SB: I’m an Artist and Herbalist, my work is specific and takes on different forms, but it all is deeply land based. My people are from the mountains and coasts of Southern Italy and these formidable, mystical, diverse landscapes are at the heart of my work. I’ve also spent a lot of my time in the Northeast US, specifically Connecticut, between the three towns that inspired Wally Lamb’s fictional town of Three Rivers, and that downtrodden and melancholic feeling of these faded mill towns is prominent for me and is one of many threads that connects these two areas of the world I’ve found myself. Two of the areas in Southern Italy that I have a lot of family from are in Campania and Puglia—places of extreme beauty which have retained a wild nature and yet are also burdened with intense environmental issues. The Sarno River that runs through Campania is the most polluted in all of Europe. The illegal dumping and agricultural pollution in the region has resulted in high cancer rates and in certain spots the illegal dumping and burning of toxic waste is so bad, it has been dubbed “the triangle of death.” In Puglia a steelworks plant that’s long been known as ILVA has polluted the region of Taranto for decades resulting in a  sacrifice zone many have no choice but to live in. These are places in our world with incredible biodiversity and beauty, that my family and so many others were forced to leave due to poverty and an inability to “make a living.”. This reality and complexity lies at the heart of who I am, what I make, and how I make it. 

SB: A few of the main maternal figures in my life were herbalists and artisans, though I don’t know that they necessarily thought of themselves as the latter. Herbalism was the main medicine mode in my home growing up so this part of my life is an inherited practice that I didn’t necessarily choose, but definitely choose to continue. Both my motherlands in Southern Italy and the Northeast US are ecologically rich but economically poor and the resourcefulness and ingenuity that I grew up with is still a big part of my life. The artisans in my family were involved in traditional crafts, namely working with textiles. But I would say that I very much am the Artist of my family today, I choose to prioritize beauty in my life and make art as a life line and I distinguish my art as vernacular because it exists outside of the institution and it feels important to acknowledge that as the origin of art itself in a society that devalues and exploits art and artists. 

As far as where I’m at in the path… a fun part of the spiral. I’m very fond of the work I’m currently making. The quality of what I make for the apothecary has been high since the beginning because I only began offering things when I was ready, with many years of experience under my belt. With my art though, I didn’t really start taking it seriously til I went to college. I’ve always had a good eye, but there’s a long path between having an eye for something and actually having the skills to create that thing you see in your head. It’s exciting to reach a point where I can see how far I’ve come and can really bring life to ideas that have been germinating. 

CP: Tell us a little bit about the transformation from Terracotta Farmacia to The Land of Lila, I am also an avid My Brilliant Friend Fan, and wish I was a little more like Lila and less like Lenu haha, I think we all could use a little bit of Lila’s power right now. How does her energy inform your current practice?

SB: Where to begin! I wrote a piece on this this past fall here for anyone interested in the longer version. But the short of it is, it was a natural and timely shift I felt ready to embrace. What started off as solely an apothecary has evolved into a multidisciplinary project and I wanted to reflect that vastness in the name… give it some more possibility. So there’s layers to the new name, of which a foundational one is Lila from My Brilliant Friend, who I relate to deeply. And I agree, we need to get close with the Lila inside each of us more than ever right now—to quote Tessa Brown from her piece, "Disasters at the Origin of the Sense of Disaster”: Ferrante on Fascism — 

Lila’s genius — a genius shared by Marxists and novelists both — is her attention to the realities of material life, her refusal to be hoodwinked by abstract theories, her insistence on the observable complexities of the here and now…. For the real-life Ferrante, an author we will never know, Lila is a literary tool that ties bourgeois existence back to working-class realities — the realities of poverty, of exploitation, of sexual violence. If we can take any lesson from Elena and Lila, it is to stay connected to the Lila inside all of us — the neighborhood girl who refuses to abandon injustice — who chooses to stay, and to fight.

This is it for me. I respect Lila’s fight, her commitment to truth, her willingness to push back against groupthink. I’m very much a Lila, and if ever in doubt, I think about what she would do and move accordingly. 

SB: In theory herbalism is the people's medicine, but in today's reality herbalism has become a hot commodity and part of the trillion dollar global wellness industry. There is nothing inherently communal or radical about practicing herbalism—the fascists of 1930-40s Germany loved herbalism and had extensive herb gardens right outside the concentration camps that they forced the people imprisoned to work in. We see this same “back to the land” ideology in today's fascists, for ex. in the US where people fancying themselves influencers espouse traditional family values and lifestyles to sell herbal products loaded with unethically sourced plants that ecosystems have been plundered for. 

The truth remains that plant medicine belongs to everyone and is owned by no one. This knowledge is culturally and communally generated and so I center my practice and my relationships with others around this truth. Practicing herbalism in the culturally specific way I was taught helps me stay true to what this practice is—I grow the plants I work with prioritizing soil health and diversity, I make small amounts that I can produce with my own hands, I make high quality, simple, age old products with whole plant material rather than utilizing isolated extracts that both dilute the potential of the medicine and quickly run the price up. I steer people I know in need of herbs to small scale growers. I make a point to talk about the current state of the environment and the pain the Earth is in. Even the most well kept patch of land is affected by the degradation happening at large. Those of us that love plants and work with them for our health and survival should feel responsible for being honest about this and protecting our home. 

The plants are main characters in my life and this is the case for many people around the world. So as an herbalist living in the states that acknowledges and values herbal knowledge as communal, I share knowledge freely and generously. People that know me, know what to hit me up about and know they will get more than they’re expecting. I also work with children and make a point to feed and encourage their curiosity and innate understanding of the world as alive. 

CP: Is there a single plant, weed, or so‑called “common” species that has been a long-term teacher for you, and what has it shown you?

SB: Weeds are what humans call disobedient plants—plants that grow freely—where, when, and how they choose. Humans' dislike for this has helped bolster incredibly harmful industries like that of pesticides which came about as a way to repurpose wartime created nerve agents and chemical weapons and have remained as a fixture in conventional agriculture at the great expense of the health of our environment, ourselves, and all other life forms. The absolute insanity of Roundup’s slogan being “kill weeds not the lawn” and having a picture of a Dandelion on it—a medicinal plant that’s actions and affinities are indicated for many modern day ailments—all in the name of growing monoculture of a non native grass. 

The weeds will always be my favorite, they were my first and longest teachers and I love every single one I meet. Weeds show us how foolish and futile borders are. They remind us that all living things move and that we can flourish anywhere our needs are met, that our identities aren’t tied to nation states but land and earthly elements that exist all over our planet, transcending the lines we’ve drawn to divide ourselves. Dandelion flowers will push through the smallest cracks of concrete. Nettle’s versatility is amazing—they are a food, medicine, fiber, natural colorant. There isn’t a man made chemical or amount of human pollution on Earth that will sway Mugwort—look at them thriving in Chernobyl! We have so much to learn from all of them. They all show me, again and again, how deeply intertwined our stories are.

CP: How does the landscape you’re currently rooted in show up in your rituals, recipes, or visual language?

SB: I have very specific taste, I know exactly what I like or think looks good and that runs through my visual language. I'm either trying to bottle up or record the beauty I’m surrounded by, or make beautiful things and environments to counter the ugliness we all have no choice but to come in contact with. I think industrial society, our globalized world, social media has done a number on all of the above—our rituals, recipes, the images we have of places and cultures, many complex places becoming caricatures of themselves in an attempt to make it in late stage capitalism. The unfortunate homogenization that occurs when people try to adhere to an established aesthetic rather than doing and making the things only they can by being exactly themselves. Both of the places I spend my time experience four seasons and my life centers around this cycle. I live, consume, and create by the seasons.

CP: Can you trace a moment or season in your life when plants shifted from background scenery to primary collaborators in your work?

SB: I'm fortunate to have been supported by plants my whole life. My first memory of being aware of how alive and a part of my life the plants were, was when I was a child, maybe 4 years old, and my mom gave me a pillow filled with Chamomile and Mugwort to comfort me at night. 

CP: We’re very excited to have you as a guest teacher for our retreat. How has teaching or sharing the work become a part of your practice? Can you tell us a little more about your connection to Puglia and what we can expect from your guidance? 

SB: Teaching comes very naturally to me, I have worked as a teacher of many things since I was a teenager and it has long been a part of how I practice herbalism. Education is a big part of my practice, I send out thorough information for everything I make for the apothecary. When I lead workshops or talks on plants I do so in the spirit of the oral storytelling way I was taught with. I don’t bother much with the accessible info we can find readily in books or online, preferring to share things that come more from lived and cultural experience that touch on something deeper than categorization, lists, facts. I have family from Bari in Puglia and have spent time there since I was a child. My grandparents and great grandparents have memories of the dramatic ways the Puglian landscape has changed in their lifetimes which I now carry forward. I’m excited to share these stories, guide participants into an intimacy with the landscape, and be a readily available resource for questions. 

CP: When you guide a group through plant work, what are you hoping they carry back into their own homes and communities? 

SB: A deeper awareness of their innate connection to the Earth that they don’t need anyone’s permission to access, a new curiosity about the landscape and ways to read and interact with it, an excitement of the accessibility and simplicity of working with plants, and ultimately, if they aren’t already, I hope to inspire people to protect our environment and take on the ecological role of guardian.

CP: Without giving too much away, is there a particular plant, ritual, or site in Southern Italy that you’re especially excited to introduce participants to?

SB: Absolutely, all of the above. Southern Italy is a very subterranean place, I will honor that by going deep into the complexities of these lands. In the flower essence workshop, I’m excited to widen our perspectives of what a flower essence can be by making some culturally specific ones that are made seasonally across Italy to this day. I'm looking forward to talking about every one of the nine plants we’ll be working with + Prickly Pears, and hopefully we come upon some of the wild lesser known ones like Mastic trees, the endemic Crocus, and Santoreggia pugliese.