I partnered with the brilliant Cortney Armitage on a photo series that represents Joy using the color bombs of Holi. Each of the women in the series gave their definition of Joy - and they were all equally as insightful and relatable. Check them out below!
"Joy to me is a deep sense of inter-connectedness, losing sense of time and space - but fully engaged in the moment."
Kristine Pregot - @kristinequeen
"There’s something about Joy, in comparison to the other breeds of happiness, that’s more immediate. The downside is that it’s more fleeting, but there some part of it that’s serendipitous and unexpected and keeps you on your feet because you never know when it’s going to turn an ordinary or terrible day around. It’s ancillary. It’s not necessary. It’s specific to you and it’s outside of the general things that make everyone happy like puppies and coupons. After you’ve taken care of your basic needs and let yourself be affected by pleasantries, what’s the one thing that brings you a feeling you didn’t realize you were missing? For me, it’s always been performing. I feel elevated. High. I can tangibly feel it (though, that might be the blazing, overbearing stage lights giving me a low-grade fever.) I think happiness is something you possess after getting your material items in order and taking care of yourself and doing all the things you need to do to live. Joy is the shit you live for."
Brittany Brave @brittanythebrave
"Harmony and balance in life brings me joy. Thinking about my friends and family and sharing laughs with them. And I love life's surprises!"
Eliis Keidong - @ellie_keidong
"As a free spirit, my joy is feeling lost. Lost in my thoughts, lost in music and dance, lost in nature or the city...My mother always said I was a daydreamer...and feeling lost makes room for more of my dreams..."
Camile Sardina - @camilesardina
"Basically, anything that has the elements of "silliness, sea, surf & friends" in it is Joy for me."
Katrin Haibi (She is a free spirit and has no instagram tag)
"For me, joy means an understanding that not everything may work out, but we should celebrate the little things as they do.
I think it's deeply entwined with hope, which requires that we embrace that few things are guaranteed but we can dare to love them anyway. "
Megan McCormick - @megwethersfield
I wrote Brooklyn In The Summer after 4 days in the desert with friends developing my creative practice that I call “The Dig.” Digs are 10 min vocal and lyric improvisations designed to bring up subconscious ideas and emotions that I don’t want to face, but are the most important to deal with. I had a session with my friend Jake Scott and After we did a couple digs and came back from a walk I sat down at a Piano and Brooklyn just came out. Jake walked in the room as the chorus started to form and we finished it together in about 30 minutes. It was magic. Here is the original demo from that day :)
“Breath”
12”x10”x5”
Black Indian Soapstone
"For this collaborative project, I wanted to capture something that was universally felt by all people, regardless of age, gender, race, ethnicity or religion. Angst is shared among us all and in order to manage the dread and anxiety, we have to accept and ultimately breathe. When Jay and I spoke in more depth about our work on this project, I realized that the focus was not on the struggle of life, but rather how we deal with it. The breath offers that to us all. To breathe is to sustain life."
Dan Saland was born/raised in Northern NJ and has created various forms of art throughout his life. Since 2012, his passion has been stone sculpture. As an existential-humanistic psychologist, he finds many connections and applications between psychology andsculpting a medium that is millions of years old. Dan’s approach is one of patience and humility. The relationship that is developed with each stone and the process of sculpting itself are critical to the creative experience. Similar to the human psyche, sculpting is an evolution of formation and becoming. Dan also finds carving stone quite cathartic as the sculptural challenge leads to deep self-reflection and change.
Originally from Ft. Lauderdale Florida, Rafaela Remy Sanchez lives in Brooklyn, New York where she takes care of her plants, works at a branding agency and manages her own Instagram poetry account, rafpoems. Rafpoems alters the idea of the poem away from a static presentation, to a fluid representation of thought. Through screen recordings, her followers read the poems as they’re written in real time, allowing themselves to become immersed in the creation and thought process of the poet. Rafaela’s poems are a reflection of how she views the world, both as an abstract manifestation of emotion and an amorphous sequence of actions. At times, she mixes her poems with her Hispanic heritage, using the Spanish language to express herself and connect with the sometimes distant aspects of her identity. In conjunction with her writing, Rafaela also co-leads the Women's Poetry Workshop, a free, monthly, women-only workshop focused the growth of female poets through collaborative writing and critiquing, as well as strengthening the conversation between women and the outside world through poetic dialogue.
Growing up... That's the theme of this months song. For the single cover we shot my 4 year old cousin Finn dressed in my clothes. He is AMAZING and here's a little video of Finn talking about life. Song will be out next Friday!
Here's the final artwork image from our photoshoot for my new single "Grow Up", coming out NEXT FRIDAY April 27th. I think Finn really captured his "electric guitar rockstar" look he was going for. What do you think?
Here are some outtakes from the third emotion photo shoot with Cortney Armitage. The concept for these photos represented regret in a vulnerable way. We wanted to capture the idea of cleansing yourself of something you regret doing. A moment where you are truly alone with your thoughts. The final product ended up nailing the vision and I have to credit that to Cortney because this was fairly dificult for me to take seriously.
These are images from mine and Cortney's second emotion photo creative collaboration. For this month's emotion (hopeful), we wanted to be up for the sunrise - representing new beginnings, fresh starts and hope for a great day ahead. For the location, Coney Island seemed like a natural choice. (NYC is a huge inspiration to my work and I wanted to make sure to feature areas of the city in my work.) The goal was to capture contemplative moments while looking out into the water and horizon. I think we did a good job accomplishing it.
We also tried this concept of an image with dying flowers behind my back to represent holding out hope for someone you love. We felt the other images were more striking and in-line with the messaging we wanted and decided to keep the others for the Vault only!
To capture each months emotion visually over the next 18 months, I've partnered with an amazingly talented photographer - Cortney Armitage. Every month, we will be collaborating on images for both the single artwork and monthly emotion artwork. Here are some outtakes from our Times Square shoot. We wanted to try a double exposure, layered look, where I appeared to be invisible. We chose Times Square for our location because it's easy to feel invisible in the busiest and most crowded place in NYC. You become one with the crowd, blending in instead of sticking out.
