Zala Neza

This week Intercru spoke with songwriter, poet, and model Zala Neza. We found out some of her favorite things and what inspires her to be creative.

Intercru: Where are you from? Where do you live/work now?

I'm from this little but gorgeous country in Central Europe, called Slovenia, where I still live, work, and create now.

How did you first get into modeling?

Well my schoolmate Luka Budin is a photographer and he was always bringing his camera to school when we had events, school camps, excursions, or birthdays. In the end of our freshman year he took some photos of me which I liked and also liked the feeling, the posing, and how you can portray yourself and other roles in the photos. Afterwards I collaborated with other amateur photographers and gained experience and an audience.

You're also a songwriter and poet...how do you find your inspiration?

Mostly I find it in everyday situations and people. So I gain my inspiration from other people's stories or everything that is packed with emotions and creates some kind of vibe or mood in me and others.

Sometimes (or a lot of times haha) it happens that I have a blockage. When this happens I go into nature to find peace outside of me and the storm inside of me, because a lot of times you are so stressed and busy with the outer world that you - in some way - loose yourself or don't feel anything really. Just by listening to the singing of birds or rustling of the trees, shyness of the waves or the feeling of rain, snow and wind really helps to feel myself again.

Small tip: writing alongside (classical) music also really helps :)

What is the feeling you like to express with your creative work?

Poetry is about expressing feelings, problems, and anything that is consuming you. It's like a diary for me, and the masterpiece is that you put feelings into words, because when people read your work you want them to feel the breeze on their cheeks and the feeling of heartache or loss or their first love with the words, metaphors you wrote and the mood that you created.

It's about evoking something inside of us that we can acknowledge or enjoy in the scenery that the poem pictures it for us, it's for the people who like to remember, feel, relive, laugh, and cry and the biggest enjoyment is if they do that when they read the poem or book you wrote, then you know you touched their soul.

What's your favorite color?

Oh god you got me there... they are constantly changing but my top three are brown-beige, olive/emerald green, and grey.

What celebrity would you most like to meet?

For the celebrities no longer alive…. Clark Gable. For the ones still alive, Quentin Tarantino or Anthony Hopkins.

If you were an animal, what would you be?

Definitely a black panther ;)

If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would it be?

I love traveling so this one is especially hard. I would like to go to Amsterdam or Switzerland. I would like to travel across Scotland and Iceland, all the art cities in Italy like Florence, Palermo, Naples, Perugia, Sicily. I'd also like to go to Japan, Versailles, the country side in England, Greece, or Saint Petersburg.

But now most of all I would like to go in Provence, France to go look at Monet's garden in Giverny. I really like everything about French Impressionism art.

To see more of her work, you can find Zala on Instagram @zalnea_