Feeling creative in Valldemossa

This week’s At Home, Emma Boardman, pops up on the other side of the main road. “Don’t cross there!” she calls as I start to head in her direction, a car rolls quickly past me and I see what she means. Eventually I make it to the correct crossing place and she leads me down through the much quieter residential lanes of Valldemossa. It’s hard to see into the gardens or the houses, most of them are protected by stone walls, but then we come to a garden which you can peer over and into, below us is a daybed in the shade of a tree with a ginger cat lounging on it.

“The tourists love to look into our garden,” Emma says with a smile, and I realise that we have arrived. Greeted by dogs and cats we pick our way down a set of stairs to a cool terrace and sit at a wooden table. Over tea and homemade energy balls, we chat about Emma’s new project “Kiss Kiss Bang” which she is launching in October.

Emma’s previous careers and incarnations include dancer, entertainer, entrepreneur, business owner and now artist. “Kiss Kiss Bang” came about through a first conversation I was having with my now creative partner, Colin. I’d never met someone before and instantly thought, oh, we just need to work together. But the chat evolved really naturally and we decided to go into business together.

There are so many things I’ve always dreamt of doing, but haven’t been in the right space, time reality, right situation with the right people to make everything happen. But to wait until you find the right person to do all of those things, takes 50 lifetimes and there’s not enough time left. But with Colin, he’s a very broad creative talent. We both have a spectrum, as broad as each other, so we can both create anything. Colin is an urban underground artist from Texas.

He’s done stuff in New York, but he’s not yet had really big commercial success with anything he’s done. It’s the most delicious creative work I’ve seen. The edge on his stuff is just beautiful. And he can also write and produce music as well. The realisation that with this person I could do all of those things I’ve dreamed of doing, and disrupt and pimp the world in a really cool way was just amazing!

“So, we decided that we wanted to work together to create a new art and fashion brand. We saw a void in our culture and business that we think needs filling so we are bringing a fresh approach to creative and artistic spaces. Our idea is to give back to the community through brave action and offer a platform to raise consciousness. All the while building a world-class fashion and art house along the way. It’s a very exciting time! We’re going to do pretty much everything bit by bit step by step, so it’s a long project.” Talking to Emma is easy as she has a charming and engaging manner. How would she describe herself? “I have 25 years of entrepreneurial adventures behind me, across a wide range of sectors. I like to disrupt things, to come at something from a different point of view, and find a new way.”

Emma recently moved to live with her life partner Marcus in Valldemossa. “When I first moved in there was a negotiation about what things we were going to keep in the house, and what I was going to bring and what was going to go.” The house itself is an old Mallorcan stone house, but it’s decorated with fun, bright and inventive furniture and art, much like the couple themselves. There are pieces of furniture, a chest of drawers which acts as a bar, a table with ring marks painted onto it, graffitied, colourful, which really stand out against the white walls of the house. It feels like a cool place to be.

Emma shows me her office and her moodboard. “Do you do these?” she asks me, I guess I should do one, I answer. We look at the collage of images and ideas, there’s a lot of powerful words and bright, positive colours. What’s her advice for anyone looking to follow their heart and dreams? “If you don’t know the rules then you can’t be limited by them. Play to your strengths and delegate the rest. Take a break, creativity comes when you are feeling relaxed and you are happy.”

You can see more and get an invitation to the opening on their website www.kisskissbang.gallery

Colin works under the name Phasmid, and Emma has brought an alter ego to life in the form of Coco. Kiss Kiss Bang’s first exhibition will be in October in Mallorca.