From Sculpture to Stardust: Inside the Mind of Starry Venus
Welcome Starry Venus, we are very excited to have you today with us to discuss about your work.
Who is Starry Venus and how did the passion for creating begin?
My passion for creating began through an experience of longing for a deeper connection with the world, mother nature, people, myself. Wondering how is that connection possible in those moments when you feel alone, even as a child, or older in life, in any of those solitary moments, especially when they’re uncomfortable. It’s in those moments that I’d want connection the most. It became a quest, how can I cultivate and generate an experience that can bring connection to the deepest, solitary human experience.
That connection started through experiencing other people’s art and music. I was able to experience it in different ways, through visual artists, other musicians, feeling them do this thing. I said to myself - I need to do this, and how can I? That is who Starry Venus is, my embodied artist self. I’m fully comfortable being this undefined being, beyond genres and labels. I feel that I am of the stars, I’m here as Starry, learning how to communicate, how to anchor that into my body. Filmmaker, musician, artist. Shapeshifter.
Can you tell us a bit about your previous work?
I’ve explored a lot of different types of mediums, starting out in sculpture, with very large installations. Always with a very tactile approach. I moved into performance art, all the while studying film and having a passion for it. Then I ended up having a career as a touring musician in the US, recorded some albums, played at festivals.
Another thing I’ve always considered “work” is the work of the spirit and life. Getting into living the art in a way that activates our integrated consciousness. It’s like life became living the music, living the sculpture, the performance art. Connecting deeply with places I’ve lived, places where I’ve learned about the spirit has also been the work, as tangible as any kind of creation. That’s where the focus of the filmmaking comes in, my desire to bring the journey of all these different mediums into something like Starborn.
At the same time I’ve released Starborn, I also released a 6-song EP called SOUL, coming from a similar creation field as the film. The first song “Stars” is featured in Starborn.
"Starborn" feels like a spiritual odyssey wrapped in cinematic poetry. What was the initial spark that lit the flame for this project? Did it arrive as a visual, a feeling, or a whisper from the desert itself?
What a beautifully written question. It’s almost like a merging of all of those things, and because I’ve lived in many different deserts, it innately brings up my relationship to spirit. Spirit connects you to earth, and what I feel is our mother goddess of everything. It’s also in all of our history, all of our mythology, it’s every day in our cells, our mothers, children. There’s this deep connection I have with that sacred feminine and wondering, where is that moment? I want to tell her story and at the same time hear what she is telling me. I kept seeing the image of this woman in white in the desert, and I knew is that she is Starborn, and I had to make this real. There’s something she had to say from that moment. It’s what the desert is saying to me, it’s what the mother is saying to her people.
I have very clear visions that come from dreamscapes, places that I walk in the beyond, not substance-based. It’s conscious exploration and being aware. I’ve also wanted to bring these visions into form, for me there’s no separation. This question is all of those things speaking at once, and being present enough to ride that wave and make it tangible.
CONVERSATION ABOUT: '‘Starborn''
You called this film a 90-second 'multi-dimensional experience'—how do you approach storytelling when time is so compressed, yet meaning is meant to expand?
By not thinking about time at all, because time itself is a construct. What can happen in 90 seconds in your life can be pivotal, and when that happens, there is no time. You can fall in love, experience someone passing away, or live that moment that changes your life or your path. There’s no time attached to those moments. I wanted to explore what was possible without thinking it had to be any particular way in time.
There was technically a limit, 90 seconds, but the approach was more about what is possible to do. It might be what we call fleeting, but it’s not necessarily bound by time. You’re having the experience and that is multi-dimensional. It could have been 5 minutes, 90 minutes, 30 seconds, you’re having the same experience. My focus was whether the experience is creating a transformation, a shift. That is in itself a multi-dimensional type of framework.
"Starborn" explores the idea that solitude is an illusion. In an increasingly disconnected world, what role do you think art plays in helping us remember our interconnectedness?
Art is absolutely necessary, every form of it, because it’s the experience, the dialogue, the connection, the reverie, the activation of love. What I feel is our humanity, being human on this planet in our bodies, in our lives. Art is how we can communicate beyond all the boundaries that we’ve created, that contain us. Art goes outside of all of that, even if it’s working within it. It connects us to what is means to be human in every way possible.
Without art, there would be no life. It’s our nourishment for the soul, our way of going beyond all the constructs, and having different experiences around that. I feel like art is what exists to remind us how beautiful the world is, how beautiful we are, how powerful we are. It’s the garden.
Your background spans performance art, music, visual art, and film—how did each of these disciplines shape the DNA of Starborn?
They each gave me the confidence to trust the moment and be really present, and know how to trust my instincts creatively in the environment with the visuals. They gave me creative muscles to rely on, then create a framework to trust the magic that is happening, because I know how to cultivate that magic in the moment.
What reactions do you hope to elicit from audiences watching your project ?
I really just want people to feel a little lighter, more trusting of what the message is delivering, that we really are each other’s angels. I want people to feel hopeful, shifted, a little more integrated, or maybe have more reverie for that feminine energy and angelic energy. I want people to have their own experience but have a deeper connection to how they’re observing the world or each other.
In future projects, do you plan to explore similar genre intersections, or are there other genres you're eager to explore ?
I’m looking at a similar approach, there is a feature I’m working on called Venus and Grace, in development right now. It’s a character driven drama that involves a powerful connection with the landscape and this ethereal relationship they develop with each other. It’s got a Starborn feel to it, in that it’s otherworldly. I’m looking to do in 90 minutes what I did in 90 seconds. A longer piece but a similar approach. I’m also developing a Starborn documentary, real-life Starborn stories, exploring how people have been each other’s angels. Each piece has an essence of what Starborn is. Genre bending, no matter what I’m doing, that’s the nature of the work and how I like to approach it.
Can you share a moment during the making of Starborn—on set or in post—that felt magical, as if the film itself was guiding you?
Yes there are a lot of those moments. Before filming the first scene, we were looking for the right location out in the desert. I had an idea of where were going but didn’t know exactly until we looked around and found it. When we were ready, I wasn’t fully aware of what time it was, I just knew it was time to start. I happened to start filming at 11:11am, and as soon as I started rolling, with Andrea on the ground, this magical rainbow light beam started happening in the camera.
I’m filming this rainbow through my camera, over her body, and you see it in the opening scene. It happened all day, but in that moment, I knew something else was going on. Almost like whoever was in the unseen was saying, I’m really glad you’re doing this and I’m going to give you a rainbow. It was all natural lighting, no effects. There’s kind of a myth in Sedona that when you see those rainbows, it’s a vortex or another special energy or Sedona herself, and she showed up with the rainbows exactly at 11:11. That was super magical and that is part of the magic that people are seeing in the lighting in those 90 seconds.
find out more of Starry Venus here: https://www.instagram.com/starryvenus.world/
This marks the conclusion of the interview featuring our esteemed artist, Starry Venus. Our community is growing steadily, with a continuous influx of skilled filmmakers and screenwriters joining us. Explore our other interviews, and consider scheduling one for yourself to showcase your creative endeavors.
