But the people and the environments around me are the most inspiring. I'm generally very observant in that sense. Having conversations, going to restaurants, going to museums…that kind of stuff. Everything I do is kind of very organic in my life. There's nothing that I forced into my life, which is something I should do more often like reading books.
Y: I remember you saying during an interview how you were doing things with your heart, and it didn’t feel like an effort. Really love that!
C: Yeah, completely. Especially with Casa Balandra, it’s completely organic and intuitive.
Y: And it has worked so well! It has been successful since the beginning.
C: I think people could feel the passion behind it. for me, it wasn't difficult because it was literally just putting myself on to something, you know.
y: yes! like all the things you’ve been practicing and then making a project out of it. where do you see casa balandra in five years?
c: that's a tough question. funnily enough, i have a meeting tomorrow with my sister isa to think about what we see in five years.
i see casa balandra in various countries. obviously, in five years, you don't have that much possibility to expand, but like, also expanding with respect to the community that we've cultivated so far. i definitely see it in a different country. I see it in a bigger space. as it has been very organic, i’d like something more structured. having the ability to hire staff would be great and being able to share this project with other people. we're currently opening a shop. so hopefully having that and travelling the world to source things and also the consultancy side of things taking off more. being able to create moments for people all over the world to kind of feel what we create here.
y: can you describe the creative scene in mallorca?
c: there’s a lot of creatives but in terms of artists, there's not that many opportunities when it comes galleries. though, there's a couple of great ones that kind of come up, but still remain quite limited.
y: so I guess it’s more like a creative scene than an artistic one. what are the people mostly doing in this creative scene?
c: A lot of people work with textiles. and there are lots of photographers as the island is particularly photogenic. there are also painters. it's slowly becoming more of a thing. there's been such a shift since COVID. many younger people stay, come back or even move to mallorca, whereas before it wasn't really an island for younger people. i think Casa balandra fits into the island scene as an inspiration to keep creating and exchanging with artists coming from different countries. i think it’s definitely stimulating.
y: what kind of advice to creatives just starting off their project? have you received any key advices that you could share with us?
c: I remember my brother being like, you just need to go and do it. that definitely must have held on to because after that, I was like, You know what, I'm just gonna start, like, I'm just gonna do it. And he's very much in the belief system of, it doesn't have to be perfect, you just have to launch it. it doesn't have to happen perfectly. he’d rather launch something imperfectly in six months than perfect in six years. my approach is all about doing, i believe that’s the key. nothing can teach you as much as doing, that’s how you learn.
y: and one last question, what was you biggest lesson from doing casa balandra so far, by meeting and gatherings all the artists?
c: I think when you start a project, you have to accept the idea that it will often change in many ways from your original concept. i’m always reflecting upon where we are now and what you want to introduce as well as well as holding one to our original ideas. I think the most important thing is to figure the structure up from the beginning but at the same time, don’t let that stop you from being creative, or from doing what you need to do.
y: amazing, thank you so much!
a conversation with claudia, co-founder of casa balandra, mallorca, march 2022.
