At The Table With: Ana Inciardi
3 questions for the printmaker, food enthusiast, and tomato lover
I came across linocut printmaker Ana Inciardi’s Instagram a couple of holiday seasons ago — she was making these “build your own charcuterie board” prints, where you could fill out a deli-style menu of what you wanted on your board and she would custom print your assortment. It was so smart (and I’m sure a tonnnn of work), and as a lover of both charcuterie and clever concepts I was hooked on her artwork.
Ana primarily makes food-themed work from her studio in Portland, Maine. She runs a small business where she sells her prints online (including the cutest mini prints, which always sell out!) and also does custom work for restaurants, food brands, designers, and stores. You may also recognize Ana’s work from the Pasta Girlfriend x Bucatini collection I curated last year!
Ana and her fiancée Addison, a vegetable farmer (!), share a life of celebrating food and the creativity around it. They even hope to start an organic farm someday! Which I will absolutely be visiting, along with Ana’s printmaking studio, when I get out to Maine someday.
I asked Ana 3 questions:
Ali LaBelle: Imagine perfect happiness. What does it smell, taste, feel and sound like?
Ana Inciardi:
— Smell: a specific gallery at the Met. There is a nook in the Egyptian wing that is filled with little doodads and miniature artifacts that is a little bit hard to find, but it has a distinct and special smell.
— Taste: a piece of Night Moves bread with butter, an heirloom tomato, and salt.
— Feel: holding hands with Addison (sorry, I know this is cheesy.)
— Sound: “In Between Days” by The Cure.
AL: Give us a rec!
AI: I am not that much of a sit down and read person but I love to listen to books as I print! I recently finished The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune and I can’t stop talking about it. It’s so good and hits all the things that I love: it’s kind of for kids but also adults, it’s magical, it takes place in the UK, and it’s super queer.
I’m also obsessed with Menu Design in America. It is filled with incredible images and inspiration and it is so much fun to look through.
AL: It’s a table for two and your dinner date can be anyone dead or alive. Who do you invite?
AI: There’s only one option for me and it’s Florence Welch. I’ve been a freak fan of Florence and the Machine since 2010. I dyed my hair red for over 7 years because of her. I even tried to start a Florence religion. I met her once briefly in high school but I’d do anything to sit down with her. I have so many questions about songs and her life — sometimes I can’t believe that she is real!
Ana, a massive thank you for sitting down with me…at our respective laptops in opposite corners of the country. I can’t wait to meet you IRL someday.
Ana has a few cool things in the works:
— She is currently working on 50 prints for the menu of a new restaurant opening in Greenpoint, Brooklyn…it’s a secret still but keep an eye out!
— She also recently released a dress collaboration with Rachel Antonoff — I don’t think there’s anything more Ana than a tomato print.
— Soon she’ll be releasing a number of mini-print vending machines, first in Maine and Denver and hopefully in more places across the country. These are incredible — if you haven’t seen the viral video about them, you need to.
— Ana and Addison are working on a visual non-fiction art book on Ana’s family tomato and they hope to release it this fall!
Follow Ana on Instagram here and shop her incredible work here.
See you back here Friday!
x
Ali
This was delightful!! Thank you for introducing me to her work. 🍅