We found Talia walking her bike through the village. She looked immediately striking, relaxed and beautifully put together in cut off pants, frilly white blouse, colourful preppy vest, velvet fur collared jacket, a delicate opal ring, thigh tatt, ankle boots and a pink bike. She was uplifted by a conversation she’d just had “with a lovely homeless guy. He wants to make movies but he’s homeless. He just gave me this book (“Alice in Wonderland”). The more we spoke, the harder it was to leave her.
NAME:
Talia Graziano
WHAT DO YOU DO?Artist/actor/musician/performer, with a side gig flower-delivering.
HOW LONG HAVE YOU LIVED IN THE ENVIRONS?
Three months. I was born in San Bernadino, California, grew up in Tasmania and recently moved over from St Kilda. My background is Ukrainian/German/Sicilian, so there’s Nazi and Mafia in there.
HOW’D YOU GET FROM CALIFORNIA TO TASMANIA?
My father went to Stanford to do law but never finished because he took too many drugs. (He died in 2013 from taking meth or whatever).
My mother divorced him and won custody over me, my sister and my two brothers and wanted to move back to Tasmania where she’d been raised. My mother is known as “The Dumpster Queen”. She was famous in Tasmania, on tv. She collected trash. My sister (Alita) made a documentary about her called “Hard Rubbish”.
THREE WORDS TO DESCRIBE THE HOOD?
Eclectic, stylish, approachable.
I’d describe you the same way!
WHO ARE YOU WEARING?
Basically op-shop! Boots from a Tassie market ($7), navy velvet coat from Facebook Marketplace.
ONE WORD TO DESCRIBE YOUR CURRENT STATE OF MIND:
Chill.
WHEN AND WHERE WERE YOU HAPPIEST?
In nature. The image in mind: sitting in a park under a willow tree reading a book in clean air.
IF YOU COULD BE STANDING ANYWHERE A YEAR FROM NOW, WHERE WOULD IT BE?
Sicily (I’m half Sicilian and was about to go there when Covid hit).
IF YOU COULD INTRODUCE ONE THING TO NORTH FITZROY, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
An artists’ hub like Camperdown Park in Sydney, a monthly meeting places for artists to socialise. I don’t know if it’s the weather, but Melbourne feels very closed off.
WITH COFFEE, WHICH IS MOST IMPORTANT: THE BEAN, THE BARRISTA OR THE VIBE?
I’d have to say it’s all the barrista.
WHERE DO YOU GET YOUR COFFEE?
Lidio makes my coffee at the Tin Pot.
ANYTHING ELSE?
My grandmother killed my grandfather with a hammer in Tasmania in the 1980s. It was a big thing. His name was Wolfgang Franke. He tried to rape her in the bath-tub and he slipped, so she killed him and then wrapped him up and dumped him on the side of a highway and walked home.
That’s what’s known as burying the lead! What happened to her?
She went to jail for a year. There was a ton of evidence against him.
DO YOU STILL SEE HER?
Oh yes, Omi! She’s great!
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