Two people, one kitchen table, a slow working year.

Chapter one · How it started

We met in a bookshop that no longer exists.

Antonio was an engineer who kept quietly buying sketchbooks he did not deserve. Kirsten was an illustrator with three years of commercial work and a drawer full of portraits she had made for friends without being asked. We began sharing the same kitchen in 2022, the same printer a year later, and the same small studio in late 2024.

mi amor mi vida is what happened when the drawings piled up faster than we could give them away.

Chapter two · How we work

Six objects a month, never more.

Every commission enters a small queue. Kirsten draws at a pace that allows the drawings to be good — not fast, not efficient, just good. A commissioned book takes three to four weeks. A portrait takes two to three. A print enters the archive only after Kirsten has decided it deserves to live past the sketchbook.

Antonio handles everything that is not drawing: the shop, the post, the framing, the emails, the printer (whose name is Gerald and who holds a grudge). Between the two of us it is enough. That is the shape of the studio, and we do not intend to grow it.

Chapter three · What we believe

A drawing should feel like a small, serious promise.

We believe that the best things are made slowly, in small numbers, by two people who know what each other means. We believe that a photograph is a document and a drawing is a decision, and that the translation from one to the other is a kind of love letter to the subject. We believe that every object we mail out is a small, serious promise — and that the studio exists to keep those promises.

Chapter four · If you would like to work with us

We reply to every letter.

You can commission a book, a portrait, or reserve a print through the shop pages. If your project is not quite one of those, write to us directly and describe it — we read every message and we answer in the order they arrive, usually within a day. We prefer enquiries with photographs and pictures on the mind to enquiries with budgets in the first line, but both are welcome.