Meet Mario Layne Fabrizio

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Mario Layne Fabrizio a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Mario, so many exciting things to discuss, we can’t wait. Thanks for joining us and we appreciate you sharing your wisdom with our readers. So, maybe we can start by discussing optimism and where your optimism comes from?

Wow what a question, hahah. I suppose that I am optimistic because I truly believe things will work out for the best in the end. Also, Japanese Anime has completely affirmed a lot of my thinking in life which thereby, changed my life. The characters, often the main characters, are ones who have a mission, a way, a path, and they will not allow anything to get in front of their optimism and their dream. I love this – it has always been part of my mindset since very young. I really do love this, it makes me more resilient and hopeful and I can know that I can do anything that I put my mind to and to never give up, especially in something I believe in. It is so true that this capsule of a body will whither away and if you have the possibility, why not live while you’re here. Hope for the most beautiful. It really is a choice, one can freak out, be negative or think everything bad will happen, or you can figure things out, see that light shine in the distance and walk towards it.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I am a lot of things, and primarily I’m me. For some reason over the years I’ve really connected with painting, drums and composing music, and writing and filmmaking although filmmaking is slow to happen and will happen more in the future. I love to create “things” that tell stories. It makes no sense to not create, why else be walking around and meeting the people of the world and loving and adventuring and suffering or thinking. All of the mediums in creating flow together, they are like a group of really great friends and sometimes one or two have a lot to say but then the quiet ones come out and say something amazing because they’ve been listening and thinking on their own. They then inspire the other friends to develop in unique ways and so forth. I love a quote from John Dunsworth who plays Mr. Lahey in Trailer Park Boys, close to passing away, “When you’re dead you’re dead. But you’re not quite so dead if you contribute something.” The beautiful creations of the world have inspired so much more creation, inspiration, innovation, progression in thought and this makes my heart jump. My art is pure love from me, it is itself and I love it. It’s raw, visceral, magical, uplifting, fun, mysterious, simple, complex, thought provoking, etcetera etcetera, a real multitude of stuff. I have a lot of modes of creating that flow together well. The mysteries in each piece are what I appreciate the most. People try so hard to understand and dissect and ask artists what something is – it’s very charming, however the fact that we don’t fully understand what is happening next in the day, in the world, in life is what art is as well. It’s just a snapshot of a lot of different moments stitched together. For me, I think it’s more fun to wonder and to let that wonder take you on a journey rather than defining something and being done with it, but that is my opinion. I want people to explore, to adventure, to live in the way that enriches their heart and the world, to feel life, but so many people don’t for various reasons and I hope I can spark changes and intrigue and more actualisation with this.
I plan to be doing some debut shows of my artwork in New York and New Jersey in the coming year. I’m from New Jersey and spent a ton of time in Boston and NY but never really engaged past a certain point other than performances here and there. I recorded some beautiful music several years ago, with absolutely extraordinary musicians Emma Burge and Phillip Golub who perform on violin/voice and piano in that order respectively. The music is composed by me between 2020-21 and I perform on percussion and synths and electronics. Especially because at the time I was more than obsessed with David Lynch who just “passed away,” I was thinking of a lot of music that captures the flow and capacity of film but that is also flexible with communication but also because of the adventure of spiritual exploration and my love of mystery and science fiction, I created these musical worlds with characters and landscape etc. The project is called “kostochki” meaning “essence or seed or bone” in Russian. I have a good friend who taught me this word in college. Kostochki opens with one long composition entitled “the gate” for the trio which is an adventure to one’s inner gate of light. The second piece I wrote specifically for Emma Burge is called “on wild pony way. I wanted to create a piece that she would be communicating with herself with her voice but also with the violin internalizing a longform piece but also being able to be malleable and improvise in key points, like in life just really capturing multiple dimensions and using the intuition as the guiding light. I love the interaction between two things, like in African Pygmy music with the voice and flute and sometimes water. This is coming out on a creative music label in Brooklyn called 577 Records in the coming months, we are deciding on releasing in August or September, most likely. Another musical project I’m excited about is that with Carlos Snaider (guitar,voice) whom I met in Boston at Wally’s randomly and worked together with Vijay Iyer at Harvard and Julian Weisman (bass, voice), which in funny circumstance I was an RA for in high school at the Litchfield Jazz Camp. I knew both of them separately in Boston but in Seattle, especially, we three have become great friends. The band we have is called STAR GONDOLA, a fun space pirate adventure. I’m writing a lot of the music, playing drums and doing a lot of lead vocals and synth on this project and we have a few others that join us in live performances. We have a song coming out, a song I wrote called “ANTHEM” in February available everywhere you can have music and then will be slowly putting out an album in the coming year or so.

As always I’m working on new paintings. This series is even more narrative, much more clearly than before. I love writing. I wrote a short story that is intertwined in the paintings. This is something I’m excited to share. When ideas and things are flowing it is fantastic and I also love reading and listening to a lot of new and old music that really makes my heart warm!

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Curiosity, communication and patience, oh yes and documenting and tracking my dreams every night . . . This is the most important practice to date. All of these things are in constant flux with everyone based on mood and place in life but always necessitate being authentic to oneself. That is, was and continues to be the best and biggest and most amazing lesson. To your second question, I would say always be honest with oneself and always be “oneself”, whatever that is (laughter)!

Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?

The Tao Te Ching and The Alchemist. You read them and find out for yourself.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Daneca Tran (STAR GONDOLA photo)
@uh.guys.im.lost (pink shirt photo)
@bassbowwow (drum picture)

Suggest a Story: BoldJourney is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems,
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
Leadership Development
Empathy Unlocked: Understanding how to Develop Emotional Intelligence

“Empathy is the starting point for creating a community and taking action. It’s the impetus

Productivity
Where do you get your work ethic from?

We’ve all heard the phrase “work hard, play hard,” but where does our work ethic

Productivity
Boosting Productivity Through Self-Care

When you have a never-ending to-do list it can feel irresponsible to engage in self-care,