#jesada

I am not very good at visual art.  But for some reason, something in me prevails and I can’t stop attempting it. Maybe its because I don’t excel at it that makes me keep going but usually if I’m not naturally good at something right away, I give up in frustration.  So throughout my whole life, why have I not given up on illustration and the like?

I am inspired by so many people around me.  One woman I am currently dazzled by is my roommate, Camilla.  She is a fantastic visual artist and there are certain pieces she does that I just stop dead in my tracks and can’t look away and stop thinking about.  I see so many stories behind her photographs and art. 

I was lucky enough to model for Camilla for one of her classes and I also hired her to take my band photos a couple years back.  Camilla is one of those girls you meet and are just bewildered by her pure, unflinching wonder.  She is someone I would describe as “magical” but in ways that may be different than other interactions I have in my day-to-day.  Throughout a given 24-hours, I hear Camilla downstairs belting out songs she may or may not have wrote, walk around the house talking in Portuguese to her family, or cooking the most indescribably amazing-smelling food in the kitchen.  Living with her these past few years makes me happy, and I’m bewildered that our paths crossed in Philly.

Camilla travels fairly often (relative to me) and recently went to India for an art program at school.  I see her photos when she visits her family in Brazil every year, and I got to have a sneak peak at these as well.  There were some characters in those photos that just spoke to me and made me want to be in that very location at that very time so badly that it’s almost painful.  This particular series of photos were just so beautiful to me.  In the town of Jesada, these boys reside in a town called Gujarat, in which Camilla got to experience a family sharing these couple moments of pure bliss with each other. 

“They were dancing to punjabi music on [the] radio...” Cam said when I asked her about the photos.  “They were so happy, not a worry in sight! I think they were happiest when dancing”

The last photo posted in this series is a depiction of the pure love I saw in these little boys’ eyes looking at their father. 

For full-circle’s sake:

I am not very good at visual art. But when I feel an emotion with anothers’ story, anything I create is deemed satisfyingly worth it.

xo

Jessie