About Me
Hello everybody
I’m Grazyna– a Northern woman born in a land of mist, mountains and the cold sea- a woman shaped by precision and restraint who found joy in the golden sun of Southern Puglia.
My Salento story goes back to the end of ‘80s when I set foot on this land for the first time. It wasn’t easy: I knew nothing about Italians and Italy, and I was pregnant with my second child. At that time, I barely could say something in Italian, I approached Italian food with scepticism and… suffered from scorching temperature. Fortunately, there was the Ionian Sea, yeah!
Things like language, food and Italian culture built up in me with time changing my mindset and becoming part of myself. My daughters at the age of 5 & 6 learned swimming in the Ionian Sea…and…from my sisters-in-law I learned how to cook and eat raw mussels (sic!).
Moka coffee style became my friend for life 😊that together with famous Bialetti coffee machine’ brand (I had them quite a few) and lesser known worldwide, beautifully crafted cotton table mats by a local manufactory ‘La tessitura di A. Calabrese” (still have two 30-year-old ones) have always been travelling with me.
This amazing, unforgettable life experience led me to like eating eventually. I found delicacy and even beauty in matching food together (like grapes & cheese) and understood eventually that food it’s also about creation… so I found an artistic, colourful dimension in it. Definitely, thanks to Italy the picky eater- Grazyna- has come to an end 😊.
Thus, in the mid ‘90s having a marital separation behind, I brought to my country new eating habits: olive oil, le lasagne, home-made pizza, ricotta, parmesan, new veggies like rucola or aubergines, moka caffe, FRUIT of all kind, APERITIVO (Campari/ Aperol Spritz) and WATER. Oh yes, at that time water wasn’t a common drink in Poland. Although Polish cuisine is not that bad at all, I shifted almost everything 😊, and even my very traditional daddy – a family chef – started to appreciate Italian food, I swear! A proper revolution HA!
Italian language became my professional tool: I started to work as an interpreter for Fiat S.A. in Bielsko-Biala and Tychy, Poland. And Italian fashion and design influenced my style and heightened the taste for good quality in everything that have been with me since. My daughters learnt Italian, and we were spending holiday together in Salento every single year.
With that knowledge I came to London in the early 2000s where I began to brush up on English language. Hard, but worthwhile experience. Studying gave me MA degree in Arts and a new job as an English Lecturer allowing me to expand interpreting activity by one language as well.
In London the penny dropped. I finally wore that proverbial “red dress” and go out to the world spreading my ideas. I created “Universe Model Joy” to upend a concept of beauty consisting of moving beyond traditional, often narrow aesthetic standards, and embracing imperfections and diversity of every kind. My catwalks showed people like you and me enjoying their beauty and qualities. Big thanks to FB (against all odds) for facilitating me to get the audience and followers. It was in 2019.
I have the impression that at some point of my life I captured the balloon from Banksy’s “Girl with balloon” and, instead of bin it, I moved forward to guide my Universum. Just like in the painting “Odkrycie” (Discovery) by AgaSova Art – “Universe Model Joy” logo inspiration.
This feeling drove me to the next step: writing a storytelling- a screenplay “My fairy tale life” in three languages: Polish, Italian & English. A storytelling about Grazyna- a woman from North who met South one day. Sooner or later, I truly believe you will be watching that story on the big screen 😊
And here we are … 😊 Life is an unpredictable journey… so having turned full circle, Grazyna turned up with her ballon in Salento again holding a suitcase full of curiosity and a heart wide open. She came seeking the warmth, the olive groves with their unpredictable colours, the whisper of the sea breeze…
“The olive trees are very characteristic, and I’m struggling to capture that. It’s silver, sometimes more blue, sometimes greenish, bronzed, whitening on ground that is yellow, pink, purplish or orangeish to dull red.” – Written by Van Gogh to Theo, 28 Semptember 1859.
…and I discovered a deeper kind that lives in simplicity, and a kind of wisdom rooted in this land.
I found the laughter echoing through pajaras (Salento’s trulli), liamas (old stone shepherds’ sheds), stunning vegetation… they‘re teaching me now how to enjoy life differently.
No wonder, I am the owner of a piece of ‘Macchia Mediterranea’ (Mediterranean Scrub) land in Morciano di Leuca now, where I dream to set up my new home soon. Incredible!
Salento Joy is a space where I share with joy things I consider worthwhile: stories, recipes, landscapes & estates and craftsmanship & art beauty – all that woven into the soul of Salento. It’s like a love letter to Southern Puglia and to the transformation that happens when you let the land shape your soul.
