21 Nov Perennial Beauty | Sabrina Tamar
I am excited to introduce a new series entitled Perennial Beauty, featuring women who inspire and embody the DE SMET ethos. I sat down with Sabrina Tamar, an artist and writer (who you may recognize from our most recent lookbook) to learn more about what motivates, moves and excites her.
CD: Tell us a bit about your career and your background, and how you ended up in New York.
ST: I’m an artist and writer. I previously worked as both a translator and a researcher, particularly doing research and writing for other artists, but these days I manage a gallery. My mom’s family settled in the Bronx and Mt Vernon, and I returned as a teenager despite growing up elsewhere. I always knew this was home.
CD: You are a true renaissance woman! You were a ballerina growing up, did that inform your decision to get into contemporary art, literature, music and poetry? Do you have a favorite?
ST: That’s an interesting question that I occasionally consider myself. My mother is an artist, although she was rather disengaged from the contemporary art world during my childhood. Before I could speak, nevermind read, my mother left a book in my crib and turned one page each day. When I did start speaking, strangers would stop because I knew so many different words for colors: chartreuse, azure, magenta…I think I have my mother to thank for this as she spoke to my sister and I constantly and not in baby speak. My mom’s grandfather didn’t graduate high school, but he spent his life teaching himself new words in the dictionary. There’s some inherited disposition to express ourselves through words. Ballet was my life and intended career until I was injured. I was a tomboy, I didn’t want ballet lessons initially, but I connected to the music and that visceral form of expression in my body. I think it’s all just a form of translating my inner emotion, and if you know me, you know I have a lot of it!
I can’t say I have a favorite; I know in my own practice though, I know upon waking if it’s a writing or video editing day, or if it’s a day for writing prose or something more abstract. My mood dictates it, but that’s also where discipline is key.
CD: How does your career inform your style?
ST: I am often on the move and need to be comfortable! That being said, I strongly feel I won’t have as good a day if I am wearing something that doesn’t reflect my mood. I’m usually too busy to dwell, but something will feel a little “off.” I tend to like streamlined silhouettes, versatile pieces, and I don’t have a different wardrobe for day or night. I usually put a slight sporty edge on an otherwise simple ensemble. Even outside my studio time at the gallery, I may have to pack up a large sculpture or get on ladder and fix an installation, but I also need to be able to meet a curator or museum director and look prepared.
CD: What do you love most about New York?
ST: The things I love most are the things that I hate most of different days: the anonymity at some moments, being able to cry in public and no one cares, being able to walk for hours in your own world, other days running into friends every few blocks and it feels like a tiny town. Hearing a million languages on the street (the flip side being the constant noise), the industrial pockets that are rapidly disappearing, the constant motion, the way in which I feel small, which typically makes me feel free, not sad.
CD: Do you have any upcoming projects we can look forward to?
ST: I am finishing an art film I shot last summer in Scandinavia and working on a new project involving video and some sculpture. I need to be better with my own deadlines! I am also finishing up a longer piece of fiction.
CD: Who are the women that have built you up, championed you, or mentored you? What have you learned from them?
ST: Firstly and forever, my mother, who sacrificed everything so I could see more of the world and have opportunities that she never did. She taught me resilience and independence. She was the artist, but also the one in the household who used the power drill, fixed the sink, shoveled the snowy driveway.
And my father’s mother, who I sadly barely knew because she has multiple system atrophy by the time I was a toddler, a severe and very rare neurodegenerative disorder. She had gone to college when women didn’t and she was considered a genius who turned into a housewife, because that’s what the options were. But she was incredibly outspoken in a generation when women weren’t. She always had a line for everything. She called up a doctor who had mistreated my mother “where in the hell did you get your medical degree to tell a pregnant woman she has a condition and might go blind and dilate her eyes and let her drive home? What kind of moron are you? Does it say that on your degree?” She was unapologetic and fiercely loyal. The stories of her taught me never to be afraid to stand up to authority. Even when the disease progressed that she couldn’t move at all but could think and comprehend her surroundings perfectly, she developed a system where we would spell the alphabet and she would raise one finger slowly, tremoring, to signal which letter so she could spell out her thoughts, word by word. She continued to go in public, even when supposed friends abandoned her, dressed nicely in her wheelchair with all her jewelry. That’s class.
CD: What beauty or wellness ritual do you cherish?
ST: Warm baths at night! It comes from all my years as a dancer. Also long walks.
CD: We often describe admirable women as confident and self-assured. What does confidence look or feel like to you?
ST: Confidence looks like not feeling you have to apologize for taking up space, using the space you carve out with your body to be present and grounded in the world, and like you are wearing your clothes and not that the clothes are wearing you.
CD: Is there a film, book or piece of music that has really changed you?
ST: Too many to count! For music, maybe Stravinsky’s Apollon musagète, the whole album Neuromantic by Yukihiro Takahashi, Björk’s “Come to Me,” and Future Sound of London “Papua New Guinea.” For films, Béla Tarr’s “Damnation” and Wong Kar Wai’s “Fallen Angels.”
CD: What are you lusting after right now?
ST: 90s Jil sander suits, old Prada combat boots and post-modern Italian lighting and a plane ticket to Tokyo.
CD: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received or come to realize on your own?
ST: Dissect the source.
CD: What is your approach to dressing?
ST: Don’t look like you spent 2 hours getting dressed because you should spend those two hours with friends or creating instead (of course, I have definitely emptied my entire closet trying to get ready for an event only to wear a go-to outfit in the end) Your clothes should be like good friends: reliable, dynamic, and bringing a balance to one another while always being able to count on them.
CD: How do you detox?
ST: Ginger tea, stretching, and listening to what my body needs.
CD: What do you indulge in?
ST: The occasional pastry in my neighborhood, buying more books than I need, and skincare. My mother always says, you can buy cheap mascara or lipstick, but your skin is the skin you will have your entire life, don’t skimp. (Hungarian women are very obsessive with skin care)
CD: Are there any figures from history, literature, or film you admire? What about their character stands out to you?
ST: La Femme Nikita and Joan of Arc. Also Sigourney Weaver in Alien was pretty cool. Strong-willed and determined.
CD: What events are you looking forward to?
ST: Seeing Trisha Brown Dance company, Meredith Monk, Anne Teresa de Keersmaker all within a month this fall.
CD: What does a perennial wardrobe mean to you?
ST: Something that builds out of necessity or celebration, not trends or impulses. Sustainable, considered, and joyful.
Fill in the blanks:
My favorite place to wake up is…
ST: On my side of the bed, with the sunlight streaming in and a book next to me I fell asleep reading, alongside someone I love.
I never leave home without…
ST: The “wedding” band I gave myself, that my talented friend Aušra handmade for me. It’s a promise and commitment ring to my own health and happiness.
I always invest in…
ST: A good winter coat, a versatile pair of well-made boots and quality socks that don’t get holes!
Confidence can…
ST: Open doors, charm the critics, and show yourself that you knew more than you thought you did all along.
Every woman needs…
ST: To trust her intuition and understand the only relationship you’re always guaranteed to have is with yourself.
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