I was born from a family of farmers, in the arid northeast of Brazil, where a train passing through tons of cotton bales and passengers migrating to the south of the country was eagerly announced daily. These are the best memories I have of my childhood summer vacations back on my maternal grandparents’ farm, where everything was produced by subsistence, from the food to the clothes we wore. In fact, our friendships were also shaped by pure subsistence, as there were not many people to connect with there, and we had to hold on to loyalty and altruistic gestures. At the end of the summer, I returned to Rio de Janeiro, a charming metropolis with forgotten and ignored architectural beauty. It bothered me to see the neo-classical buildings being called decadent, old, and out of fashion, being demolished, replaced by concrete blocks with windows!
After studying in London, England, during the ‘90s, in 2005 at the age of 35 as a law student, I moved to California, with a son and husband, specifically to Sonoma County! In Sonoma, I reconnected with the sensations of the train passing and the characteristic smells of the old houses, of filling my eyes with the grandeur of architecture where beauty still prevailed in details and ornaments that enriched the facades. I was enchanted by the Victorian and rural atmosphere of the region; I felt alive again!
Happy and inspired, I started to create scenes, reproduce domestic environments, and influence the pictorial production of my husband, who is a visual artist. I started to notice that the easel, paints, and canvases were always around reproducing my scenes, my floral arrangements, or details of clothes I wore. I noticed that our partnership between muse and artist was frankly declared and reaffirmed!
“Art should be something like a good armchair in which to rest from a physical fatigue.”
– Henry Matisse
In 2014 we visited the Miami Art Basel and decided to spend a season living in Miami Beach trying to bet on the contemporary art market. We totally changed our lifestyle and started to live and breathe Art Deco for two years.
But the longing for California spoke louder, and we decided to go back and bet against the market trend, reinforcing our style in nostalgia and romanticism, in the reusable and recyclable, in subsistence, in the commitment and honesty that old materials had with quality and durability. Even metaphysically due to the feeling of comfort, confidence, and familiarity, everything strengthened and impregnated us in an irreplaceable way from that moment on!
In the spring of 2017, we crossed the small, bucolic, charming, and historic city of Benicia, located in the northeast of the San Francisco Bay. We were enchanted by a Georgian-style building, built in the mid 1850s, to provide bureaucratic support for the materials (munitions and weapons) that arrived on the Benicia Port during the American gold rush. The city then lived its heyday and was the seat of the state administration, being recognized as California’s capital.
About the table … MOCÓ built it, is 14 feet long and is very versatile, we use it for work and to receive people, too!!!
The Benicia Arsenal (1851–1964) was part of a large military reservation. For over 100 years, the arsenal was the primary U.S. Army Ordinance facility for the West Coast of the United States. The Benicia Arsenal was deactivated in 1963, and the facility was closed in 1964. The arsenal has been redeveloped as work and sales space for artists. There are more than 70 art studios located between several historical buildings. Here, renowned artists made history, such as Robert Arneson. In 1987, a small and united community of artists gathered together to create Arts Benicia.
Flowers and people motivate me to produce! I really need to feel some kind of life around, and I am a firm believer in the power and beauty of flowers. I feel in good company among them!
– Mocó
The artists of Arts Benicia meet twice a year with open studios. There is always a fraternization and the annual photo! It’s really fun, but in general the artists are very reclusive. We only have contact with the most friendly and cheerful! Our building was a kind of Army office and is now not only our art studio but our home, right in the middle of the 1850s heart of Arts Benicia … beautiful.
MOCOTOPIA a contraction between the words “MOCÓ” (as my husband signs his works) and “TOPIA” of utopia! Mocotopia has become a small world in which we transport ourselves and connect directly with our inspirations and consequently artistic productions, which, in addition to painting, sculpting, sewing, gardening, and cooking, we also produce exotic things like taxidermy. Anyway, Mocotopia is not so utopian because we are also committed to demystifying what can be created pleasantly by ourselves!
Upon entering MOCOTOPIA, you’ll find our lobby, which is quite cozy and adorned with art, including large canvases and ceramics. In the large studio, visitors can visually delight in the works under construction and follow the creative process a little! The building itself is already a work of art. With its large rooms and high ceilings, we had the idea to transform the old military building into the look of a French Chateau in the middle of California.
“There are always flowers for those who want to see them.”
– Henry Matisse
Mocotopia is mainly recognized as a painting studio, a space about art where you talk to the artist about art and production in an authentic way, transforming studio visits into an experience — an unforgettable moment, perhaps the same feeling of toasting with a rare wine!
I was born from a family of farmers, in the arid northeast of Brazil, where a train passing through tons of cotton bales and passengers migrating to the south of the country was eagerly announced daily. These are the best memories I have of my childhood summer vacations back on my maternal grandparents’ farm, where everything was produced by subsistence, from the food to the clothes we wore. In fact, our friendships were also shaped by pure subsistence, as there were not many people to connect with there, and we had to hold on to loyalty and altruistic gestures. At the end of the summer, I returned to Rio de Janeiro, a charming metropolis with forgotten and ignored architectural beauty. It bothered me to see the neo-classical buildings being called decadent, old, and out of fashion, being demolished, replaced by concrete blocks with windows!
After studying in London, England, during the ‘90s, in 2005 at the age of 35 as a law student, I moved to California, with a son and husband, specifically to Sonoma County! In Sonoma, I reconnected with the sensations of the train passing and the characteristic smells of the old houses, of filling my eyes with the grandeur of architecture where beauty still prevailed in details and ornaments that enriched the facades. I was enchanted by the Victorian and rural atmosphere of the region; I felt alive again!
Happy and inspired, I started to create scenes, reproduce domestic environments, and influence the pictorial production of my husband, who is a visual artist. I started to notice that the easel, paints, and canvases were always around reproducing my scenes, my floral arrangements, or details of clothes I wore. I noticed that our partnership between muse and artist was frankly declared and reaffirmed!
“Art should be something like a good armchair in which to rest from a physical fatigue.”
– Henry Matisse
In 2014 we visited the Miami Art Basel and decided to spend a season living in Miami Beach trying to bet on the contemporary art market. We totally changed our lifestyle and started to live and breathe Art Deco for two years.
But the longing for California spoke louder, and we decided to go back and bet against the market trend, reinforcing our style in nostalgia and romanticism, in the reusable and recyclable, in subsistence, in the commitment and honesty that old materials had with quality and durability. Even metaphysically due to the feeling of comfort, confidence, and familiarity, everything strengthened and impregnated us in an irreplaceable way from that moment on!
In the spring of 2017, we crossed the small, bucolic, charming, and historic city of Benicia, located in the northeast of the San Francisco Bay. We were enchanted by a Georgian-style building, built in the mid 1850s, to provide bureaucratic support for the materials (munitions and weapons) that arrived on the Benicia Port during the American gold rush. The city then lived its heyday and was the seat of the state administration, being recognized as California’s capital.
About the table … MOCÓ built it, is 14 feet long and is very versatile, we use it for work and to receive people, too!!!
The Benicia Arsenal (1851–1964) was part of a large military reservation. For over 100 years, the arsenal was the primary U.S. Army Ordinance facility for the West Coast of the United States. The Benicia Arsenal was deactivated in 1963, and the facility was closed in 1964. The arsenal has been redeveloped as work and sales space for artists. There are more than 70 art studios located between several historical buildings. Here, renowned artists made history, such as Robert Arneson. In 1987, a small and united community of artists gathered together to create Arts Benicia.
Flowers and people motivate me to produce! I really need to feel some kind of life around, and I am a firm believer in the power and beauty of flowers. I feel in good company among them!
– Mocó
The artists of Arts Benicia meet twice a year with open studios. There is always a fraternization and the annual photo! It’s really fun, but in general the artists are very reclusive. We only have contact with the most friendly and cheerful! Our building was a kind of Army office and is now not only our art studio but our home, right in the middle of the 1850s heart of Arts Benicia … beautiful.
MOCOTOPIA a contraction between the words “MOCÓ” (as my husband signs his works) and “TOPIA” of utopia! Mocotopia has become a small world in which we transport ourselves and connect directly with our inspirations and consequently artistic productions, which, in addition to painting, sculpting, sewing, gardening, and cooking, we also produce exotic things like taxidermy. Anyway, Mocotopia is not so utopian because we are also committed to demystifying what can be created pleasantly by ourselves!
Upon entering MOCOTOPIA, you’ll find our lobby, which is quite cozy and adorned with art, including large canvases and ceramics. In the large studio, visitors can visually delight in the works under construction and follow the creative process a little! The building itself is already a work of art. With its large rooms and high ceilings, we had the idea to transform the old military building into the look of a French Chateau in the middle of California.
“There are always flowers for those who want to see them.”
– Henry Matisse
Mocotopia is mainly recognized as a painting studio, a space about art where you talk to the artist about art and production in an authentic way, transforming studio visits into an experience — an unforgettable moment, perhaps the same feeling of toasting with a rare wine!
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I was born from a family of farmers, in the arid northeast of Brazil, where a train passing through tons of cotton bales and passengers migrating to the south of the country was eagerly announced daily. These are the best memories I have of my childhood summer vacations back on my maternal grandparents’ farm, where everything was produced by subsistence, from the food to the clothes we wore. In fact, our friendships were also shaped by pure subsistence, as there were not many people to connect with there, and we had to hold on to loyalty and altruistic gestures. At the end of the summer, I returned to Rio de Janeiro, a charming metropolis with forgotten and ignored architectural beauty. It bothered me to see the neo-classical buildings being called decadent, old, and out of fashion, being demolished, replaced by concrete blocks with windows!
After studying in London, England, during the ‘90s, in 2005 at the age of 35 as a law student, I moved to California, with a son and husband, specifically to Sonoma County! In Sonoma, I reconnected with the sensations of the train passing and the characteristic smells of the old houses, of filling my eyes with the grandeur of architecture where beauty still prevailed in details and ornaments that enriched the facades. I was enchanted by the Victorian and rural atmosphere of the region; I felt alive again!
Happy and inspired, I started to create scenes, reproduce domestic environments, and influence the pictorial production of my husband, who is a visual artist. I started to notice that the easel, paints, and canvases were always around reproducing my scenes, my floral arrangements, or details of clothes I wore. I noticed that our partnership between muse and artist was frankly declared and reaffirmed!
“Art should be something like a good armchair in which to rest from a physical fatigue.”
– Henry Matisse
In 2014 we visited the Miami Art Basel and decided to spend a season living in Miami Beach trying to bet on the contemporary art market. We totally changed our lifestyle and started to live and breathe Art Deco for two years.
But the longing for California spoke louder, and we decided to go back and bet against the market trend, reinforcing our style in nostalgia and romanticism, in the reusable and recyclable, in subsistence, in the commitment and honesty that old materials had with quality and durability. Even metaphysically due to the feeling of comfort, confidence, and familiarity, everything strengthened and impregnated us in an irreplaceable way from that moment on!
In the spring of 2017, we crossed the small, bucolic, charming, and historic city of Benicia, located in the northeast of the San Francisco Bay. We were enchanted by a Georgian-style building, built in the mid 1850s, to provide bureaucratic support for the materials (munitions and weapons) that arrived on the Benicia Port during the American gold rush. The city then lived its heyday and was the seat of the state administration, being recognized as California’s capital.
About the table … MOCÓ built it, is 14 feet long and is very versatile, we use it for work and to receive people, too!!!
The Benicia Arsenal (1851–1964) was part of a large military reservation. For over 100 years, the arsenal was the primary U.S. Army Ordinance facility for the West Coast of the United States. The Benicia Arsenal was deactivated in 1963, and the facility was closed in 1964. The arsenal has been redeveloped as work and sales space for artists. There are more than 70 art studios located between several historical buildings. Here, renowned artists made history, such as Robert Arneson. In 1987, a small and united community of artists gathered together to create Arts Benicia.
Flowers and people motivate me to produce! I really need to feel some kind of life around, and I am a firm believer in the power and beauty of flowers. I feel in good company among them!
– Mocó
The artists of Arts Benicia meet twice a year with open studios. There is always a fraternization and the annual photo! It’s really fun, but in general the artists are very reclusive. We only have contact with the most friendly and cheerful! Our building was a kind of Army office and is now not only our art studio but our home, right in the middle of the 1850s heart of Arts Benicia … beautiful.
MOCOTOPIA a contraction between the words “MOCÓ” (as my husband signs his works) and “TOPIA” of utopia! Mocotopia has become a small world in which we transport ourselves and connect directly with our inspirations and consequently artistic productions, which, in addition to painting, sculpting, sewing, gardening, and cooking, we also produce exotic things like taxidermy. Anyway, Mocotopia is not so utopian because we are also committed to demystifying what can be created pleasantly by ourselves!
Upon entering MOCOTOPIA, you’ll find our lobby, which is quite cozy and adorned with art, including large canvases and ceramics. In the large studio, visitors can visually delight in the works under construction and follow the creative process a little! The building itself is already a work of art. With its large rooms and high ceilings, we had the idea to transform the old military building into the look of a French Chateau in the middle of California.
“There are always flowers for those who want to see them.”
– Henry Matisse
Mocotopia is mainly recognized as a painting studio, a space about art where you talk to the artist about art and production in an authentic way, transforming studio visits into an experience — an unforgettable moment, perhaps the same feeling of toasting with a rare wine!
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