Eyes Wide

Listen above, on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Transcript:

Alexa Ashley: I'm Alexa Ashley, and this is Eyes Wide. In this episode, we get to hear from the singer, songwriter, multi instrumentalist Maya Burns. Maya shares with us her experience immigrating to Mexico from the United States as a young child, becoming enthralled with the Ranchera genre of Mexican music and getting to where she is today, singing all over the world and composing for TV.

Maya Burns: I was born in Monterey, California, and I was raised in Ensenada, California—that's 70 miles south of the San Diego border. And yeah, I mean, when you're yourself, you're just used to living your life, but once you start meeting other people, you realize we're all very unique, and that's a wonderful thing. But growing up, I was an immigrant, and I was learning Spanish while studying kindergarten at a public school. And it was, it was really quite a challenge when I first started, because I didn't really understand anything, but my parents would bribe me to keep going to kindergarten with ice cream, as parents do. But I was like, ”I don't understand.” And they were like, “but you will.” And so I learned just by being fully immersed. I was four or five years old, which is totally possible. So I was able to learn Spanish, and then I started elementary school, and by then I had worked myself a little singing career, because I sang Rancheras, which is an amazing genre from Mexico. 

And I started singing before I spoke Spanish, actually. So I would sing the songs in Spanish, make some friends, and then it just kind of went from there. And then I started learning Spanish and realizing what I was saying. Those songs are just kind of like country songs in the United States, or blues, they're just so sad. One of the songs is “Por un Amor ( For a Love).” It’s like ”My blood dropped out of my heart for love” and the chorus, there's backup singers during the course that go, “don't suffer more.” The lead singer is like, “this life isn't for me, for me, for me. I don't want to suffer another second.” And like when I was singing it back in kindergarten, I thought it was about chocolate, like I didn't understand intense emotions to that degree. So because it says “Cuánto sufre mi pecho que late…” my brain was like, “Oh, chocolate,” you know. So I would experience the culture in a very different way. Then by like, eight, 9, 10 years old, I was like, “Oh, this is a really sad song.” And I mean, I wasn't a sad kid or anything. I just really like the music.

And half of the year, or maybe less than half the year, my family and I would travel to the US and sell tie dyes, which my dad makes, and I would sing rancheras at hippie fest, which was like so random. There'd be a Janis Joplin tribute, back to back with Jimi Hendrix tribute, and then I would get up for like, one or two songs in between bands, because I was very—well, I am very extroverted. And I was like, ”Hey, can I sing?” And the stage manager was like, “Well, you can sing two songs while we set up one band and take down the other.” And so I'd get up and sing some rancheras, just no instrumentation, acapella. And the hippie crowd was great, because they're so open and loving that they were like, “Yeah, I don't know what you said.” That was a very unique experience that I got to have growing up. 

And then I was home schooled through junior high and high school, because I got picked up by the Mexican government randomly because they heard me at school. And so I was in a music school, like, two days a week. And the director was like, “Oh, you should audition for this government program.” And they took me to Tijuana, like, during school hours, and then I, like, came back, and my parents were like, “Hey, how was school?” And I was like, ”I went to Tijuana and sang for a bunch of people I didn't know.” Now I'm in this program…I started singing for foreign dignitaries, and they would take me around when I was 10, 11, up till I was 13. They brought me here to Mexico City for the first time in my life. And my parents were like, “We’re not letting you go alone.” And so they got their tickets, and I'm so thankful that they were so, you know, protective of me, and yeah, so I started my career really, really young—I even sang for religious dignitaries. I forget the name, but I sang for the President of Mexico at that time, Calderón. Like, it was crazy. And my parents don't speak Spanish to this day, and they were like, ”Oh, we're just happy that she's happy, but we have no idea what's going on.” So, because as foreigners, you can't have a political point of view. It's actually in the law, you can get deported as an immigrant in Mexico if you're vocal about one or the other party. So I was at these events, but I wasn't obviously voting. I was like, 10 to 13, and so I started homeschooling because I was missing so much school because of events. So I felt like a rock star. Yeah, the worst period of my ego was 10 to 13. 

And then I started writing songs when I was 12, about bringing the world together. And my parents listened to a lot of Pink Floyd, listened to a lot of Jefferson Airplane and amazing music. And so I was really influenced by that when I started writing songs. But I also had, like, my Ranchera roots, patriotic. I was singing patriotic songs. I was singing like, I will bleed to death for Mexico at events, and it's a wonderful song. It's called Viva Mexico, and the crowd participates. You go “Viva Mexico” and everyone goes “Viva” you know, but on the other side, it was like one pill makes you larger. So it was like these two retro genres coming together and creating this sound that has been expanding since then, and so I never thought, like, “Oh, I could do something else.” I sold tie dyes with my parents at festivals, I could have imagined myself selling tie dyes, but when I was three, my mom says that I told her that I was going to be a singer, and she was like, ”Oh, okay, cool.” You know, I'm also the youngest of four daughters, so they had seen quite a lot by the time I got to the world. “I'm going to be a singer.” And she's like, ”Oh, great. And a very Princess too.” you know? But then in kindergarten, I was learning Ranchera songs. And my parents were not show parents. They weren't telling me to get up there and show them. It was more like me saying, “Hey, can I do this? Can I do this?” And they were like, “Yeah, okay. Like, go, make it happen.” But I'm thankful they weren't stage parents.

During the pandemic, I definitely had a moment where I questioned if music was for me. Obviously, music was always going to be in my life forever. But I did go back to Ensenada, because I moved to Mexico City when I was 18. So I went back to Ensenada, where my parents live, but they sell their tie dyes in California. So I was working with them, and I met this amazing Oaxacan family, and I started singing to them on the Monterey wharf. And I just realized no matter what I did, there's this magnetism towards Mexico and towards music.” So I just started creating that community, and I was like, ”Ah, I have to go back. I have to go back to music. Even if there's nothing happening,” because during the pandemic, it was really hard to perform or anything. But yeah, definitely the pandemic made me question a lot of things. 

Everything I ultimately make is seeking connection. Everything I make is for the other person to connect. Because we all are something different to different people, and it's only if we choose to meet ourselves truly, do we recognize that other people only meet parts of us, or only see parts of us. For me, I think it's impossible to know me fully. There's just so many aspects and everyone is so complicated. So I've come to peace with other people seeing either their projection or what they have seen of me, but not the full me, because that would be impossible. And I've realized that people not meeting you fully sometimes is a good thing, because if the wrong people know you too well, they can destroy you. Not going to go into any examples of that. So sometimes I'm thankful— I’m really, really grateful when I meet people that I can be that full range of who I am with and meet them, and for them also be on that level. 

So it's really, really good, because someone can listen to my music and say, “Oh, you were going through this. You were thinking about that.” And I can tell you about what I went through when I made something. But what's really wonderful is knowing that other people can make it their own. I would love everyone to internalize every piece of music and make it theirs, because I think that's why we were given gifts as artists, and I think we all are given gifts. So when we can share that, and other people can make it theirs, then we're like—I'm doing a circular movement with my hand for the audio—it comes around, goes around in a beautiful way. Also, it doesn't always happen, but when you can just experience other people, experiencing what you're doing, that's like Nirvana to me. And when you can connect different arts together—my creative process has changed a lot. 

Obviously, I used to write thinking mostly about myself and my experience. And I think that over the years, I've been inspired more by a painting or inspired by another artist or another sound, and I've really enjoyed exploring and adapting with love, and I started studying composition, and so I've really learned. While I'm learning, I'm always in the process of learning to adapt, not just to what I feel and what I'm doing, but to new concepts and new ways of doing things. Now, when someone asks me or hires me to write a song, I don't just think like, “Oh, what am I going to do?” I think, ”Who is this person?” I want to investigate. I want to know more about them and meet them where they are. I'm obviously going to bring myself to the table. I don't have to focus on it. So, it's more about getting to that place and creating in collaboration in a beautiful way and in a new way. So I've been enjoying that, and I've been performing less than I used to. 

I used to always want to just perform, but nowadays I'm getting a little more introspective. I would rather do this during the day and then go to bed at a regular time, whereas before I'm like, “2am this is perfect.” We're now like 11pm. I want my creativity to have blossomed before then, and I'm really enjoying this process right now, just learning new ways of creating. I just wrote a song for “The Secret of the River.” This is a little commercial—I had to—for Secret of the River that's on Netflix now, and the credit song of every episode is a song that I wrote the melody, lyrics and performed the vocal songs for. So I'm really, really happy. And then I watched the show—I didn't watch it before I made the song—and it's an incredible, incredible show about this little boy finding their voice. I'm not gonna spoil anything, but yeah, I really connected to that project, and I'm just really excited to continue to adapt, but not adapt in survival, adapt in love and in collaboration.

Eyes Wide is supported by members around the world

Photography by Alexa Ashley

Theme music by Kymani Thomas

Audio Editing and Mixing by Tomas Marconi

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Listen above, on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Transcript:

I’m Alexa Ashley and this is Eyes Wide. In this episode we hear from artist and photographer Julius Töyrylä, who has been recording his dreams since he can remember. In 2018, he woke up from a particularly meaningful dream, remembering two words he didn’t understand. He inquired with linguistic professor Michelle Black and learned that the words were from an Indigenous language spoken in the Andes region, and also in his birthplace of Colombia, from where he was adopted to Finland. The language is called Quechua.

When he was five years old he was told by his Finnish parents about a birth sister who passed away before he was born. The incident left him with an eerie feeling about someone, somewhere, invisible. 

In his latest photography project Black Book, Julius reshapes and analyzes his dreams with the medium of photography. His photos often contain a woman figure, usually without a face, and objects from nature depicted in a twisted and surreal kind of way. After viewing his exhibition at Taller Sangfer in Oaxaca City, Mexico, I sat down with Julius to explore the elusive symbolism of dreams and death.

Alexa Ashley: To start, tell me a little bit about growing up as you.

Julius Töyrylä: Oh, that’s a good question. We’re going hard from the beginning I guess. Damn. I was really lonely because I was an only child. And you were in the exhibition and saw some of the works there. So there was the picture of the woman sitting and she has the light in front of her face. There’s a story behind it, close to my life also. Do you want to hear it?

Alexa: Please.

Julius: Do you want the short version or the longer version?

Alexa: Whatever you’re willing to give me, Dear.

Julius: I want to give you the longer one. Ok, let’s go. Before I was in our family of now three people, I had a sister. But she unfortunately passed away after birth. 

Alexa: I’m sorry. 

Julius: Yeah, I know. And then I was adopted from Colombia to a Finnish family. And they told me a story when I was like five years old or something like that. But I’ve always had this strange feeling that there should be someone there, and there’s nobody. But also a feeling of like something similar, like the feeling that you have a sister but you don’t. Hard thing to explain; but anyway. 

A few years back from here, we were on vacation, my family. In Spain. And I was just looking at the sea. And then, this strange dreamlike feeling came over me for some reason, and it started to get dark. It was like a perfect moment in a way. And then I looked at the sea and I looked at how it waved, back and forth, and I got this feeling that now is the time to remember her. Her name is Paula. And I was like, “Hm, what can I do now to really remember her?” Not just a memory but something else in a way. And I didn’t have my camera with me, so I was like, “Maybe I do an act or something.” 

So, then I decided, as it got dark, I saw the stars. I thought, “Let’s be romantic.” And I looked at the sky and I was like, “I’ll go under the brightest star and I’ll get something from the ground.” Memorabilia or an amulet or something from that moment, because it was so strong. Then I started to walk, like five kilometers away. Then I got to the spot, I was looking up and was like “This is it.” It was like a beach, a rocky beach. 

And so I put my hand down and got something from the ground. It was like a little stone. But what is strange to me at least is that the stone was a little heart-shaped. I’m not making this up! It felt like it had a lot of emotion. It was a green one. I got it back to Finland. It was 2019, so I started working with this project “Black Book” in 2018, so just a year later this happened. And so I went to Finland and thought, “Now I have the rock in my bag, incorporate that into my work.” 

In my exhibition, the woman with the light in her face but also the rock. I also made the portrait of my friend back in Finland. And the reason for the light, for not seeing the model’s face is because some of my dreams are really abstract. And there’s these really strong dreams that have this—it’s hard to explain—but a strong feeling behind them. And in those dreams there’s a woman figure—for some reason, she never has a face. So that’s the reason behind that series of photos. 

I also brought that stone with me there. So it’s in the corner of the exhibition there. That’s the story behind that picture and also what it was like growing up, because I always had that thought in my head. I had never done any acts towards it. Just now, when I’m grown up, I’ve started to make art from the personal stuff. 

Ugh, that was so hard to explain, but I did it! Thanks for asking; we’re going personal straight away.

Alexa: So, you were told when you were five about your sister? You said you had the feeling like there should have been someone there. Did you have that before you were five, if you can remember?

Julius: I guess between five and seven, for some reason, because those are the ages when I remember little glimpses of life. I guess everybody has that first memory. The first memory when you became conscious in a way. I guess you have had one of those also, haven’t you? Do you remember? So I guess my first memory was from seven years old, but I remember because my mom and dad told me that when I was five. But I guess I started to think about it when I was seven, because I don’t remember things before that.

Alexa: And this was your adoptive family who told you about your sister?

Julius: It was my Finnish family. So my adopted thing was—I was given away by my biological family. Not an orphanage spot, but kind of like that, like a child group home. And I got some papers with it—for example, the reason and stuff like that, which shortly said that the family in Colombia didn’t have the resources or finances, they couldn’t have just one more child. They decided to go adoption. But I have a picture of my mom, and the most amazing thing is she looks exactly like me. The photo is so cool because it’s like a bad photocopy, but it looks just like me, straight up. Yeah, it’s fun. 

Alexa: Were you told at the same time that you were adopted that you had a sister, or were they different times?

Julius: I can’t remember. It feels like the adoption thing, it feels like a traumatic thing in a way, because it’s so different from everyone else’s lives, at least back in Finland. So I guess it has stuck to me more than with my sister. I also had this natural feeling towards death. I have always thought about death in a certain way, from when I was a small child. And I’m not sure if it’s something to do with a traumatic perception of that adoption. 

For example, I was really close to my grand-grandmother, and when she died I remember really vividly that funeral because everyone was crying, but I didn’t cry. And it’s just a child thing that I didn’t know what was going on. Being honest, I remember I knew what was going on. I knew she was gone forever, but somehow it didn’t affect me in that way that I would cry. 

In a way I was kind of happy for her. And it’s really strange because I was so young. Like seven, eight years old at that time. But that thing has followed me into adulthood also. 

Alexa: Sometimes I feel like people have a natural ability to feel closer to people or things after they’ve passed. Do you feel that?

Julius: Yeah I think I do feel that. That’s a good way of putting it, that is. I’m not sure if it comes naturally to people, but it feels like it comes naturally to me. And I’ve always made imaginary stories in my head, like what happens to my ghost when I die, and stuff like that, from a young age. So I guess every child has a vivid imaginary world, but that was my world. Filled with dead loved ones, in a way. Sounds like I’m a really morbid person. Death! From the darkness of Finland, you know?

“Every child has a vivid imaginary world, but that was my world. Filled with dead loved ones.”

—Julius Töyrylä

Alexa: I kind of see a similarity between your latest explorations in dreams and death. It’s seemingly a state that is just as real as this one, at least it feels that way when we’re there. Do you feel that resonance between dreams and death?

Julius: Yes I do. There’s an anecdote from—I can’t remember the book right now—that when a person goes to sleep, they die in a way. They enter another realm of the human psyche—you could say it that way. And I have had that same feeling. And I was a really anxious kid, and anxious to this day. I have also had this anxious feeling when I close my eyes because it’s not static, I always see something going on. For some reason, from a young age, that was really important to me. 

Alexa: What do you see?

Julius: I see these little—I call them particles or something—but particles of different colors and they just move in different ways. And sometimes I have the sensation of smoke, of smoke coming to me and then going away. And there’s some red incorporated, some red color, I guess that comes from the eyelids. 

But for me, there is a strong connection between death, dreams and photography because the most famous philosopher who ever wrote something about photography was Roland Barthes. One of the things he said that stuck with me, is that photography is the closest art form to death, because every time you take a photo and look at it, you realize that this thing will pass away some day, will be dead some day.* The realization for him came from the photos of his family, his mother. And he realized that there’s death always in the photograph. That’s a really interesting fact for me. And I’ve always thought that when I look at photos—even if it’s just a photo on Instagram. But if you really think about it, “Oh my god this will pass some day.” 

Alexa: Or it already has.

Julius: Or it already has of course. But this whole world will be over some day. 

Alexa: You started recording them in 2014?

Julius: Yes, I started pretty late. The work is really inspired from the Jungian psychology. That part of psychology, at least for me, if you read it in a certain way, is really esoteric. And that is something I feel that dreams are. For example, I’ve read Freud but it’s too analytical for me, and that sex drive thing is something that I can’t wrap my head around. And I’m not a scholar in that field. But when I look at it with artistic eyes, I found so much more ground to walk on from the Jungian field. 

Alexa: Can I read a part of your words from your little Black Book?

Julius: You may. 

Alexa: I really enjoyed the copy and text that went with your exhibition a lot. It was part of the reason I was really drawn to your work, and the intentionality behind it is really beautiful. 

Julius: Thank you. I want to say so much credit goes to Anna and Dylan who helped me with the english translation, so thank you. 

Alexa: So you’re talking about one dream you saw in 2018. And you say, “In this dream I found myself in an unknown mountain area that was partly a place from my childhood home in Finland. Before waking up I discovered a rural parking lot and heard a song. After waking up I recalled two words from the dream, cuni and cuncush. I left wondering what those words were. I had no idea. I discovered that roughly translated the word cuni means “I give” and cuncush is an equivalent to a specific plant that grows in a mountain area in the Andes. I also have a whole new perspective of dreaming. I wonder what is this whispering of a dream. The one collective thing in the human psyche is that we all dream. That is a beautiful thing to think and make art about.

Alexa: I paraphrased a little bit, but I wonder if after that dream, and making this series of photographs, you’ve had any more discoveries about what is that whispering of a dream. 

Julius: It’s really hard to explain, because in 2018 I started the journey of making art from the dreams, and it was because of that dream. And it’s really closely related to my heritage also because the plant cuncush is growing in the Peru area, actually. And I’m planning to end the work in Peru next year. 

I have had some realizations about the dream world. I still don’t know what it is though, and I guess I will never find out exactly. But one thing that I do believe in is the universal or collective symbols in dreams. Because everyone when they dream sees the same things, in a way. You can see a forest, you can see a woman without a face. It’s a collective thing in a way, because we all do dream those kind of things. But then the meaning is in the personal realm of the psyche. 

What I want to discover is if a dream can show me something mysterious from the real world. That is the one thing that happened to me in that dream. It’s hard to explain, because I didn’t know what those words were. I still have them in my phone in the notes. cuncush and cuni. It’s really hard to explain how they came to my conscious, or my subconscious. How did they go there, but also why did they come? It’s so mysterious and esoteric to me, and I want to dive into the world of dreams more now. 

And for me, it’s whispering—that’s the most poetic way to say it. Because “whisper” is really quiet, and usually when you wake up from a dream, the dream just disappears. It’s quiet. But those dreams that I’m putting in this project are dreams that Carl Jung called “big dreams.” Dreams that have significance to the person who sees them. They can act like memories in a way. So if you have memories from your childhood when you ate an apple, also you can have that same feeling but from a dream. It’s really mysterious to me. How come they struck so hard, those dreams? 

I’ve only had those dreams like ten times, but I remember all of them. The most interesting to me is the first dream I ever had, and I still remember it. And it was when my great-grandmother died. And it was after I was told of her death; I remember when I went to sleep that night I saw this dream where I was walking in a swamp area, and it was red. Dark red or orange, but there were no sounds. No sounds. I was walking in the swamp, there should be sounds you know? But there were no sounds, nothing. And I came to this pond of water that was blackish, and there were forests around in the pond, but they were all dead trees—black, gray, dark gray. And then from the forest from the left of me, came this figure. And it had a black coat on, and was flying over the water. Maybe hovering over the water. It stopped in the middle of the pond. 

And then in the middle of the dream, I remember something happened. I was pulled towards the figure, and it turned towards me, and I saw this face, like a white woman’s face. Really scary to me, and I remember it screamed. Screamed really loud. I woke up to the scream, and it wasn’t my scream. I just heard the scream really loud. And then when I woke up for, let’s say two seconds, I still heard the scream. I was just shocked. I didn’t start to cry, but I did start to sweat. I was so scared of that thing. And still to this day I remember vividly. It was like a story, a memory for me. 

Alexa: Have you noticed certain things in your dreams since then? Are there common symbols?

Julius: Yes there are. A lot of those symbols can be seen in the work. There’s birds, trees, ground, the grass. Those kinds of things, at least in the dreams I remember vividly. Also that figure of the woman that doesn’t have a face, that’s one of them. But in the work, for me, it’s too naive to take photos that replicate the dream. I just want to to turn it into something else. For me, it’s like I go to my dream world by taking the photos. I’m creating something that is really close to a dream, but it’s not the dream. What I’m hoping to achieve, when the work is done, is to have dream-text, and the photos with it, and just see what happens. That’s the way I’m working right now. I don’t know how it will turn out. 

Alexa: What do you like about photography in this work? Is there a guiding purpose or is it more a working out of something?

Julius: I have to say you have really good questions. I guess what I like about photography is the sudden magic it gives to you. I started with analog photography, and I remember I would take the photos and wait for them to develop and see them. That was magical to me, the process of photography. And after I got my first digital camera, I could see that magic right away. I took the photo and could see it in the screen. 

It hit me that there is something in here. I didn’t know how to explain it when I started—I was 15 or something. Now, thinking about it backwards, it was the death thing. I just knew that this is something special and I can make magic with it. I can make something beautiful with it. I guess that’s the main reason I like photography. Not maybe more than other art forms, but it’s the most interesting for me. 

Alexa: Why?

Julius: It’s because it’s so close, so personal. Every time you take photos or make a series, it tells the story of the subject. It also tells the story of you. And that’s really interesting to me. I see photos people take and I actually like to think more about the person who made it. How did they get in those situations and why? So, because it’s so related to the artist also. Not in a narcissistic way. 

Alexa: As you know, I’m reading this book, The Dream of the Earth, by Thomas Berry and I was telling you that for him, it seems that our collective story really shapes our evolution and where we go. I’m wondering when you look at your photos that you’ve taken, what is the story about you that you get from viewing your own work? 

Julius: You mean, when I look at my own photos, what do I feel? 

Alexa: Do you think about you as a photographer as you do with other photographers?

Julius: No, when I look at my own photos I’m trying to understand the artistic side of me. Because I’ve always had this feeling from my childhood that there’s two people inside of me. It’s really hard to explain, but I guess you can put it symbolically. I have the waking me, and the me that’s not awake. Like conscious and subconscious.

So when I look at the photos, I also learn what’s the state of my subconscious. When I look at these photos, I feel that everything is really good, but not fully evolved in a form that I can fully understand, if that makes sense. For example, in this exhibition that has those pictures, I feel pretty good. I feel like I have the sense of romanticism, a little bit of naivety there also. 

But I really like to make little things stand out and look beautiful. And that is also really important to me. When I meet people I want to be really respectful and interested. I guess it’s like a personality thing. I can see a little bit of my personality in the pictures. But that’s just for me. I can never fully understand what another person feels when they look at the photos. 

Alexa: I’ve noticed your work featuring and elevating the ordinary; a rock, the grass, or trees. I’m wondering when you feel like you started noticing ordinary things. 

Julius: One way to think about it for me is like what I was saying about the symbolism of the dream. When you see a photograph of the forest, in a way it’s a symbol of the forest. And what that symbol means to you is the question you have to ask yourself. That’s one way of looking at it. 

I’ve always noticed the little things, I guess that’s why I’m a photographer in a way. Because you observe things that speak to you. That is one thing that in my opinion makes a good photographer. If they are really honest with themselves, they start to notice things they are really passionate about. And for some reason I just like to see the beauty of trees and grass and birds and stuff like that. 

Alexa: What do they say to you?

Julius: They make me feel really calm. And in every photo I have in the exhibition, there’s a story behind the photo. It always had me feeling. There’s always a story behind the photo, or there’s a story of how or why I made it. And it’s really close to the thought of the dreams that I’ve had that are really impactful for me. So they way I work, which photos I choose, if there’s a problem for me of which one I choose, I put the one with more feeling for me when I was taking it. 

For example, there’s a picture of a bird in the sky. How I did it was…it was shot in Japan so it’s an old picture. It was from 2017. But I was laying in the grass, and there was a beautiful Kamogawa River next to me. And I just took my camera, I wanted to take a picture of the sky. Just the sky, nothing else. But then, the bird just happened to be there. And I just took the photo, and it was like a happy coincidence, like Bob Ross would say. 

And after I looked at the photo, I noticed there was another small bird somewhere in the distance. And I just liked the coincidence. I almost put the photo with only the sky. But for some reason this has more feeling. This makes me feel more amazed in a way, that this bird just came to me. And for some reason I have also had a close relation to folklore, different culture’s folklore. And the bird has been a big symbol, at least in the Western folklore. They bring messages and things like that. So it was closely related to that feeling for me. It seemed like the bird was giving me the photo. It was a coincidence, but then again you can think that the bird was purposefully there in a strange way. Not in a naive way but in a strange way. 

Alexa: Do you have a way of telling what was “for” us, and what is “for” you? The feeling of, “Oh, this bird was for me and gave this photo to me.” How do you feel that?

Julius: It’s maybe because of frequency. I feel like if I’m in the right frequency with the world, these types of things are happening. If I’m aware of them, they might happen. Or, if my subconscious takes over, if I’m really calm and relaxed. Almost every time in those situations something magical happens. 

Alexa: That’s powerful. Do you have ways of getting to that feeling of relaxed? Maybe we can call it no-mind. 

Julius: Yeah, we can call it that. 

Alexa: Especially for someone who deals with, and has dealt with anxiety.

Julius: For example, it’s like meditation of course. It has helped me be more with it, with the feeling. For me, it cannot be always on. For me, at least, in this time and space. It happens when it happens. You can’t force it. The happy coincidence is the best way to describe it, two powerful words. It’s almost like magic for me, because I don’t know how it happens. It feels like the world or something around me is giving me a gift, if I can just close my mind from all the thoughts that are not important. It feels like if I do that, the world will give me a gift. And for me, because I love making art, it comes in the form of art. That’s the best way of describing it. 

Alexa: Does the art also give you anything after it’s made? Or is it mainly that the art is the gift itself?

Julius: It’s hard to explain. For me, it feels like when I make the artwork. After that, it’s almost like a child. It just hangs in the world and does its own thing. Part of it is not situated to me. But the best thing I get from art—well the analytical side of me thinks that if someone buys the art, it’s always nice—but when we get down to the core of the thing, I love when someone says to me that they love the art. Or gets in touch with me and says that they were really touched by it. That’s intimate conversation, in a way. I’ve had a conversation with myself; made the art. No words were needed, in a way, but I communicated with someone. 

If someone puts the effort of writing or telling me something, it feels like having a really intimate relationship with that person. The fun in it is that I might never see this person, they might just write me something, and I never meet them. But we have a mutual understanding and that’s the best thing in art. It brings—to say it naively—it brings us together. I really love that side of making art.

Alexa: That’s beautiful. Has it helped with feelings of loneliness from childhood?

Julius: Yeah, actually here in Oaxaca it has. Because I guess people are more in tune with the realism of the art world. People are really open about it, they want to talk and understand. I haven’t had that feeling back in the European art world. 

There’s a train of thought also with the book you’re reading (The Dream of the Earth by Thomas Berry). Every big culture—if we broke it into pieces, not just the Western world but the whole world—every culture has its own “whole world,” or what was the word he [Thomas Berry] was talking about there? 

Alexa: The collective story?

Julius: Yeah, and for me it’s changing. It’s a story that’s changing all the time. In the Western world, the collective story is so different it takes over people. There’s a different train of thought when you go to an art gallery for example. It feels like that to me. It’s different here in Oaxaca. I can’t speak from the Mexican perspective, but in Oaxaca I’ve had warmth here. It feels like that to me, more warmth.

Alexa: I’m wondering in your next works or art forms; is there something you feel called to explore next or further?

Julius: Yes, there is. I want to make art—I want to make a documentary about the adoption thing. Because I haven’t been in Colombia since the adoption. But I guess that work is just going to be for me. So I will make an art series or something about it. But it will be so personal I might never show it to anyone. But I’m going to make one of those. And after that I don’t know. I’m really interested in cultural research, so I might do something around that. I love researching things with cameras, so maybe I’ll do something closer to research but I haven’t decided yet. But after Black Book is done, I will continue in the realm of dreams because it’s so wide. The theme is so wide, there’s so much to learn about it, and there’s a lot of other things you can do. For example, performance or paintings. I guess the next thing for me might be a performance. 

Alexa: Yeah, I remember you saying in the text that dreams are kind of like acts or plays. 

Julius: Yeah, they are, for me at least. I can’t speak for anybody else. But for me they are like that. And every big dream I’ve had, it’s a play. It has a start, a middle, and some kind of an ending. It feels like it has drama. It’s weird, but it’s the way. 

Alexa: That would be amazing to see your interpretation of that. I was wondering if you were to tell somebody that has experienced trauma from adoption, what would you tell them? What would be helpful to heal from that?

Julius: Well, there’s so much rejection in the human soul. If something bad happens, you reject it for some reason. And that is not the answer for me. The answer has been going to the thing. You go towards it, and sword fight it in a way. And you will be victorious if you do that. It’s just a thought. And you are you, you can win your thoughts and always think in another way. And also compassion. You have to be compassionate to the thing, and also to yourself. Because only adopted people know how it feels to be adopted. 

For me it doesn’t matter why you were adopted. It’s a story. But in the end it doesn’t matter. I was lucky because I had really good parents. My family is really loving. But I want to say, you’re not alone. Don’t be too afraid of that thing, because I was so alone in the way that nobody could understand how it felt. But there’s compassionate people in the world, and I’m one of them, so you’re not alone. And art making is a good way of dealing with anxiety and problems. 

*“Whether or not the subject is already dead, every photograph is this catastrophe.”—Roland Barthes / Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography / Quote referenced by Julius Töyrylä

Eyes Wide is supported by members around the world

Photography by Julius Töyrylä

Theme music by Kymani Thomas

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Transcription by Kymani Thomas

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Listen above, on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Transcript:

I’m Alexa Ashley, and this is Eyes Wide. In this episode, we get to hear from the musicologist, performer, and energy healer, Chipo Kandake. Chipo shares how she rewrites music history to celebrate black women and how she uses movement and erotic energy for liberation.

Alexa Ashley: To start, could you tell me a little bit about what it was like growing up as Chipo?

Chipo Kandake: Growing up as Chipo, it was fun for sure. Probably to some people very isolated, but I had a blast because I definitely was the only child. But rarely I was the only child who might be the only child, so I spent a lot of time alone in my room just looking up stuff and going to the library, being a nerd. That's what it was like growing up.

Alexa Ashley: All right, so what would you look up at the library?

Chipo Kandake: I liked a lot of books on history and music, so this is how it would go. I remember I definitely had a pattern because when we had cable in the house—so on Sundays, the infomercials came on. And you know how they had the CDs from the '60s and all these different areas of music, psychedelic music. So I would literally—you know that point where the letters scroll and scroll and scroll, and I would try to write down as many songs as I could and band names. And I would go to the library, get on my computer, research, find books about the genre or about the band, and check them all out and then read or check documentaries all about things. So that's the type of stuff I would do because I wasn't really into fiction books. I was more so into historical things specifically about music.

Alexa Ashley: Yeah. How old were you when you went to the library to do that?

Chipo Kandake: It was like between ten, eleven to all the way until I got older, 'till I got a laptop. So, yeah. That was probably like when I was like sixteen, seventeen. From eleven to sixteen.

Alexa Ashley: Do you remember when your love of music began?

Chipo Kandake: Yeah, I do remember because growing up, I just kind of listened to whatever was around me, but I think it was at some point at the library because we didn't have a computer in our house, so I just started looking up things. And I was kind of into the little emo bands like Green Day and My Chemical Romance. So embarrassing. So that was like the beginning. That was my introduction. But then the actual moment where it really clicked was at some point in middle school, I was watching a local television show that played indie films and there was a film called Suburbia. Not the one that's more mainstream. There's another film called Suburbia that's about these punk kids in the ‘80s and it was mainly like actual punk kids. And I saw T.S.O.L, a hardcore band singing—I can't remember the—Darker My Love. That's what it was in the show, and I was like, "What is that? I gotta find out." I've never seen anything like this in my life. And from there, that's where my love and interest for music deepened and it was way from punk to psychedelic to all types of shit. Baile funk in Brazil. Like I just took off. All types of stuff, so yeah.

Alexa Ashley: How old were you when you saw that show?

Chipo Kandake: I was twelve. Yeah, I was twelve.

Alexa Ashley: That's cool. So now you are so many things like musicologist and historian, and that's so cool that it started from such a young age. And now it seems like you're focused on documenting and uplifting these unsung heroes in the music world. What do you feel compels you to research and document these women?

Chipo Kandake: What compelled me? I don't know what necessarily led me to doing that per se. It just made sense at the moment because it wasn't something that I was planning. But when I was working with the Femmes Noires exhibition at the CAC, Mickalene Thomas's exhibition, I was definitely really inspired by what she was doing which was very similar. I mean, pretty much what she does is highlight black women in mainstream media in a very uplifting way that they haven't been showcased and highlighted before. And I've always—everything that I—my interest and the music I love, I always love funk.

What I was into at the time that I saw that was very much in mind with what I would see in her work, as I was digging up roots of New Orleans music and really just understanding women's roles in the music industry. But specifically the funk. The reason why I was interested in uplifting those women because funk is a black genre, and there were a lot of black women who contributed to the genre but did not get recognition. And I think it's easier for people to focus on black people being unsung in predominantly white industries rather than in our own communities because it kind of gets way more overlooked because then it comes from being the thing of what some people may call white supremacy to patriarchy. Because it's happening in our own community, I think it's important for me to do this because nobody is uplifting them the way they should be, and they're older now. I want to celebrate people while they're here and also just let people who don't know anything about it—how they contributed—not just to the genre but to society as a whole in ways that you would never have thought.

Alexa Ashley: What do you feel like has been one of your most rewarding points in your research or in your publishing of these women?

Chipo Kandake: Most rewarding? I mean, what's always rewarding is—I guess the most rewarding thing about publishing anything about these women in the funk genre is one, either people's response is saying, "I didn't know," people learning something from the poems. And the other response is the women themselves singing there and just—because it's not just that I want to educate other people, but I also want other women, the women that I'm posting about to see themselves uplifted in a way that they haven't been before and by another black woman. And so, that's important to me. Those are the main things that are rewarding when I do what I do, at least so far.

Alexa Ashley: Yeah. That's beautiful. And then you're also involved in the dance aspect and performing and teaching. Do you feel like your love or interest in dance came along at the same time as music in your life?

Chipo Kandake: Yeah, it always has been together, but I never really thought about it in that way until recently because the thing is I’ve always been—it's like that was literally what everybody has always known me for, just dancing. And my love for music is based off of not just me liking the feeling from the song but from the actual movement; me moving it to it. It's how my body reacts to the song, and so growing up, even if I was listening to punk music, if I'm not slamming or if I'm not hitting the Britney Spears in choreography or something, I'm probably not listening to it. So it always went hand in hand, but I didn't realize it until recently. And so with everything I do, I incorporate dance so even with femme funk, me channeling music or wear grooves through dance like me using my body as a tool to do the work that I'm doing, not just with the funk, but also with the healing aspect, healing sacral chakra or performing, channeling energy. So it intersects with everything. And that's what music—when you go to the primary sense music it was communal, but it was also in most traditions; in places where the community can't even dance together. So that's the root of music.

Alexa Ashley: Yeah. And how have you experienced that in your life? The healing aspect of dance?

Chipo Kandake: That didn't come around until recently honestly because I'd never thought—I knew that I liked to dance, but I never thought I'm gonna be trying to heal my sacral chakra. I never thought about anything like that. I definitely did not envision it. It just came about when I was going through a spiritual transformation in my life and just coming into myself a certain type of way about two, maybe three years ago. And with the help of some spirit guides, I was able to understand what I was actually supposed to be doing with my dance abilities, and I was supposed to help people be comfortable in their bodies and their self, with their sacral and their own self-esteem and just moving throughout their lives. And I realized I had the gifts, so I was like, "Okay, let me do it." And that's just kind of how it came about. And right now, I'm still trying to find a balance because I'm always going to be a student in life, but it's still kind of new for me being a teacher, and sometimes being a teacher of the sort, you can forget about yourself because you're so focused on helping everybody else that you start to deplete. So it's just finding that balance between the two.

Alexa Ashley: Tell me about your spiritual transformation period? What was that like?

Chipo Kandake: It was interesting. Think I was at a point where I was realizing certain things in my life weren't working anymore, and I guess I never realized how much my insecurities and the lack of value I had for myself was holding me back and just getting into certain spiritual practices like honoring my ancestors, alter work, and things like that just to be more connected with my bloodline. And so I spent a lot of time doing that type of work and really activating my dreams and my intuition so I can be more clear about the things that I'm doing. That's pretty much what it was, and it's still a journey now, but that's how it started two years ago.

Alexa Ashley: Yeah. Cool. I found it seems some of the most transformational healing times have come after some of the hardest times. What do you feel was your hardest time in your life so far? 

Chipo Kandake: Yeah, I feel like I was thinking about that a lot recently but maybe—the most challenging time. I definitely had a few different obstacles in my life, but the most challenging time would probably have to be—it was definitely a challenge. It wasn't too long before COVID happened and I was transitioning from my job at the newspaper, The New Orleans Tribune into something I didn't know. And then at the time, I left my place that I was living and I was in between places—you know what, I just remember what the hardest time was. It wasn't that.

The two hardest times were right before COVID, literally, when I was working on Mickalene Thomas's exhibition because what happened in the long-story-short was that all the work fell on me for the whole museum. And I was getting underpaid, overworked, and uncredited, and my living situation was compromised so traveling to get to work, basically holding together this whole programming together and exhibition and X, Y and Z. And I think it got so bad to where I remember my body actually tensed up so much to where I couldn't even stand up straight because it was that strained because that's how much I was really doing. Just imagine commuting to a job two hours there and back by bus and then having to do it, basically being a project manager, a public programming coordinator, and being a content director for a store and getting underpaid and not credited. And also being thrown into an industry I know nothing about, so just holding all of that on my shoulders was a lot. And I was so thankful by the time COVID happened because it took everything away from me which is really what I was lowkey praying for because then now this is the perfect excuse to only focus on me and what I need to do in this lifetime which I never did.

Alexa Ashley: And do you feel like you had a spiritual transformation after that point?

Chipo Kandake: Yeah, absolutely. I did have a spiritual transformation. I mean, most importantly, I had to learn like all twenty—that was 2020, yeah. Was it 2020? It is 2021 now, yeah. I don't know the years anymore, but yeah. It was the start of a new decade, absolutely. And I really had to learn how, not understanding to value myself, but also understanding that in how to take care of myself and putting myself first in that type of way, and that means the rest, which is a hard thing for me to understand. I think a lot of people could relate to that during COVID. I was still waking up nervous that I was late for a meeting. It was actually like I was waiting for something. It's like you're not. You need to rest. It's okay. You get too tired. Don't overexert yourself. Put you first. Take care of yourself. Root chakra. What do you need? Take care of your needs, your basic needs. Stuff like that. And it can be hard especially living in a place like America, you always feel like you have to be productive all day, every freaking day. And it's like that's not realistic nor is it healthy, and you're not going to be able to operate the way you need to unless you take that time to yourself. I think that's been a huge transformation in doing that and also respecting myself in a way that I hadn't before. 

Alexa Ashley: Yeah. Your background in school, you studied film, what do you feel film gave you or how has it shaped your perspective on life?

Chipo Kandake: Well, being in film school was good because it helped me understand certain logistics in production which will come in handy when I'm making my films and as I'm doing my performances. I understand production and stuff. Well, actual film making, a lot of stuff I had to learn just on my own, doing things, but I think film really helps me in understanding production and also storytelling which is why I got into film because I really like storytelling and I really like character development. And I think that's lacking in a lot of art in general nowadays, especially in pop culture. It doesn't really exist, and that's definitely something I'm incorporating in my performance and everything else that I do.

Alexa Ashley: Yeah. For you, what makes a good story? You're talking about character development. Is there an aspect that you film?

Chipo Kandake: A good story should one, keep you interested to say “What's going to happen next?,” to the end and also should give you a reaction, make you react and to have a strong emotion toward something. I think that's good storytelling and to leave you wanting to explore whatever that emotion that you received or that question you received from what you watched even more. So whether it's not just happiness but like if you were really angry or not too happy or if you were confused. I think having those strong emotions to something is good storytelling because it should keep you interested, and maybe that's just me. Maybe I'm a little provocative, but it should provoke you too.

Alexa Ashley: Yeah. Do you feel that about music too?

Chipo Kandake: Yes, sometimes. With certain styles of music, sure. Like punk, obviously. They are the provocateurs of the industry, so yeah. Definitely. But not all music because different types of music are there for different reasons, so it's just like I'm not expecting that type of energy if I'm listening to Shoegaze or I'm listening to Bossa Nova. I'm not looking for that energy. I'm looking for something else.

Alexa Ashley: Yeah. So after your spiritual awakening and transformation, you got into the sacral chakra. What is it about the sacral chakra for you?

Chipo Kandake: I don't know. I mean, at first when I started dancing—well, I do know, but it wasn't like I went straight to it because when I first started doing my dance session, it was just to get people comfortable in their bodies. But as I start healing some things in myself, for one, I'm a Scorpio, so I'm the ruler of the genital area. We decide where the chakra is. That's Scorpio energy. And I start realizing that that's where a lot of my power was, and I wasn't tapped into it at first. And I was one of those people that don't really talk about the sacral chakra a lot. That one gets skipped so much. They're all important. All the energies are important, but I really like to focus on that because one, I start to realize that's my personal gift. And the stereotype they have about Scorpios being like the sex gods, all that type of stuff, I don't necessarily agree with. But I do agree that a lot of our power is in sensual and sexual energy, but that doesn't necessarily always mean having sex. And that's why I do what I do because being sensual is not you making love to somebody, necessarily. There's more to it.

Alexa Ashley: What does it mean for you?

Chipo Kandake: I mean, for me, your sensuality and your sexuality represent life, life force, and your creativity is connected. That's why a lot of people—we don't talk about this but it's why a lot of especially huge artists, they kind of partake in being very promiscuous. That's simply because they're just party people, but a lot of times when you don't know how to use your sexual energy, you need to keep the creativity going. So you're constantly trying to keep that energy up, and sex is one way, but it's not substantial. And for me, it's all about cultivating that energy within yourself because that's what it's for and that's what you can do. So I do that. There's a lot of different ways. Dancing is not the only way to cultivate sexual energy. You can do it through yoga, through breathing, but I work with movement.

Alexa Ashley: In your dance performances, whether live or online or music videos, I was wondering if there was a particularly fun moment that you had that you remember.

Chipo Kandake: Yeah, the best one so far, it's just scratching the surface, but it was dancing with a snake. That was probably the most exciting. It was something that I always wanted to do but was also scared of. And the opportunity presented itself to me really randomly, and I remember I said, "Yes!", out of nowhere. When I came to the stand, he was like, "Who wants to dance with a snake?," and I was like, "Me!" And at the time, I was second-guessing it, but it was like the most amazing experience ever. And eventually, when I'm settled, because you definitely need to be settled to do that, I would like to train to be a snake charmer, basically, and incorporate dancing with snakes in my performance. But I can't be a nomad because, you know, it's a pet. It's your animal, it's your companion, so you have to—

Alexa Ashley: You can’t have a snake carrier for the plane.

Chipo Kandake: Yes, exactly, right. And it's just like I don't think snakes can handle that because they even throw up when you're too rough with them when you dance, so you got to be stable with a snake.

Alexa Ashley: I love snakes.

Chipo Kandake: That was definitely the most exciting moment. It was so fun to dance with a snake. It's better than dancing with a dude at a salsa night. 

Alexa Ashley: That's amazing. Was it like a boa?

Chipo Kandake: I forgot what kind of snake it was, but it was big. 

Alexa Ashley: Wow.

Chipo Kandake: It wasn't a python, it was a—

Alexa Ashley: It's like a Britney Spears moment.

Chipo Kandake: It wasn't a python. It was a—I can't remember what they told me. I don't even know what kind of snake it was. I just grabbed the snake, but it was pretty big. It was heavy, for sure.

Alexa Ashley: That's amazing. Was it for a music video?

Chipo Kandake: Yeah, it was for Kevin Gates' Fatal Attraction music video. It was like a voodoo thing.

Alexa Ashley: Nice. That's amazing.

Chipo Kandake: Yeah.

Alexa Ashley: It seems you’ve always been an explorer, learner. Is there anything that you're exploring right now or interested in

Chipo Kandake: Yeah, I feel like there's always little directions, little pockets that I'm delving into and sometimes circling back on. As of now...oh, that's what it was. It's called the—what's this freaky music called? I can't even think what it's called right now. It's kind of losing me right now. But I definitely been taking a lot of interest in ancient Spanish and Arabic music from Spain. It's called Andalusian. I know the sound. I don’t even know how to pronounce it. But I been definitely into that style of music a lot lately, and yeah. I think I’m just kind of circling back. Right now, I'm in the moment where I'm revisiting a lot of things that have influenced and inspired me or things I kind of obsessed over in the past and revisiting it and seeing how I feel about it now and how it influenced me and just having a different perspective on it. Because I've been going back to my Gram Rock bucket list. A big part of my childhood as well, revisiting things like that, and a bunch of other stuff.

Alexa Ashley: One of the things that I love about you is the way you just kind of do whatever the fuck you want.

Chipo Kandake: Yeah, pretty much. I get that from my great-grandma.

Alexa Ashley: Yeah? What was she like?

Chipo Kandake: Well, this is like a main thing. This is why I was so happy to go back to Houston that time that I went randomly for that week. Because I talked to her, and she told me something that blew my mind, and I'm so glad I got to record her saying it even though you couldn't hear her because I'm too busy chuckling all of the night. But she's from the country, like North of Louisiana, and she didn't come to the city until she was an adult. But when she was living there, and I showed her the videos of me dancing, she was like, "Girl, you get that from me." And I was like, “For real?” because I didn’t know my grandma likes to dance. She was like, "I used to dance at the cafe. I was at the counter at the juke joint.” And she said, "Yeah, girl. I used to—" She was like, "Shit, I used to go there, and they would put a nickel. They'd give me a nickuh and tell me to dance." What's the thing called? The jukebox, yeah. They'll put a song on the jukebox, and they'll give me a nickuh. She said, "They're gonna give me a nickuh. They're gonna give me a nickuh. And I dang, girl yeah."

The part that knocked my socks off when she was like, "Girl, and I used to love that boy. What was his name? Jailhouse Rock? Elvis." I was like “What?” Because my family, they are so, so country. Definitely from the country of North Louisiana. Like Zydeco, that's all they freaking listen to. And nobody's interested in art or anything. Music. They don't really listen to music. They just like whatever's on the radio, cool. They don't really care about that. And so when she said that, that was hilarious to me. And I was like, “That's where I get that from.” I just didn't know why my interests—they were always kind of outside the box. She was just like, "Girl, yeah, I used to love Elvis." She's like, "I cut my hair like him." Like just think about it. Just think about my black-ass grandma in Monroe, Louisiana walking around with a fucking pompadour and dancing in a juke joint.

Alexa Ashley: That's amazing.

Chipo Kandake: And she was like her and her brother Lil’ Man used to do competitions and stuff. And I never knew any of this, and she was like, "Yeah, girl. I used to be—yeah." And she was like, "You get that from me." It was good visiting her, my great-grandma again because it was like I saw how much I was like her and how a lot of who I am comes from her than I did before. Everybody else in my family is kind of pretty conservative, and yeah. It's interesting. And I'm the free-spirited one. Me and my mom, we're the free-spirited ones. 

Alexa Ashley: Have you always felt that way?

Chipo Kandake: Oh, yeah. I always felt like—my whole life, I had always felt it. I wouldn't say outcast because that sounds so sad. Because no, I was sad about it, but I was—well, sometimes with family, but I just always felt like I'm very individual because there was just no one I could specifically relate to in family or life, which is why I have so many different types of friends. And I think that's normal, but I don't know. I think it's just—and Mom could probably relate to that too and all people. I'm not going to make it like I'm the only person in the world who is different, but all people are multidimensional. But sometimes, I feel like I’m kinda in my own bubble, and that's how I've operated with my family and with other people in life. I'm in the house on the hill, but also, I think a few people had told me this but there were certain people on certain levels of—I don't want to say level but certain ways of creativity that's kind of like the downside is that it's not necessarily being alone but just sort of isolation that they have to have to do it. I.e. one of my favorites, you know, Prince. A Prince type, or even spiritual workers that I know who are priestesses. They can't operate like everybody else does in the world. They kind of have to have a certain way. They do things that's kind of separate because of the work they do.

Alexa Ashley: I know it can be hard to be on your own, and I'm so appreciative of you doing the work that you feel called to do and being the self that you feel called to be. It's so beautiful and so special for the world. If there's anything you would want to be known for, what do you think it would be?

Chipo Kandake: Wow. What do I want to be known for? I really don't know right now. I know that I want to be known, and I know that I want a legacy. I don't know exactly what I wanted to be but I definitely—whatever legacy I leave, I want it to be something that's inspirational. And I know it's cliche but truly inspirational—like something that defies the times and constantly has an energy that propels people to take it there and to break out of whatever they may feel is a blockage or to be innovative. That's always something that I wanted to do. I guess I would like to be remembered as a performer and for the work that I do with basically rewriting and adding to the catalog of music history. And my healing work because I haven't seen anybody on a big level doing what I do with people and healing their sacral, so yeah.

Eyes Wide is supported by members around the world

Photography by Alexa Ashley

Theme music by Kymani Thomas

Audio Editing and Mixing by Zikri Zakaria

Transcription by Lesandra Henry

To see your organization's name here and hear it on the audio story, ask about becoming a sponsor

Listen above, on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Transcript:

I’m Alexa Ashley and this is Eyes Wide. In this episode we get to hear from portrait photographer James Song. Through his work that explores contentment and co-existing with nature, James seeks to instill calmness, confidence, and curiosity. The proceeds from his artwork are channeled to support female education. In this conversation, we hear about his experience growing up in three different countries, overcoming aversion to rigid religiosity, finding a free spirituality, and the possibilities that can happen in nothingness. 

Alexa Ashley: To start, what was it like growing up as James?

James Song: It was pretty good. I’m very fortunate to have grown up in a family that is focused on education and broadening my horizons. I grew up traveling with my family. I’ve been to 60 countries. I have lived in 5 countries so far. It’s something you cannot get from a traditional classroom setting education. I feel like I was ahead of a lot of my classmates when I was growing up. In history, culture, everyday life, knowledge—just seeing more.

Alexa Ashley: You grew up in Shoreline?

James Song: I went to a high school in Shoreline. I went there for 2 years. Cool high school. After that I went to Shoreline Community College for 2 years. 

Alexa Ashley: Before that?

James Song: I was born in Seattle, but I went to Vancouver to live with my grandparents when I was 3. 

Alexa Ashley: Why?

James Song: I think it’s just Chinese culture. I guess my parents think that my grandparents know how to take care of me better.

Alexa Ashley: What was that like?

James Song: I loved it. I loved my grandparents. I feel like I have a generation gap with my parents, but I feel closer to my grandparents. It’s like skipping a generation and I’m more connected to them instead of my own parents. It’s very interesting. Both of my grandparents are professors. 

Alexa Ashley: In what?

James Song: My grandpa is a biologist and my grandma is a chemist. 

Alexa Ashley: Were they both retired when you were living with them?

James Song: They stopped working when they moved to Vancouver, CA. I think they were pretty old.

Alexa Ashley: Did you like Vancouver?

James Song: Yeah. When I was little, yeah. 

Alexa Ashley: Because you were there until…

James Song: Until kindergarten. Then after that I went back to China with my parents. 

Alexa Ashley: Super cool, for how long?

James Song: My grandparents stayed in Vancouver for 6 months then China for 6 months.

Alexa Ashley: What part of China?

James Song: Guangzhou. You ever been there?

Alexa Ashley: No.

James Song: It’s the 3rd biggest city in China. 

Alexa Ashley: Is it cool?

James Song: It’s one of the mega cities in the world.

Alexa Ashley: So, if you like big cities.

James Song: I grew up in big cities. But now I lived in Tulum and Puerto Escondido, so now I’m rethinking if I prefer living in a big city or in a small town. So, trying to figure that out. My plan is when I move back to China, to live in the outskirts of Guangzhou so I don’t have to be drowned in competition, competitiveness and stress. Have my own space.

Alexa Ashley: After kindergarten, when you moved to China, how long were you there? 

James Song: Oh, I was there until the first year of high school.

Alexa Ashley: Oh, ok. That’s a long time.

James Song: I spent half of my life in China and half of my life in the U.S. 

Alexa Ashley: What was that like?

James Song: Good question. In China, Chinese culture is 5,000 years old and always evolving and changing. It’s under the Chinese Community Party rule right now. They tried to erase a lot of Chinese culture, burn a lot of books. Stop Chinese medicine from reaching the rest of the internet, and the world. We have our own internet in China, our own ecosystem. Our own Google, YouTube, Twitter, Gmail, everything. So when you’re in China, you cannot get onto Google or YouTube. They don’t want you to see the information they’re trying to hide. So that was strange growing up. 

But I was also really rebellious. So I tried to get over the firewall. It’s called the Great Firewall of China that the government uses to block their internet within China from reaching out. There are services called VPNs that you can use to try to bypass their firewall. But they are illegal and being cracked down on recently because of the Hong Kong protests and some sensitive issues, some minority populations in Western China that they don’t want the rest of China or the Chinese population to know about.

Alexa Ashley: Did you get through it?

James Song: When I was little, yeah. It’s like a site with servers around the world, outside of China. So you connect to those servers, and access websites from a different location outside of China.

Alexa Ashley: Did most young people do that?

James Song: Not most, but some. But right now it’s getting more popular. It’s why you see Chinese comments on YouTube. People are trying to use VPN to see the real world. Not the real world but more of the world beyond the censorship. 

Alexa Ashley: What was it like after being there for so long and then coming to the states?

James Song: When I was in school, I was a really bad kid. 

Alexa Ashley: Bad how?

James Song: Because the subjects are really rigid. We do not get to choose what we want to learn. So the courses are set, and everyone spends the same time in the same classrooms learning the same subjects, doing a lot of homework.

Alexa Ashley: In my mind, it sounds like the States, but I’m not sure of the subjects. 

James Song: Ok. Maybe we’ll have 15-16 subjects per semester. So we have Chinese, English, math, P.E., biology, all kinds. 

Alexa Ashley: Is each of those things only from the perspective of Chinese culture and history.

James Song: Oh yeah, history is like most of Chinese culture. We touch on world history but we didn’t spend that much time on that. Chinese history is very long, a lot to learn.

Alexa Ashley: In the states we also only focus on US history, but there’s not as much of it there.

James Song: Another thing is entertainment in my childhood. I watched a lot of Japanese animation, but it’s not as popular here in the US, and vice versa.

Alexa Ashley: Can you watch media from other countries?

James Song: Yeah. Well I guess the subject matter is key. Certain topics are banned. And the Chinese government limits how many foreign movies enter China’s market per year. That’s why you see a lot of Hollywood blockbusters right now that are co-produced with a Chinese producer. That’s the way to bypass that. If it’s co-produced, it doesn't count as a foreign film. 

That makes a lot of Hollywood movies more tailored for the Chinese audience because they put in money and have a say in the production; what to produce, what not to produce. In a way, the Chinese corporations or Chinese government are using their standard to create movies in Hollywood now. 

Alexa Ashley: Did you have a favorite Japanese filmmaker or director or movie?

James Song: Yeah, Miyazaki. 

Alexa Ashley: He’s amazing.

James Song: So I don’t know a lot of names in English because they’re not popular and no one talks about them. 

Alexa Ashley: Do you have a favorite movie of his?

James Song: Yeah, (Castle) in the Sky. I saw it when I was in 3rd grade, in class. 

Alexa Ashley: What part of it made an impact on you?

James Song: Just, it was the first Miyazaki animation I had seen. It opened my mind, broadened my imagination. 

Alexa Ashley: He’s amazing. All the visuals. Always has aspects of magic.

James Song: And it’s relatable because the characters are real. It’s heartwarming to watch them. Back then I didn’t know what the movie was actually about, I was just there for the excitement and enjoyment. Spirited Away. 

Alexa Ashley: All of his films have air travel. 

James Song: Nature too, yeah. I love the subjects in his films. The balance between civilization and nature. Magic and reality. 

Alexa Ashley: I loved (My Neighbor) Totoro. So amazing. You said that his characters are relatable and real. I feel like you have that presence of being super real, down to earth and open.

James Song: I’m honored.

Alexa Ashley: Do you feel like you’ve always been that way, or is it something you developed?

James Song: Yeah. The reason I called myself a rebel is because growing up in China it was really strict, and people don’t like anything different. Growing up, I loved to be different. I didn’t care what other people think—didn’t care about authority, didn’t care about what is right. Most things in life—there’s no black and white, or right and wrong. The way you dress...there’s a wrong way to dress and a wrong way to speak. I didn’t care about that.

Alexa Ashley: When do you feel like that started for you?

James Song: Maybe, it’s because I traveled around the world. I cannot be limited by one voice. One country cannot limit my actions. Because I’ve seen so many countries. So many right ways, so many wrong ways. 

Alexa Ashley: Many different perspectives.

James Song: Exactly. So many ways to live, so why do I need to reduce to one country or way of living? 

Alexa Ashley: Right, or one person’s idea of how you should live.

James Song: Exactly. And it’s not like the people in China are the most happy people on Earth, you know.

Alexa Ashley: You look at what they’re saying to do and then look at how…

James Song: You should behave like this so you can be like us!

Alexa Ashley: I don’t want to be like you.

James Song: Yeah, maybe that’s the reason. 

Alexa Ashley: In my life I tend to notice that the more people ask you to subscribe to a certain way, the more unhappy they are. Have you found that to be true in your life?

James Song: Yeah, well, you don’t have the freedom to explore. Your choices are very limited. You don’t have the confidence to explore because you’re always judging things by right or wrong. If you grow up in that mindset, you don’t look beyond right or wrong. And that’s very boring. The black or white. I want to live a colorful life. 

Alexa Ashley: Yeah, clearly (James is wearing a very colorful outfit).

James Song: Moving to Tulum (Mexico) has broadened my horizons on a spiritual level. Because I grew up in different countries with different religions and beliefs. Even in China, Chinese people are not allowed to be religious because of the government. Technically, if you are a communist you should not be religious. Technically, everyone is an atheist in China.

But since China has such a long history, we have a lot of Paganism. We have Buddhist influence, we have Christian influence too. It’s really weird—in China there’s only one town that is Christian. And it’s my town—this tiny town where my family is from. And it’s where they started the revolution. 

Alexa Ashley: Did you grow up in a certain spirituality?

James Song: My parents tried to enforce their beliefs on me. But since I’ve traveled so much—so many religions and beliefs—I didn’t want to settle on any one religion. So I have different family members believing in different things. And I love my grandparents, they had a big influence on my upbringing. 

My grandma, I’m not sure if she’s Buddhist, but when I think about scientists I imagine them all as atheists. But she’s a little bit superstitious. She mentioned Quan Yin. She’s a Chinese goddess—a figure from Buddhism, one of the gods. Somehow, the Chinese adopted this god and used a Chinese image and turned Quan Yin into a female looking god. But in fact it’s a male god in the Buddhist culture. It’s one of the main gods but not the top one. So it’s like “why are you worshipping this sidekick of one of the main gods?” 

Alexa Ashley: What do you think it is?

James Song: Quan Yin is known for being merciful and loving. So she gives blessings, and she’s really forgiving, and about the big picture. She uses love to impact others, she doesn’t punish. She tries to influence you by being good to you. That’s worth being worshipped, yeah?

Alexa Ashley: So that’s the spirituality of your grandma, who you were only with until kindergarten?

James Song: Yeah so I spent a couple of years with them. And then in kindergarten I was living with them. They moved back to China with me.

Alexa Ashley: And then later when you were living with your parents, then what?

James Song: So my dad’s side is from the town that is the only place in China with Christians. So he is Christian. But, he chose to donate money to Buddhist temples too. And my mom got baptized in San Francisco when she was going to university in the US. So she’s Christian, but she looks down on my dad for being both Christian and Buddhist. 

Alexa Ashley: Pick a side, right?

James Song: Yeah, exactly. 

Alexa Ashley: So they tried to raise you Christian. 

James Song: Yeah, but church-going wasn’t a thing in China. There weren’t many churches in China. So, I didn’t grow up in churches. But my mom would read the bible to me before bed. You know, like bedtime stories, along with other books like Harry Potter. 

Alexa Ashley: It’s a little bit like Harry Potter, just as terrifying.

James Song: Yeah. So she tries to make it serious. But I put religion on the same level as fiction. 

Alexa Ashley: From the very beginning?

James Song: Yeah, yeah. Somehow, my brother took it very seriously. And he’s Christian now. So, I’m not sure because we have a very similar upbringing. He’s traveled to almost as many countries as I have, because we traveled as a family. 

Alexa Ashley: Is he as rebellious as you?

James Song: No, no. So I guess that’s part of the personality too. The internal. His personality is the opposite of mine—which is having a lot of friends, super easy to connect with everyone. I’m really comfortable meeting strangers, opening up myself and being open to change and ideas. I find meeting new people fascinating, but he’s the opposite. 

Alexa Ashley: Interesting, and he had the same kind of upbringing. Is he older or younger?

James Song: Younger. Yeah he keeps more to himself. 

Alexa Ashley: When did you start getting into photography?

James Song: Since I dropped my grandma’s camera. 

Alexa Ashley: Yeah? When you were in kindergarten?

James Song: Yeah, kindergarten. I was a troublemaker, you know? Always adventurous, do different things. I tried to use her camera. I didn’t know I couldn't drop it, you know. So I got punished for dropping the camera. The damage wasn’t that big, but they like to take care of their stuff. I learned from that. I take care of my gear carefully, even nowadays. You won’t see any scratches on my camera even though I use them so often. 

Alexa Ashley: Wow. So what was that journey like from when you dropped the camera to now with photography?

James Song: In the beginning it was forbidden because my grandma got mad at me. So, just taking pictures around the house or going to the park. From that, I got into photography in high school. I took a film class in Hillcrest, the high school in Shoreline. 

Alexa Ashley: So was there a gap between kindergarten and high school?

James Song: I had phones with cameras. So, that’s what I used for my traveling. I traveled fairly frequently during vacations, school breaks. We usually go to two–three countries per vacation. So I had a lot of pictures on my phone.

Alexa Ashley: I’m wondering how your style has developed since you first started.

James Song: In the beginning it was just capturing what is instead of what could be. My style now is more planned and like a fairy tale. I realized that an artist needs to have their own style. A recognizable style, just like Picasso. When you look at Picasso’s work you recognize it. The uniqueness is what makes them so iconic. I’m trying to have my own style right now. I started my new style after I moved to Tulum. So Tulum has influenced me in that.

Alexa Ashley: I noticed that most of the work you’re sharing now is based in nature, particularly in water. Is that true?

James Song: Yeah, it’s true. Water is interesting. 

Alexa Ashley: What interests you about it?

James Song: Water is life. And I feel like it’s mysterious. It’s like another realm, you know. We don’t live in water. It’s pretty magical. There could be some healing powers in water. And how much of the body is water, 90%? 

Alexa Ashley: Something like that.

James Song: I feel like we have a strong connection. Hanging out with my 90%. But, I don’t feel like water is something I have to have for my style. Nature is something I have to have. 

Alexa Ashley: Why?

James Song: I want to preserve what I see. Because it could be destroyed. Nature can be destroyed in a day. Someone wants to develop the land, turn it into an apartment complex. It’ll be gone, all the trees will be gone. Everything will be covered.

Alexa Ashley: Is it something about the fragility that draws you?

James Song: Yeah, yeah. And I also want to raise awareness, to show the beauty of nature. So people living in cities can start to see it and realize that living in the city is not the right way of human development. I want to open up their minds to what it’s like to be outside the city. Make it more fantastic and something they didn’t imagine. 

Especially when people are living in China—people that live in the city look down on people living outside of the city, and they don’t like to go outside of the city. So I feel like they are forgetting what we are as a species. We’re humans, you know, not urban animals. 

Alexa Ashley: What was your first experience either living in nature or connecting with nature?

James Song: I went on a leadership program trip in high school back in Seattle, a two-week long program. So we learned about nature for one week, and then we went into the backcountry for a week. It was life changing for sure. In the north Cascades, I had never been there. Mt. Baker. We hiked over the mountain and across the border to Canada, because there’s no border there, just nature, you know. Again, it opened up my mind. Borders are imaginary. Countries are..the concept of nations is imaginary, you know? No one actually owns the land, right? Yeah, it was just animals. Wow, you can just cross two countries without knowing it. There’s no line, it’s totally imaginary. 

Alexa Ashley: That’s super important to realize most lines are imaginary. 

James Song: Yeah, human constructs, right? I was reading a book on the rise of sapiens. 

Alexa Ashley: Is it called Sapiens?

James Song: Yeah, have you read it? It’s amazing. Talking about the human species from the perspective of another species. Just looking at the human behavior and describing how we describe other animals. You know like, what a business is, what are companies. It’s not a real thing. When you think about companies, what do you think of? An office? Computers? Product? Software? A company is just a human imagination that we all share and believe this thing exists. Humans trust in each other that “if I do this for you, you do this for me.” Right? So if I work for you, you give me money. And it’s this imaginary relationship. Very interesting.

Alexa Ashley: Right. What do you feel like isn’t imaginary?

James Song: Good question, what is not imaginary? What is real? Wow, this is really deep! I have done DMT so...in Tulum actually. So what is real? That is...I don’t know. I don’t think anything is real, for reals. 

Alexa Ashley: That’s real, nothing is real.

James Song: Yeah. It’s the only certainty. 

Alexa Ashley: Do you consider yourself spiritual at all? Or what does it mean to you: spirituality?

James Song: Religious people like to rely on a higher power to help them or to solve their problems. But I like to rely on myself, or people that I know in life. In real life. So I’d rather do that than go to a church or say a prayer. But, when I’m feeling down I do like to think about myself. Think about my higher self, what I can be. A radiant energy source of some kind. Because this body is not going to last for that long. I can’t explain if there’s a soul or not, but I do believe there’s a consciousness that we choose to let be what it is. Like why some people decide to do this, not that. Wait, what’s the question? Oh, spirituality, yeah. 

Alexa Ashley: Yeah, what does spirituality mean to you?

James Song: So, it opened up my mind when I first tried acid at a music festival. I was looking at people but I was looking into their eyes. Your soul is not on the outside. So I was trying to look into their eyes to look into their soul. What defines me as a person? It’s so easy to look at people and judge by their looks. So, I was like “what if I didn’t look like this.” What is this consciousness? What is this soul? How do I see myself, you know? In the mirror or looking in my eyes. What is this thought that’s in my mind? What is this voice that I hear when I talk to myself?

Alexa Ashley: Have you come to any conclusions in those?

James Song: Um, not yet. But, has it made me connect with people on a different level, like soul to soul? Instead of just relating on what we can see and the superficial, physical world. So, psychedelics changed my life. Mind altering. 

Alexa Ashley: What do you feel like DMT showed you?

James Song: It showed me love. Yeah. I actually smoked it here in Tulum with a friend of mine. His name is Dylan. He’s a shaman. And my friend Claridad. So her name is “Divine Clarity.” So she was playing live music and singing on my spiritual journey. It was amazing. And it was a great opportunity to have my first time with someone I trust and appreciate.

Alexa Ashley: What did love look like in that experience?

James Song: Very colorful and bright. So I did it twice in that session. The first time it was pretty dark, because I did not know what to expect. And there was someone who was doing the ceremony with me and was letting her demons out right next to me. I could still hear everything. So I was affected by her energy and I saw some dark things during my first journey. But I’ve trained myself so much in life that I’m not bothered by anything anymore, because I don’t feel like anything is real. Nothing can actually harm me. What’s the worst thing that can happen to me—it’s death. And I don’t actually fear it, you know. I’m living my best life, and it’s another phase. So OK, if there are dark spirits that try to harm me, or scare me, but in the end I’ll become a spirit too, so I don’t think that’s going to affect me. And I’m a loving person too, so, it’s like Quan Yin, I try to affect them with my love. I acknowledge the energy, and I experienced a fraction of what she experienced. But I didn’t let it affect me. Then the shaman asked me if I wanted to do it again. 

Alexa Ashley: I was wondering how you got up the courage to do it again.

James Song: Right? I was like “Again!”

Alexa Ashley: What made you want to? More demons please.

James Song: Oh, maybe it’s from my friend Claridad. She smoked it, then she closed her eyes and started singing and dancing. Because when I was on it, I passed out. I just lay flat down on the mat. Then I heard a loud sound like “boom” on the back of my head. And that’s all I could hear, and I was like “Wow, what is this?” Then I saw that she was singing and dancing and I realized…

Alexa Ashley: Oh, this can be a different experience.

James Song: Yeah wow, and she’s a loving person. Nothing but love. She encouraged me to do it a second time. 

Alexa Ashley: You’re glad that you did?

James Song: Yeah, really glad. So I found myself a comfortable spot and found a huge cushion, big one. I was hugging it. I smoked it (DMT), grabbed it and ran to the spot. The cushion was pretty heavy too, so it felt like someone was on top of me.

Alexa Ashley: Oh, was that nice?

James Song: Yeah. Because babies like to be tucked in because they feel like they’re being hugged. So I feel like it’s the same mechanism there. That’s how I felt love. Like a motherly love from my second trip. As soon as I closed my eyes, I saw bright pink, and it started morphing into red. I saw nothing but solid colors, no fractals at all in the beginning. It was solid color. Everything pink. Maybe it’s because it’s my favorite color! I just felt really blissful and joyous.

After that I saw red turning into orange turning into yellow. And that’s when the fractals came in. Super bright, vibrant colors. Intricate patterns. I cannot describe in words. And very different from my first experience still. In my first experience I felt I was being transcended into a void in the universe, complete darkness. Emptiness. Yeah, so that was my first experience. But it made me realize that there’s so much I cannot experience. So much I don’t know about. So I have to keep my mind open and use my past experience to just “I don’t know.” I felt like I could see the universe, I could see everything that’s happening in the universe without using my eyes. I could hear everything in the universe without using my ears. Yeah, and I was in the void. In the middle of nowhere. I could not see anything around me. But at the same time I could know anything that's happening. It was like an omniscient experience. All present. That was mind opening.

Alexa Ashley: How do you feel like it changed the way you live in real life?

James Song: I felt like the DMT trip lasted more than 15 minutes. I felt like I was on it for 3 months after the experience. Slowly coming down when I was in Oaxaca. Yeah, I just felt like I was so full of love and purpose. I can spread my energy and positivity anywhere I go. Before, the things that make me have an automatic response—something unpleasant that happened to me—I’ll be more emotional or affected by anger or jealousy or disappointment over hurt feelings. 

Sometimes I’ll even say something that’s not correct. I’ve been working on it throughout the years. I don’t even respond to mean comments on Facebook or anything. After the trip I feel like I have to rethink every time, every response that I have instead of going to my usual response. I realize that everyone is dealing with their own thing, their own lives. We have different realities and no one is 100% happy. But I know I can say something or do something to change their minds, to break their mold. 

Some people when they are in depression it’s hard to get out of it. Someone has a shitty day, it’s not just one day, it’s a few different tiny events over time. So I want to remind them that not everyone is mean to them, even though they let out their toxic emotions on me. I don’t mind because I understand where they’re coming from and try to bring the energy around them. I felt like I was treating people with love more, even more than before. Just putting myself in their shoes. 

Alexa Ashley: In thinking about your whole life—what do you feel like has been the most consistent or hardest challenge in this life?

James Song: To be honest, I’ve lived a really fortunate life that I don’t have real challenges. Maybe accepting spirituality was a big challenge for me. Being a rebel I did not believe in any higher power. But being a rebel—I only say that because I did not like authority—but I’ve always been a loving person. I was never a mean person. So, some people would say that being religious makes you a better person because you have to follow the moral guidance. And I disagree with that because I’m not religious but it doesn’t mean that I’m a bad person or that I don’t have morals, or know what is right or wrong. 

Some people do need punishment throughout their life to help hold themselves accountable to their actions in this lifetime. I understand that. But it doesn’t work for me because I don’t believe in a higher power, but I still don’t do anything bad. I just do what I want to do, be true to myself. 

Alexa Ashley: What does good and what does bad mean to you?

James Song: Good question. I took philosophy in college. It’s always evolving. What’s good is something I didn’t feel bad doing. That’s my guidance. If I break any laws that I don’t agree with, I don’t feel bad about doing it. I’m not doing anything wrong. 

Alexa Ashley: What makes you feel bad?

James Song: Being unfair, being prejudiced. Being mean-spirited. Maybe, not letting people do what they want to do. Freedom is what defines me. It’s a big part of me. So, being limited by someone else’s beliefs is a huge no-no for me. So that’s bad for me. That’s one of the huge reasons why I’m not religious. 

Alexa Ashley: To me, you’re so full of light and love and happiness. And it’s interesting because I can feel that in your work. And also compared to people who take photos in similar locations and countries, I see in your work a more literal darkness overlay. I was wondering what that means for you, if you feel that.

James Song: Like why are my images created dark? I want to create a lack of judgement, I guess. Like a void of judgement, I guess. That’s what it seems like. People open their emotions at night, more than during the day. People feel like they’re more vulnerable, physically and emotionally. If I choose to cry, I’ll cry at night. Not in broad daylight. So I feel like it’s the freedom to express emotions. And the lack of judgement, the possibilities of what can happen in nothingness. 

You can fill the void with the imagination. Instead of showing you everything in the scene, you can imagine what could be there. Could be something physical or something emotional. I love the aesthetics of being out on a walk, under the full moon, watching the stars, feeling very comfortable and free. It feels magical.

I want to create a lack of judgement…a void of judgement…People open their emotions at night, more than during the day. People feel like they’re more vulnerable, physically and emotionally. If I choose to cry, I’ll cry at night. Not in broad daylight…it’s the freedom to express emotions…the possibilities of what can happen in nothingness. 

—James Song

Alexa Ashley: You use the word magical a lot. What does it mean for you, or your experience of magic?

James Song: I’m not religious or superstitious, but I believe in magic. Mmhmm. Magic. I feel like it’s imagination of what could happen. Like something that is inspired by reality but is not completely real. I guess that’s magic to me. And when I say someone is magical, that’s when they’re full of life and being themselves. That’s when I find someone magical. Staying true to themselves instead of living in a mold. Living in someone else’s images or beliefs. I guess that’s magical. To be free.

Alexa Ashley: If there’s one most important thing you’re learning about life right now, what would it be?

James Song: Life is grand. Nothing actually matters, you know. Everything will be OK. The universe will be itself and will take care of itself, and we’re just part of it. We are the universe. An expression of this universe. And humans, you know—this is how I connect with everyone—we’re coming from the same place. We’re all different expressions of the same universe. I find what we have in common. 

And life is short. That is for sure. Our spirits can live on, but what we can do on this Earth is very limited. 

Alexa Ashley: If you would like your life to accomplish or stand for anything in this realm, what would it be?

James Song: To be free, to do what you want to do. Even if others judge you for the things you do. If it makes you happy and you’re not hurting anyone, you should do it. 

Alexa Ashley: Thank you, dear. I appreciate all of your answers.

James Song: I just have a problem with people limiting others’ freedoms.

Alexa Ashley: Do you have anything else you’d like to tell the world?

James Song: Oh yeah, the project I’m doing. I’m trying to fundraise for my publication to support women’s education in different countries around the world. In the West we feel like female education is not a big problem. But if we go to less fortunate countries, it is a huge problem. And I also want to bring awareness to female genitalia mutilation. It’s a practice in over 90 countries in the world. I learned about it when I traveled to the Middle East with my mom. She had to cover herself in public. I learned that females there were forced to have their genitals cut off since they were a baby. I felt like that is limiting so much of their freedom. The loss of a huge part of their sexuality, since almost birth. I’ve heard really sad stories that made me really angry, and every time I think about it I want to cry. 

I met a friend who’s a nurse in the UK. She told me that families bring their daughters to the hospital to do the surgery. And they say, “No, we cannot do that.” But then, the families will bring their daughters back to their home country and get the surgery done there over their summer break. Seeing them after the surgery, it just changed them. It’s depressing. 

Alexa Ashley: How can people support your book? Where can they find it?

James Song: Good question. Right now I'm looking at online publications. One of my main goals is to publish a book that presents my work the way it’s meant to be experienced. For my work to be experienced by people who are open to their emotions. Especially at night, you know? I want people to look at my pictures at night, by themselves. I want to print my work on large print that’s the size of the wall, and on a piece of metal. Print my work on metallic photo paper so only the bright part of the picture will reflect above the metallic photo paper. So that’ll make it look more real. Instead of flat paper it’ll be more 3D. 

I want viewers to have the experience of being there in-person—to see my subject being free in nature—and be inspired. Especially when you think about nudity outside of the Western world. Imagine if a Middle Eastern female looked at my work in a gallery and imagined being free, being themselves. 

Alexa Ashley: I think for a lot of people, it’s almost more terrifying to be free than to be in a cage, when the cage is all you know. What would you say to people who are in that place?

James Song: If they feel good, then why not? But if not, then try something different.

be free…do what you want to do. Even if others judge you for the things you do. If it makes you happy and you’re not hurting anyone, you should do it.

—James Song

Eyes Wide is supported by members around the world

Photography of James Song by Alexa Ashley

All other photography by James Song

Theme music by Kymani Thomas

Audio Editing and Mixing by Infinite Sounds

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In this episode we get to hear from Intimacy Doula, Ezriyah Ben Ernst. Ezriyah is a poet, experience designer, energy healer and the founder of an organic cacao brand. We hear how survived two suicide attempts, cancer, and seeing his mom pass through cancer. Today he creates “space for people to drop more into the love that they are. 

Listen above, on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Transcript:

Alexa Ashley: I’m Alexa Ashley and this is Eyes Wide. In this episode we get to hear from Actress, Writer and Voice Over Artist, Dolores Reynals. Dolores grew up in Argentina, has lived a nomadic lifestyle for over 20 years and talks with us about living with curiosity and an open mind.

Alexa Ashley: What was it like growing up as Dolores? 

Dolores Reynals: So I'm the eldest of four kids. And after me came triplets, my brother and my two sisters. So my house was pretty crazy and fun, but very crazy. And I grew up in a city called Mendoza at the feet of the Andes mountains in Argentina. It's a big enough city. So, there was a lot to do and still, you know, surrounded by nature and at the border with Chile. So we got to go to Chile a lot. That was our escape from the city. Yeah. It was good. 

Alexa Ashley: What was it like growing up with that many people in your house? 

Dolores Reynals: My house? It was great because it was fun... So we had a lot of challenges between us, ‘cause we were so close. We're only two years apart. So my mom had like four kids that were the same age. So there was a lot of battling between us. But still we managed to play all together a lot too.

So, I had a lot of company and then I craved being alone very much. So for me, it was going to my grandmother's house. That's where I felt I could be alone or have some attention. And like, do my thing without somebody taking my toys or breaking what I'm building. So that was my grandma's house.

And we all kind of took turns going to their home. And then we could come back, integrate back into the madness. It was really mad. Every night there was something, some issue. My mom would come home to something going on, some drama every single day. 

Alexa Ashley: So you were one of how many? 

Dolores Reynals: Four.

Alexa Ashley: And you were the only one that wasn't born at the same time. 

Dolores Reynals: Yeah. 

Alexa Ashley: What was that like? 

Dolores Reynals: So there were, yeah, that's an interesting question. The three of them, even though they would fight a lot because they're three kids the same age and there was a lot of, well, obviously competition, etc. And, you know, struggle for identity between them. They have a bond that I can never understand, you know, I can never go there. So if something’s going on with one of them, the other one knows that etc. That still happens today. We're living in different parts of the world. So they had this thing that even if they were fighting, if I tried to be the referee or like the big sister, if I went in there to defend one or fix something, the others would just like attack me, kind of like, I could never go in there.

It was something. So I was part of the four, but I was very much outside. It's like, I understood how to keep myself outside of something, you know, how to keep my distance, like know where I cannot go in. I mean, it sounds very dramatic. It wasn't so much like that, but, I couldn't, there's something that I couldn't go into.

And I would be like the big sister, but I couldn't go in there. If I ever tried to calm something down in there, I would just put more wood into the fire. I learned to not, how do you say? Like put your nose into where you don't belong? Kind of, yeah. They envied me because I had my own identity. They were like, oh, you're so lucky. You're just one. Because they always had to fight for their place. So I felt a bit lonely sometimes because I wasn't part of something like the way they were, but then I learned to value being alone. 

Alexa Ashley: Interesting. So then you had your grandparents' house, it's like your mini escape  from your family?

Dolores Reynals: It was an oasis. I got spoiled there. At home there was no chance of being spoiled. We were so many and my mom was tired. Both my parents had their own businesses, so they would work even on weekends. And there was no being spoiled, you know, we would share everything. What was yours was everybody's, it was kind of like that.

And at my grandmothers, it would be like, “What would you like to eat?” You know, that kind of thing. So they baked you something. Like what? So we went to be spoiled.

Alexa Ashley: So at your grandparents, it was like an escape from family, but then Chile was your family's escape? 

Dolores Reynals: Yes. Chile was, because you know, if you want to go to the seaside, which is something you waited for all year,  if you wanted to do that, if you went to the Argentinian side, you'd have to drive for like 20 hours to get to the ocean.

So Chile was five hours away, four hours. I mean, Chile is four hours away at the most, but the ocean was like four and a half, five hours away from our house on the Chilean side. So we would just cross the Andes to Chile and that's where we would have a vacation. And my dad had grown up in Chile a lot because his grandma was from there. So it was kind of somewhere we always went to. 

Alexa Ashley: You mentioned that both of your parents had their own businesses. What did 

they do?

Dolores Reynals: Yeah, my mom, she first had a kindergarten where I went to, she was the headmistress and it was in her old home, the office was in her old bedroom. And so she could see the front door from that office. She was never there because she can't stay still much. So we went to that kindergarten and then she changed for a travel agency.

So she was a travel agent and my dad was a lawyer and my mom still is a travel agent. She's in her seventies and she still does it. She loves it. I remember Sundays. We would go to the office with them and play in their office, the travel agency and my dad's office was next door. They worked so hard. They would take us with them there to play.

Alexa Ashley: So they had their own businesses and then they chose to have their offices next to each other

Dolores Reynals: Yeah. Because my dad was also involved in the travel agency ‘cause he likes it too. They both like to travel.

Alexa Ashley: Cool. Did you get to go on a lot of trips with your mom being in that? 

Dolores Reynals: No. Just Chile. And that was like, oh, what a relief with changing countries. I used to love that feeling of like, oh, I'm in another country, like resting from your country kind of, I don't know. We grew up looking at brochures of places. Like my mom had all these brochures and we would just look at them and dream of going places. They would travel together. But we were so many, they couldn't take us. My mom got to go on fun tours. You know, where you get to see the hotels. So she would go to Hawaii, Peru. 

Alexa Ashley: And now as an adult, how many countries have you visited? 

Dolores Reynals: I don't know. Definitely more than 10 or around that. I don't know. Yeah.

Alexa Ashley: Do you feel like your love for travel kind of started when you were a kid and your curiosity

Dolores Reynals: Yes. Definitely started when I was a kid because my mom has a million stories of trips. She lived in Chile, she lived in Spain when she was young, and since she was 18, she started to live abroad. Also my family stories are like, you know, “Your great grandparents came from Spain. This guy came from Italy” and this was the story.

“He ran away from this, and this is how they started.” And so it was all trip stories, stories of changing your life and going places. And between that and my mom's travel agency. I was always curious to go somewhere else or live somewhere else or I used to always wonder what it would be like to just change your life and live somewhere else from the stories from my grandma.

Alexa Ashley: So the first time that you changed your countries of where you lived, is that when you came to the states?

Dolores Reynals: Well when was that? Well, no, I went to Spain first. So there's a tradition in my family, from my mom's side. Her grandma used to take all the granddaughters to Granada in Spain to Andalusia, and the women would learn flamenco dancing and she would take them in a boat and then bring them back to Argentina.

So I was offered that, but I couldn't dance flamenco because I was too, well I was told I couldn't because I had scoliosis. Like my spine was a bit, how do you say—bent? Twisted and bent? I probably could have danced anyway, but I took it very seriously, and I didn't. So I went to Spain and I stayed at my uncle's house for a few months.

And then I didn't dance flamenco so I was bored. I was like, what can I do? Everything was closed for the summer. And I went to live in a house up in the mountains of the Alpujarras, which is like a little group of towns in the mountains of Spain, in the south of Spain. That's where my great-grandfather was from. He was from one of those little towns and I stayed in one of the towns at the top. And I was an apprentice tour guide for a while. That was my first house that I rented by myself. 

Alexa Ashley: Wow. How old were you? 

Dolores Reynals: 18. My mom didn't know that I was doing that, when they found out they made me come back. 

Alexa Ashley: Why?

Dolores Reynals: Because they want...well, because they could still control me in a way, because in Argentina, you're not independent from your parents until you're 21. And my mother thought that I was...she said that “You didn't go from the Andes to hide in the Sierras of Spain. So come down from there and do something else.” So I went traveling for a little bit.

Alexa Ashley: What did she want you to do? 

Dolores Reynals: Well, maybe what she did or something where she knew what I was doing. She wanted me to visit Paris and go see my uncle in Italy and meet the family from Europe and then come back home. That was her plan for me. But I found a pen that had an eraser on the back where you touch the ink with the eraser and the ink disappears.

And I had a little thing of seven trips on a train and I used it 20 something times with that pen. I stole my way through Europe. And they were like, “Why are you not coming back yet, what money are you living with?” So I just stayed as long as I could. 

Alexa Ashley: That's so cool. Did you enjoy your time as an apprentice tour guide in the mountains?

Dolores Reynals: Yeah, I loved it. I loved it. I thought those mountains were just little hills and stuff and I didn't have the right gear. So sometimes I found myself in the snow without the right shoes, because I thought this is like a small mountain and we're by the sea, but then you got up a bit and there was snow almost up to your knees. You know, the snow that never dies. So I learned some things about not assuming what some landscape is going to be like, just ask questions. 

Alexa Ashley: What was your boss like? 

Dolores: Oh he was great. Jesus is his name. He was just a really fun guy who was a good leader and always in a good mood. Very cheerful. 

Alexa Ashley: Where did you go on your multiple train adventure journey? 

Dolores Reynals: I went to, well, around Spain...first I went to Italy to meet my family, and then I went around France and then to England thinking I'm going to stay there. But then I came back. Ireland, where else did I go? I can't remember. Amsterdam. I went to where else? I don’t know, around those places. Madrid, Southern Italy, Barcelona, Paris. I went twice to Paris.

Alexa Ashley: And this is your first time, like in different countries without parents? 

Dolores Reynals: Yes. That was my first time in a different country without my parents. I stayed in Nice for a long time. I made friends in that hostel because when you travel alone, you meet a lot of people. 

Alexa Ashley: Do you still talk to anybody from those adventures? 

Dolores Reynals: Yes I do. My friend from Chile, Veronica. I met her in Barcelona and then I met these Canadian girls in Nice. And from Mexico, Barcelona. And I talked to all of them. And I've seen them.

Alexa Ashley: So you didn't stay in England, but then at some point in your life, you moved back. Yeah?

Dolores Reynals: Yes. I remember being in London thinking I'm going to live here. I just knew it. I think I sat on the side of a bridge and I thought I'm going to sit here when I'm older, again. I just knew that I would come back. I didn't know when. And actually I went back two years later. Yeah. Two years later I was back there. Living and I stayed for many years. 

Alexa Ashley: How many? 

Dolores Reynals: First, seven, then I left. And then two years later I came back and I stayed for like another five. Then I left and then I came back again. 

Alexa Ashley: Were you in London all those times? 

Dolores Reynals: Yes, I was. I thought I was going to live in Brighton, but I ended up in London. Have you been there? 

Alexa Ashley: Yes, I love Brighton. Super cool. And then when did you come to the States? 

Dolores Reynals: I went to the States actually, right before London 

Alexa Ashley: The first time? 

Dolores Reynals: Yes, the first time. After that European trip, I did university in Argentina for a year, but then I left before arriving in London to save money. I went to the U.S. and I lived in Washington, DC and I translated news into Spanish from a radio station in the morning. And then I worked in a bookstore and then in a restaurant to make money, to start studying in London.

Alexa Ashley: And that's crazy that you went to the U.S. to save money. It seems like it's one of the most expensive places to live in. 

Dolores Reynals: Oh, you're right. Actually, I haven't, I never thought about that. It is expensive, but you can save. You get paid well, like if you have two jobs, I had two or three, because the radio station wasn't paid, but I wanted to do it. And then I had the bookstore and the restaurant. If you work in the U.S. you can make money. I didn't spend much.

Alexa Ashley: And you told me that you were working at the restaurant with your boyfriend? 

Dolores Reynals: Yes, well, first we got this job at a Pizza Hut in a place called Hampton, Virginia. Because we went to the U.S. with a work and travel program that they used to do. And if you pay extra, they find you a job in the U.S. and within the whole U.S. they found us a job at a Pizza Hut in Hampton, Virginia, and then we enjoyed it. It was fun for a bit because we were with a group of people from Latin America and then we were like, okay, we're done.

I remember the fun thing to do was to go to the library. There was nothing else to do. So after being to the library 10 times, we were like, okay, let's get out. No offense to Hampton, Virginia. Because it's very beautiful. So we got our tip money and got on a Greyhound bus and went to Washington DC. And I love Washington DC.

Alexa Ashley: What did you love about it?

Dolores Reynals: It was kind of like a big city, but not too big. And I think for me, that was a really good transition before I lived in London, like a not too big city. You could get around, like there was this bus that took you to the Kennedy center. And I remember going once a week there for live music. It was just beautiful to walk around. There was good food, music everywhere. It was great.

Alexa Ashley: So now you are an actor and a voice actor and a writer. What else do you do? 

Dolores Reynals: What else do I do? Well, I think that's it. 

Alexa Ashley: What was your journey like getting to do those things?

Dolores Reynals: I studied journalism and theater. Then I left journalism for theater.

Alexa Ashley: Was that in Argentina? 

Dolores Reynals: Yes, in Argentina for a year. I liked journalism because I liked the writing part, but then the theater caught me much more. I changed universities, went back to my hometown and started theater and committed to it, with a degree.

But obviously then I left a year later and that year I started working in radio, just doing comedy characters, then helping in production at siesta time at another radio station, but just doing comedy here and there in different shows. And that gave me the confidence later on in London to, you know, when I was studying theater in London to start doing voiceover just slowly started going into recording.

Alexa Ashley: What do you love about theater that journalism didn't have for you? 

Dolores Reynals: What a question. I was studying journalism and I went to see a play. I was doing theater at night, like once a week. That was the deal with my parents. Like, we're gonna pay for your degree if you do something else.

And they were doing that and I could do theater one night a week. And during that time I went to see a play by Peter Brooke in the international theater festival in Buenos Aires. And I went to see that show. And it was like, I don’t know how to describe it. I went in there and it wasn't like a play. There were people from all ages working...a lot of old people on stage. And the way it was told. I don't know how to describe it. 

There were cameras in like the screens, you would go inside of their minds because it was about an Oliver Sacks book—The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. It was inspired by that. So it was like all kinds of neurological conditions that these men had and the way that they described it was very poetic. It wasn't like there was, you know, like these lines and this tension here and there, it was different.

The way it was told, it wasn't like a play. It wasn't like anything I'd ever seen before. And I was so transported inside another world. I just loved everything, it made me feel and think about it and I thought this is one of the most powerful experiences I've ever been in. I want to do more of this, I want to be a part of this. So that's when I left journalism. 

Alexa Ashley: I'm wondering what drew you to want to be an actor versus a playwright or composer for plays? What is it about being in it that grabs you? 

Dolores Reynals: I don't really know, but I think it's more, what's your natural ability or what you've got developed at that time, you know? Like, naturally I'm a performer. And so that's where I find I express myself better. I mean, and now I write, but play writing wasn't the first thing that drew me. That's like instinctual. You're like, “This is what I want to do.” I mean, there must be a reason. But I don't think about it. I don't know.

Alexa Ashley: Do you remember performing when you were little? 

Dolores Reynals: Yeah. I remember getting really nervous and I remember it being fun. But, yeah, getting nervous. 

Alexa Ashley: And then when did it turn from nervousness to fun?

Dolores Reynals: When you go on stage, you're not nervous anymore.

Alexa Ashley: So it's just the before? 

Dolores Reynals: Yeah. It's the before. But then I remember my brother being so scared of going on stage that he would cry and cry and I was like, “Just don't make him go on stage.” And they would send me to calm him down and I did, but then he'd be like crying on stage, crying on stage dressed as a tree, just crying his eyes out. And I was like, “I told you not to make him go on.” And now he's a musician and he just loves being on stage.

Alexa Ashley: Do you feel like you and your siblings have similar interests? 

Dolores Reynals: Yeah, my sister is a filmmaker. The three of them write. My brother and one of my sisters write poetry and my other sister writes film scripts. So the three of them write. 

Alexa Ashley: Do you think that they're inspired by you? 

Dolores Reynals: No, I think I didn't write, I wrote after them, I started writing way after they'd been writing for a long time. That has nothing to do with me. I don't know where that comes from actually. 

Alexa Ashley: Your parents are not, are they artistic?

Dolores Reynals: No, but I think everyone is in a way, but they didn't dedicate themselves to art at all, actually. Not at all. But my mom used to dance, she dances flamenco. At every party my mom was like in the middle of dancing, that kind of thing. And they appreciate art very much in my house. I don't know where that comes from. I really don't know. Yes. My dad made us all read a lot. Well, invited us all to read a lot. 

Alexa Ashley: What was your favorite book when you were little? 

Dolores Reynals: I cried and I cried until they finally bought me Little Women because I was too young to have a book. I was six. And I was like, “Give me Little Women.” I couldn't even read. They got it for me. I read four pages. I was exhausted. So tired. I don't think I even read four. I mean, that's an exaggeration, probably two. I remember the first page. I used to know it by heart because I tried again and again, but I had this book and, you know, it was so exciting. It was mine, this yellow cover, hardcover. 

Alexa Ashley: What did you like about it? 

Dolores Reynals: I liked that it was about girls and these girls were really imaginative. That's what I liked about it. And they had this situation, they were poor, but they would make the most of their—you know—what they had and use their imagination. I don't know. I love that story. I still love it. Then my granddad got me The Knights of the Round Table or something. And I think I read some of it too. 

Alexa Ashley: What kind of book do you feel like has made the most impact on you? How you live your life?

Dolores Reynals: Oh, I don't know. It's hard to pick one book. I'm sure later on it'll pop into my mind, but I don't know.

Alexa Ashley: Top three? 

Dolores Reynals: Top three? Oh, I don't know. I did love The Old Man and the Sea—Hemingway. Definitely Little Women. What else? Another book. There's so many. I don't want to pick one. I'll betray the others. I'm very indecisive.

Alexa Ashley: Are you a Libra too?

Dolores Reynals: No, I'm a Virgo. Are you a Libra? 

Alexa Ashley: Si. What about The Old Man and the Sea was inspiring to you? 

Dolores Reynals: I cannot remember now. I stole it from some nuns that I used to live with. Maybe that's inspiring. I lived with nuns. After my Europe trip, my parents told me we'll pay for your degree if you live with these nuns. I live with these nuns and I stole this book from them. 

Alexa Ashley: Wait, why did you live with nuns? 

Dolores Reynals: Ok so they were called Consecrated Servant Wives of God, some kind of nuns. They get married to Jesus at the church. They wear white. There's a ceremony. There's a wedding. But they can have a job. Like they can be anything they want to be, but they're married to Jesus or God, one of them. And they live in this house and they'll wear long skirts and jumpers and they have this residency for women and I used to live there. There was a curfew. I tried to meet it.

Alexa Ashley: What was that like? 

Dolores Reynals: That was very interesting because I had come from backpacking in Europe with all the freedom, back into a curfew. And still, I was in Buenos Aires so I was very inspired, but it was contradictory to my life. 

Alexa Ashley: How long did that last? 

Dolores Reynals: A year, till I left Buenos Aires. And they had a room with books.

Alexa Ashley: And you stole that book from them? 

Dolores Reynals: Yes. And then I started to love Hemingway. I don't love him so much anymore. I think I liked his short stories more than his novels.

Alexa Ashley: I like how you stole something from nuns. 

Dolores Reynals: Yes, thank you. Oh, and then I gave it to my cousin. And she was like Dolores if you don't give this back, you're going to get bad karma. And I was like what's karma? And she explained it to me. I don't know if I ever put it back. I don’t know.

Alexa Ashley: What do you remember most from the book? 

Dolores Reynals: The images, like images of the boy. Images of the man, of the sea.

Alexa Ashley: Was it illustrated or just in your mind? 

Dolores Reynals: In my mind. Just images. And all of the Hemingway stories, I remember images. Can you remember things you read? I used to love Milan Kundera for instance and the other day I was thinking, what was it? I read all these books, I cannot remember what they were about.

Alexa Ashley: It's like we absorb the information that's most important to us, subconsciously, but it's not like conscious in our minds. 

Dolores Reynals: Exactly. Maybe there's like no room for all of them. 

Alexa Ashley: There's no room for all of it. Yeah, so now you're a voice over actress and an actress and a writer. Did those all come at the same time? Or, which ones came...theater was first? 

Dolores Reynals: My love for theater was first, but at the same time that I was studying theater, I was working as a voice actor. So that came first really.

Alexa Ashley: Professionally?

Dolores Reynals: Yeah. Actually that was professional. It wasn't planned or anything, I wasn't wanting to do it. It just happened. And that was the first time that I was performing, but I got very nervous the first day. That came first. Then I graduated. Yeah, the acting came way later because, you know, go try to get work as an actor. And it takes a while sometimes—it did for me, in London. No, actually after I graduated, I got work, but you know, it's like I was starting, I was going to university. I was working. So that came later and then the voiceover was there too. I didn't think I was ever gonna write. I remember liking writing when I was in journalism school thinking, “Oh, I'm going to be a travel writer,” then I forgot all about it—all about it. And then I started writing much, much later on like 20 years after that, after the journalism thing. 

Alexa Ashley: When you first fell in love with theater at the Oliver Sacks play... 

Dolores Reynals: The Peter Brook play. Yeah. 

Alexa Ashley: You said that it was fascinating, like learning about neurology and stuff and all the different neurological conditions...

Dolores Reynals: It was more fascinating to go into someone else's world that way. With images and like, it was poetic and with their performance. 

Alexa Ashley: Do you feel like even still, and throughout your career, like acting has taught you about people? You feel like you've learned about people through acting?

Dolores: Yeah. You learn about people. You learn about yourself.

Alexa Ashley: What did you learn or what have you learned? 

Dolores Reynals: I don't know. Well, I don't know a lot. I think you kind of learn a lot. Things you would have never considered or, you know, there's always surprises. I don't know the life of a woman that you would never live as.

Alexa Ashley: It seems like you have a pretty free spirit in where you can live. And right now you're living in Tulum. You've lived in England and Spain. Do you feel like you've always had kind of a free spirit or when do you see that happening or shaping your life? 

Dolores Reynals: I know that I'm not, I mean, I do settle down for a while. Like in England I stayed for so long. But there's a point where you feel it and you're like, okay, done. And you feel like it's the end of a chapter and then instinctually, there's a moment where you know where you're going to go. I would have never, ever imagined that from London, I would end up in Ibiza, but I suddenly  wanted to go and a week later, I left London and I went to Ibiza and then to Argentina.

I feel it’s an instinctual thing. Sometimes there's a practical reason behind it, you know, like going to London and then studying theater there. It makes sense, right? I mean, I wanted to study in Cuba, but I needed to pay for the whole degree. And my parents, bless them. I'm being very hard on them. They were very supportive later on, but they were like, “No, we're not going to pay for your degree in Cuba.”So I was like, “Okay, I can't save the money.” I needed to have the whole money for the whole two years of studying in Cuba. So I thought, “Okay, I'll go somewhere where I can work.” And I went to London. 

So, since I was little I was dreaming of going somewhere else, dreaming of living in different places because my mom had done it. And my family had done it and I knew that I could, and my parents used to tell me, “Look you can live anywhere in the world and just learn the language and respect the law of the place.” That's what my dad used to say, “You respect the law where you're going and you can go anywhere.” So I used to think, “The world is my home. You can go anywhere.” 

It's not so easy then when you try and get a visa to certain places, but everything is usually doable. And yeah, it's like I feel it instinctually where I want to go and that's how I arrived here. How you arrived here probably. And I don't know where I'll go next, but yeah, it could be that I stay somewhere for 10 years or three months, you know?

Alexa Ashley: The idea that you just said everything is usually doable. I don't think that most people have that mentality. I think it's very unique and helpful in living a free-spirited, self-guided life. How do you feel like you came to that conclusion? Like everything is usually doable?

Dolores Reynals: (Laughing) From trying and getting it done. You know, like sometimes when you're young and you have all this energy and you do crazy things like work every single day. I remember doing university in London, not having a day off for like eight months, you know? Every living day that I wasn't in university, I was working and thinking, “What is a day off? Who cares? Who needs that?” And then fainting once at work ‘cause I was so tired, but like I used to think that whatever I want to do, I can. I don't know. 

I think it's a dreamer kind of mind, you know, like if you're a dreamer and that's just the way that you are, you're not going to see a lot of limits and you're going to hit yourself, your face against the wall and you will do, but then us people who are like that. We ended up doing things that—you know—the things that you dream of or beyond. And hit your face against the wall. (Laughter) But it’s like, you have to not see a lot of limits—if you see the limits, and you're very realistic. Forget it. I never want to be realistic. You know? I'd rather be a dreamer.

I think it's a dreamer kind of mind, you know, like if you're a dreamer and that's just the way that you are, you're not going to see a lot of limits…but then us people who are like that…we end up doing things that—you know—the things that you dream of or beyond. And hit your face against the wall.

—Dolores Reynals

Alexa Ashley: Have you gotten any resistance to that idea of being a dreamer?

Dolores Reynals: From the world and people?

Alexa Ashley: Si and family?

Dolores: Oh, yeah! Well, my family was a bit like that. My brother and sisters are like that. I think my parents kind of, you know, even in spite of trying to control me just because I was the first child and they didn't know what the world was like now out there etc. Yeah, you get some resistance, but when you're a dreamer, you don't really see it. You know? Then you get your heart broken obviously, but that's just your nature. But you just go on. Unrealistically go on. 

Alexa Ashley: What makes you keep trying shit when it doesn't work? 

Dolores Reynals: I don't know—what makes me keep trying shit? It's just like the love of life, kind of, you know? And I think it's the perspective that each person has, you know? Maybe there were things, obviously there must've been things I didn't do ‘cause I was scared. I'm sure—like we all have our limits. I can't remember now, but I'm sure. Yeah, there has to have been.

Alexa Ashley: I was wondering what’s like the time that you remember most, where you thought about giving up or not doing something? 

Dolores Reynals: Giving up? What? On what? Oh yeah. Many times you think about giving up all the time. Just don't give up. Don't you? Like, think of giving up? And then what happens? You give up and then the next day you're over it, right? That's what happens, right? I think I gave up and then the next day, I'm over it. Sometimes when you are trying to do something and then it's hard, you do think about giving up.

Alexa Ashley: Do you remember one moment where you were closest to doing that in life? Or in career? 

Dolores Reynals: Yeah, I remember also when people were telling me to give up. I was like, “Oh, I hadn't thought about that.” I remember I was in London one of the times that I had lived away from London and then come back to London. I'd been living in Spain for a bit in Madrid. No, in Argentina then in Madrid. And then came back to London and then it was like, I was what, 30, yeah, 29. And I was working a million jobs, you know, like temping jobs and in an office and selling makeup in a new shoe shop. And I never had money to do anything. Because you know, I want  to be free from, you know, when you're a temp you can say “Tomorrow, I'm not coming to work because I have an audition or a gig.”

And so then that freedom is expensive. You make less money, you don't get paid for holidays and things like that. Or like when you're sick. And so I remember I was renting a room at my friend's house for a while. And then I slept on her sofa for a while. And she was like, “Oh, I wish that you could come to dinner with us and do things like that. And why didn't you just like, for once, try to just leave this acting stuff, you know, because, don't you want to have a life? And I was like, “Oh, that is my life. I don't care about going to dinner.” Do you know what I mean? 

But they were saying like, “What if you have money for a change? Wouldn't that be amazing? Why didn't you leave that acting thing? It's like, isn't it really tough?” And I was like “Yeah, it is really tough.” And I did consider it. I was like, “Oh, that would be so nice,” right? To have a salary and just leave the acting thing, you know, I did consider it for five minutes—five minutes. And then you're like, “No, I can't because this is just who I am. This is what I do.”

Alexa Ashley: Are you glad that you didn't give up?

Dolores Reynals: I don't know. Yeah, no, I am glad. Yeah. I mean….No yeah, I am. I am. I had this temping job once as a Human Resources Coordinator somewhere. And actually I started to make some money with it and I remember how my mom was so happy. My friends were happy that I could join, you know, my friends weren't actors. Because my friends who were actors were the same as me. They're all artists but I started to join those things. And then they said at that job, like, do you want to become a permanent at this place? And I said no. And I remember how disappointed my mom was and everybody. And yes you want to give up, but also you want to give up from other things, like you have an idea of how your life should go.

If you're an actor, right. Or if you're a, I don't know, a writer or etc. Any art thing, you have this idea or I had this idea like, “Okay, I'm a struggling actor.” And then there's a point where it becomes, it gets better and I get jobs, right. And I get paid from those jobs and then I get more jobs and then it becomes better.

But, that didn't happen, you know? You're up and you're down. And one day you're feeling something, the next day you're scene in the cutting room, in the bin of the cutting room and then the next day you're up and then you're down, you know that's the way it goes. So I think I wish I had relaxed more about that stuff and not had an idea of how it should go or not.

Alexa Ashley: It's hard to let go of expectations. And like part of being a dreamer is kind of having large expectations. 

Dolores Reynals: Yeah. I guess you're right. 

Alexa Ashley: Or else you don't really get anywhere.

Dolores Reynals: Yeah, exactly. You need some of that.

Alexa Ashley: Maybe it's like expectations—but holding them loosely. 

Dolores Reynals: Yes. Or like you should open up your mind as to what you can do or, you know, I wish I had. Because then even if you're an artist, there's an industry and the industry they kind of push you to what you should do as an artist and you should go this way and this is the way you should do it. And then your agent wants you to be like, they still like that, but you know, they need to make some money. And then you fall, and you can fall into a matrix inside of the arts too. 

Alexa Ashley: True. What do you feel has helped you keep your mind open the most in life? 

Dolores Reynals: I'm not that, you know, I sound like it. I'm not that open minded. I do crash against myself and go like, “Oh, you should open up your mind.” What has? I think experience. You end up having to. I think I'm lucky how I grew up because you know, not everybody comes from a home where they tell you that you have possibility. So even though I come from a conservative town, my parents always spoke about possibility—and then they try to control me, but they spoke about it. (laughter)

They made me read, you know, open up my mind. Reading has opened up my mind a lot. A lot. I think experience and the people that you meet. That too. I always knew that even though I like come from a place where everybody's kind of the same, I always knew I wanted to live in cities where people were different from each other.

Like it was more multicultural, more diverse. I always knew that I wanted to live in places like that. Even now in Tulum, we're in Mexico in a little jungle by the sea and it's pretty diverse. So yeah, I guess that opens up your mind.

Alexa Ashley: For sure. Just being around different people with different ideas. You said you still feel like you have room to grow in open-mindedness and stuff. Is there something that you feel kind of called to explore right now? 

Dolores Reynals: My life was going in one direction and a year ago it just went back into my direction. That opened up my mind. When I turned 40, I had an idea of what my life should be like, whether I like it or not. It's true. I had it, like, I think I did have an idea. I had an idea of what I should have done or how I should be settled, etc.—or how I should live. I don't know why I had that. Now I'm 41. Thank God. (Laugher) And it’s different now.

I'm living, I'm learning about following my instinct more because you think that growing up is—or getting older means that you'll turn into a certain person—you know, that this dreamer that I am is gonna turn into this settled, whatever that means, person that you know...and no way—I'm worse, the reality is I am worse, which is great. So I'm learning to accept that, you know, accepting who I really am and getting to know who I am and I think I do. So that's something I'm still learning.

Alexa Ashley: What are you learning the most right now about yourself? 

Dolores Reynals: For example, when I moved here, I was like, “Oh, I'm going to move in the middle of the jungle. I'm going to be alone.” Yeah, I like being alone, but I'm not so much of a loner. I like people more than I thought I did. That's something I learned. What else? I don't know many things I can think of. I accepted that some parts of us don't change much since we're like eight, you know—they shouldn't. (Laughter) I started writing more last year and also, you know, I'm learning that I have these stories and, and that I'm a storyteller in general, not the way I thought I was only, you know? 

I accepted that some parts of us don't change much since we're like eight—they shouldn't.

—Dolores Reynals

Alexa Ashley: I guess if we can dream, but hold our expectations lightly, what kind of impact would you like to have on the world or in your small community?

Dolores Reynals: Just not do any damage. (Laughter) I don't know. I would like to contribute...I want to tell stories, not just mine, other people's. What do I want to do? Yeah. Just connect, get people to connect to each other, to themselves. That's what I want to do. 

Alexa Ashley: That’s so important.

Dolores Reynals: It's a bit vague, right? It sounds vague, but that's it.

Alexa Ashley: As a fellow storyteller and lover of stories, what do you feel like, are the—let's assume that best in this context means your highest goal, which is to get people to connect to themselves and to each other—what would you say is the best part of stories? 

Dolores: Well, they reveal something unknown to you. Like in a good story, the person or creature, what happens to the thing going through the journey...something happens to them where their world changes, right? So something's revealed. Like what we learned, you know, we just opened a little new window in our mind, you know, that's what the stories do. Start to open windows in your mind, whatever that means. I don't know. I am not high. I do not do drugs.  (Laughter) But yeah, I don't know. It's the, what we can learn about each other, you know? And then understand each other better. 

Alexa Ashley: What do you feel like was revealed to you about yourself when your life has changed?

Dolores Reynals: You mean when my life has changed, like drastically? What I learned about?

Alexa Ashley: Like in your narrative and in your story. Those parts where something drastic changes, or you feel like was revealed to you about yourself? 

Dolores Reynals: Oh God. So much. Well, sometimes you learn about how strong you are or what you're doing that you realize, “Why am I doing this?” You know, “Actually I don't like this,” when those things happen, you kind of get a magnifying glass on yourself. Right? I then like, “Oh, look, let's change that.” Or, “Oh, this is where I am here. This is how strong I am or how weak I am here. There was a crack here.” Am I being vague again? Yes. I'm being very vague.

Alexa Ashley: This is the part where you start interviewing yourself. (Laughter) I like it. So much is revealed to us in those times where we feel like flipped over on our backs and we're like, “Ah, how do I get out? I don't know. Like can I get up?”

Dolores: Can I get up? Yeah, exactly.

Alexa Ashley: Maybe in closing, if there's one thing that you want to be known for what would you like to be known for? 

Dolores Reynals: Oh no, you say that. And I just want to put a cover on myself. No, just forget it. I don't know. No, no, there's nothing I want to be known for. Sorry. 

Well maybe someone who...somebody who said, “Fuck being realistic.” I don't know. It's just, if anything, yeah, at least it would be like, “Okay, well this one didn't give in.” That's it. “She didn't give in.” That's it. That's the one, “She didn't give in” or “give up.” She didn't give in. I don't even know if I'm saying it correctly. Because it’s in English. Do I really want to, is that what I want to say? “She remained herself.” 

Eyes Wide is supported by members around the world

Photography by Alexa Ashley

Theme music by Kymani Thomas

Audio Editing by Infinite Sounds

Listen above, on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Transcript:

Alexa Ashley: I'm Alexa Ashley, and this is Eyes Wide. In this episode, we get to hear from fashion, portrait and lifestyle photographer, Caitlyn Gaurano. She gives us an inside look at growing up in a sexist household and overcoming negativity to pursue joy. Caitlyn aims to create supportive, loving, and engaging communities for BIPOC and LGBTQ+ artists all around the world through artistry and creativity.

Alexa Ashley: So maybe tell me, what was it like growing up as you, as a kid, when you were like 10 or younger?

Caitlyn Gaurano: I'm trying to think back. Growing up felt like really... I just remember puberty, very intense and emotional, always crying, always angry as a kid, I always felt like I was smiley and jumpy and energetic. But then I had the opposite of that as well, where I was kicking, screaming, filled with so much rage and hate. Cause I didn't understand anyone's point of view.

I was just like, “I want this, how come they're not giving it to me?” sort of mentality or like, “I want my mother's attention. Why isn't she giving me that?” I was also very attached to my mom. She was the most comfortable thing for me. I feel like a lot of children are like that. Literally I never wanted to leave her side. Like she would be in the bathroom and I would be knocking on the door, like “Mom, can I come in?”

And she would sit me on her lap. I would have to be around her all the time. Even if she were taking a shower or like cooking or doing stuff, driving around, I'd be like, “I want to come. I want to be with you.” She was like a safe space for me. And growing up, I had... I'm one of seven, so there's a lot of siblings.

So a lot of people in the house, and it always seemed normal to me cause I didn't know anything else. When people always ask me, like, “Oh, how was that?” And like, it was fine. I mean of course there's a lot of fighting or we butt heads a lot. But there's always someone to play with.

Or like tease, we were such a teaseful family. Growing up, we were very teaseful. Like we would prank each other, do stupid shit. Yeah. But I was very connected to my sisters and I would always play games with them. We would host little radio shows on our cassette tapes. We were always dancing together.

My mom would put us in dance classes. My mom was very involved with us because my dad wanted us to homeschool. So she was our teacher. She also put us in like extracurricular activities. I felt like she really pushed us to find our interests and what we love to do. We didn't know, so she threw us into different activities, which was really awesome of her to do. I realized that I had a lot of privilege in that way too, because my parents gave me so much of an opportunity. And then of course I'm traumatized by the fact that my dad was so abusive growing up.

He has anger management issues and I would watch him tear my mother down mentally and hit her and abuse her. And then he would abuse my brothers, my older brothers. And he would abuse basically everyone. Yeah. He was very strong, he had a lot of strong energy that he was able to manipulate us into basically getting to do what he wants.

“... I just remember puberty, very intense and emotional, always crying, always angry as a kid, I always felt like I was smiley and jumpy and energetic. But then I had the opposite of that as well, where I was kicking, screaming, filled with so much rage and hate.”

—Caitlyn Gaurano

I would lay at night and I would share this with my siblings. And we all sort of felt the same thing that we would lay at night thinking like “What's tomorrow gonna be like?” So we would start to have anxiety. Like, “Is dad gonna hit us again tomorrow? Is he gonna be happy?”

“What's his emotions going to be like? I don't know. I don't know what tomorrow's going to bring, but I’m scared and I'm anxious about it.” And so that was basically every night. Living underneath that house with him was—Oh, man—going to bed was like, “Oh, today was finally a good day. Everything went smoothly. I didn't piss off my dad. He didn't get angry at me. I did everything he wanted me to do. We're good.”

And then he would snap or something and you're like, “Fuuuck.” Yeah. And then of course, like being homeschooled, it's like, you're stuck in that shit. You have nowhere else to go. You just have like these extra curricular activities that kind of save you from the house of anger. So yeah, that's what it was like being young.

Alexa Ashley: That's super cool that your mom encouraged you to find what you all are passionate about. Do you think part of that would be to help you get out of that house too? Or do you think it was just purely like wanting to help you all find what you're interested in?

Caitlyn Gaurano: The more that I analyzed my family and my parents, she was sort of like projecting off of what her parents didn't do. Her parents still love her. But, she wanted to give even more because she loved being creative.

She loved playing the piano. She loved singing. She loved Broadway. She loves writing. And yet she became a pharmacist. I think it was to please her parents. And so when she gave us the opportunity to put us in all these different things, I think she wanted us to explore that creativity that she had too.

And I think she wanted us to see us do something more with it, instead of something that she couldn't. I think it was because she was just sort of projecting off of her need for creativity. She wanted her kids to experience that joy, that the creativity you get does to you. And it really does foster a lot of life and curiosity about the world and joy.

So I feel like she really wanted us to have that. Yeah, it sucks that she was with my dad because I feel like everything happens for a reason, but like, he really didn't like what she was trying to do for us. I love dancing so much. And the only reason why I was able to dance was because my mom put me in these dance classes and then I started to love it and she saw that I enjoyed it so much.

So she kept pushing me to be in more classes and then I started to compete and actually take it seriously. And it was my dad that pulled me out of the whole thing that I enjoyed. And then I thought dance really was my life. I was like, “What can I do with this? I don't know, but I love it.”

And then he sort of put one perspective on it where, you know, “Is it really gonna make you any money, Caitlyn? What can you do with it? That doesn't work in this world,” sort of thing. So he pulled me out of that and it twisted my whole reality of like, “You can't make a living with art and joy, that's not a possibility.” So he was like the complete opposite of my mom who's exerting love and joy through art and creativity and music.

Alexa Ashley: It sucks that you can have one parent that is supportive but then it can't completely make up for the other parent. It feels like it should be able to balance out, but it's still hard. You talked about those periods of having extreme joy and exuberance.Then like the swing side of rage and sadness. Do you have a sense of where that came from? Why it was like that for you?

Caitlyn Gaurano: So the joy that I had was like, when things were very light and I mean, as a kid, I was just always happy to be around people that were laughing and who I felt were welcoming. Wait, what's the question really? Sorry.

Alexa Ashley: I was wondering if you had a sense or was able to process, where those kinds of extreme ends came from or that rage?

Caitlyn Gaurano: I dunno. I always felt like when I was angry, I loved to stay in that anger. Cause I didn't know what else to do with it....you built all this energy up and it explodes and it's sort of addicting and you don't want to let go of it because it feels so good. And it's really more of a cry for like, “I just need attention.”

I didn't know what kind of needs I wanted. Cause I didn't know how to communicate that. As a kid, you're using examples from your parents. So if your parents lash out, the only way you know how to react to certain things or how to be is angry. So I never saw a really calm family.

I wasn't in a calm family and when I was a kid, I would go to friend's houses and I'd be like, “Wow, it's so calm in here. Like no one is upset. Everyone's really quiet,” but going to my house, it's like, it has to be loud. It had to be, cause my dad was monstrous—as a visual—with his energy.

And there was always screaming, there was always loud music playing. I mean, it was always just loud inside, but even with my mom, she sounded like—she was a very wonderful person, but she wasn't perfect either. And she would also have anger issues because of what she was dealing with, with my dad at the time.

And I didn't know, but she would be angry as well. And so, I didn't know how to control my anger because I saw my parents as examples of how to be. I thought that was like the way, you know.

Alexa Ashley: That makes sense. You mentioned your mom was super supportive and got you in all these things and was also your anchor. It seems like you're saying you were feeling a desire for more attention.

Caitlyn Gaurano: Yeah. I think it's because it's like that middle child syndrome that people love to talk about every time I'm like, “Oh yeah I'm the middle child.” They're like, “Oh, you've got the middle child syndrome.” And I didn't quite understand, but yeah, I just, I feel like sometimes growing up in that family, I just never felt really seen or heard—that I was just kind of like forgotten about. But then when I talked to my younger sister, she felt like the middle child, she felt like she wasn't seen and heard.

So I think it's just like a common denominator for most. The boys were always highly respected by my dad and I'd be really jealous when he would pull them aside only. I felt like he was sharing the secret of wealth and money management. And I wanted to be a part of that.

And I remember sneaking into the office and they were having a meeting and I wanted to stay for a bit. And my dad was like, “Oh Honey, can you just go and shut the door? I’m having a talk with the boys. We're doing a talk with the boys only.” And they were talking about stocks and everything.

And I was like, so interested. So it was also very like a sexist household. Like it just annoyed me that I couldn't, why can't I have that information as well? So I just felt like I was kind of treated as like this dumb, pretty girl and I really took that to heart because I would always blame myself and say that I'm stupid. And that was my inner dialogue, “I'm stupid. I'm fucking stupid. I'm stupid. I'm stupid. I don't know anything like that.” I don't get it because homeschooling was so hard for me. School was hard. I didn't understand anything or I didn't know how to interpret the information that I was receiving.

And so my mom would go and find educators to test me, to see if I had a disability and it ended up that I had some sort of learning disability, but I was so good at other things like dance. I was able to pick up movement and understand music and body movement through that. Science, math and all of that shit was just so hard. Writing was so hard. It just never stuck the way that music and dance did.

“As a photographer, it's cool ‘cause you get to meet different creatives all the time. I think the art scene in any city is so cool because you meet open-minded people. Like these are the types of people I would want to be around all the time…I found that my camera has given me this avenue to reach these amazing people.”

—Caitlyn Gaurano

Alexa Ashley: It seems like music and dancing still gives you a lot of life and expression today— despite what your dad told you or withheld from you. You made your own business doing photography and realizing your dreams.

Caitlyn Gaurano: I think that has motivated me to prove that I'm not stupid...maybe thinking that my dad thinks that about me, “Oh, she's just a girl just playing around with the camera.” I think that constantly makes me want to push myself.

I've worked really hard at my photography career. I found something that I really have enjoyed. I thought about going back into dance and it's always still there. I just get tired easily. I've done a lot and I'm still growing my business and still trying to navigate it. And it's been really hard and a lot of fun—hard and so rewarding and it feels so good to be in control of something that a lot of people don't want to do.

Actually photography is very saturated, but it feels like my own thing that I can call my own and yeah, it's been a journey. I've been in many different little art shows around Brooklyn. And then it grew to me moving back home and curating my own fashion shoots and then getting them published in online magazines and then networking with different artists around San Diego and finally connecting with this dope woman who found my work to be good enough to be in her gallery to have my own solo show. And it's been so exciting ever since.

As a photographer, it's cool cause you get to meet different creatives all the time. I think the art scene in any city is so cool because you meet open-minded people. Like these are the types of people I would want to be around all the time. Instead of like finance bros or like people that only care about money all the time. And money is great too. But when you center it into your life, it's so capitalistic and it's just on the surface sort of thing.

And people don't like vulnerability. And don't like to seek other forms of living, spirituality or religion or whatever, deeper talks. I don't know. I found that my camera has given me this avenue to reach these amazing people.

Alexa Ashley: I know that the journey—being a professional creative—can be so hard and a lot of our parents in America don't really value art because we are such a Capitalist country and nation. And since Capitalist ideas are ingrained, the country values what is going to make the most money. And for some reason, art is not seen as that. And a small percentage of creatives makes a lot. And for most, it's medium and then a lot of artists just get washed away here by just the sheer struggle of pushing yourself so hard to make a living out of it. You started in studying fashion and then photography. What was that driving force for you growing up and then pursuing that in school?

Caitlyn Gaurano: I think art is appreciated in certain cities. Like the big ones in the States, New York, for sure. I don't know how much money the city funds the art budget but I'm sure most of it goes to the big galleries which kind of sucks cause they already have so much money. And maybe LA as well, but it always has to be in a capitalistic view.

Photography goes more into the direction of like Instagram and like influencers and marketing. But the art part of it is really beautiful. The way people capture their surroundings, how they capture humans. Where is the funding for that? And I feel like that's really under appreciated—the art side of photography, the fine art photography part.

So I think I'm just trying to navigate that, what do I really want to do? Continue to make money for people and brands or make photos for me and see if that could sell even more? So, it's like a constant conflict and I think I could do both. I don't see why not...what brings me more joy? Probably just doing my own shit. Right?

I started off doing fashion. I went to the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising because I didn't know what I wanted to do after high school. I wish I knew that people could just take a year off after graduation and travel the world.

...I just felt the pressure of people saying, “Oh, well, what are you going to do after high school?” And I really didn't have a plan. All my friends had plans—it's like, that was like their goal in life was to go to a certain college.

My dad even was like, “This is your goal in life is to go to college.” It wasn't like, “Well, what do you want to do for the rest of your life?” And I felt like I really never had the time to explore. I mean, you're just a kid when you're coming out of high school and you have to now decide forever, what you want to do with your life?

So I felt like I chose fashion because I thought that sounded fun and I do love fashion. I think it's another creative outlet to express yourself. I think it's so much fun when people don't really give a fuck about how they look in public and they just wear whatever they want. And it always turns out really amazing.

I got a Business Management major and I forgot what degree? Oh God—no—merchandise. Sorry. (Laughing) I got an AA in Merchandise Marketing and then a BS in Business Management. And I thought I wanted to become a buyer because I knew people. They said that you make a lot of money. And that was my only goal was like, “Okay, well I want to make a lot of money.” And then I learned when I had a copywriting job that I hated being behind a desk and it wasn't fun for me.

I always had a job in retail. That was like my only job for the longest time...retail. And I was really good with people. And so I felt like through those retail jobs, I realized that I knew how to communicate. And I was really interested in people's stories because I was also curious how I could live my life.

And so I loved asking people a lot of questions and I'm sure maybe they were annoyed, but they were very giving of their stories. So when I moved to New York, I never really got into the art scene that intensely until I moved there and met Kel (Kelli Lucas) and all her friends, and it was through them that I realized like, wow, you can make a living with art.

Like that's so cool. So photography just sort of spoke to me because I was moving to a city where I experienced everything that I never knew I could. And so I wanted to keep those memories. So I started taking photos and then they looked really cool and people were like, “Oh wow. Like, you should take it seriously.” And I didn't think about that for a while. And I got really excited about it. And then I just started contacting my friends to model, contacted people with cool brands to use their clothes. And that's how it really kicked off.

It was stressful because I didn't know what I was doing, but invigorating because I was now creating something that I didn't know I could.

Alexa Ashley: Did you have to navigate conversations or emotions—within yourself or externally—with your dad on doing art? What was that dialogue like? Whether internal or with him? How has that been?

Caitlyn Gaurano: After my mom and dad divorced, we stopped talking to him. My mom put a restraining order on him, so he wasn't really allowed to contact us or see us without a third party there. And I decided to not really reach out to him or talk to him because it was so good without him—like amazing.

It was really hard. He was the breadwinner for a really long time. So we were financially secure. And then when the divorce hit, it was so hard for my mom, for us…My siblings and I just decided to not talk to him anymore. And so his voice wasn't really in my head when I decided to do photography. I would talk to my mom and she was so supportive.

She's like, “Oh my God, I love that. I think that's so exciting for you. You're such a visual person.” So she really backed me up and helped me gain more confidence to like, “okay, yeah, I could do this. I could become a photographer.” So when I told my dad that I was a photographer, when we did get a chance to talk, yeah, he had a tone where it was like, “Ohhhhh,” like a tone that was making me feel like I wasn't good enough.

And I felt like I had to prove myself again to him and that was like a long time ago. Now I don't really give a fuck what he thinks because he is someone that needs help and is the type of person that doesn't want to get help. He says he does. And he says he's like doing all these things, but he's just the person that still blames and holds on to things and victimizes himself after, I don't even know. I think it's been like almost 20 years. He's still in that time of like when everything happened—of the divorce.

Alexa Ashley: An important learning lesson for people that are struggling with a voice—whether it's in themselves or from somebody else—that is not supportive of who they are. Sometimes the best, most healthiest option, is to just cut it out. I think that can be scary and hard for a lot of people, but it seems like it was helpful for you in your trajectory to being your fullest self—that joyful, happy self. That's your true self. Do you have any words of wisdom or advice for a younger you, that was in the depths of that household and struggling with not being seen or being seen and not appreciated for who you are—being told that you have to be something different? What would you say to them?

Caitlyn Gaurano: So the advice that I would give to myself when I wasn't feeling seen or heard by my family is just to not take it personally, that everyone has their own path. If you feel like your family is not hearing you, maybe they're going through something too that you don't know about. Everyone is traumatized.

Everyone is going through something. And it's okay to not always know if they're going through something or not, but to just focus on you and to not give up on yourself, to keep exploring stuff that makes you feel good. And to do those things only, you should not try and do things just to get attention from others because that's not going to make you happy.

Alexa Ashley: I saw your work on your website and it's amazing and super innovative and quirky and expanding and creative. I love what you've been doing here (at the Sanah Art Residency in Tulum, Mexico)—your latest portrait and how you have been talking about coming into your sexuality and feeling free. How you're dropping more into that, doing what you love and what feels good with photography and seemingly like your personal life stuff too. What has that journey been like?

Caitlyn Gaurano: Thank you. I love all those comments, that makes me feel really good. I love the way you describe my photography, cause I never can put words to it. I sort of come to like a stop with my photography almost. And I've been feeling like I didn't know where to take it. I felt like fashion is really fun, but sometimes the people that you want to collaborate with, maybe don't want to, and it kind of ruins it. For a fashion shoot, you need really awesome people. And it's been hard because of COVID and you have to do everything all over Instagram. And usually that's how I do it, but I make better connections in person. And I feel like when people understand my vibe, my energy, they'll want to fuck with me and actually do shit with me.

Online it's been hard for me to communicate that sort of energy. I like taking photos of myself, but not that much. I don't find it that fun to do. Cause I don't see myself being constantly on the gram. I've been trying to explore some deeper meaning behind what I show on camera, through my eyes.

And I guess it has been about me. It's kind of funny. Cause I said, I didn't like to be on the gram all the time, but this trip, I didn't know what to expect. I've been growing more spiritually for sure. I grew up in a very Catholic conservative family and that sort of inspired me somehow to seek spirituality without really a construct—a religion to be part of.

I felt like that (Catholicism) was very constricting for me. There's so many rules. There's so many things about heaven and hell. And there wasn't enough about us living on earth. It wasn't focused more on living and living life to the fullest and coming to terms with trauma and having more empathy—because that’s going to make you feel good.

Religion felt more about, you got to do this because if you don't, you're going to hell. So it was like, we were preparing more for death rather than for life. And why did I talk about that? Oh yeah. So being here (in Tulum), it's just sort of really relaxed me and I knew I wanted to document this trip and the people that were in it.

And so that was my main goal, but I didn't think I was going to do something on me. And I think it's been the relationship with Kel on this trip. We've had something before in the past and then being here together sort of sparked that again—a new sort of beautiful relationship again, because at the time I was very scared and hesitant and here I feel more comfortable with myself.

Like before I was on this trip, I've already been healing myself, becoming more comfortable with my own identity. And it just feels really right to be here with all these different personalities that are so amazing, that listen, that are here for you, supportive. It just made me realize that life doesn't have to be the same.

That's why I love meeting people because their stories are like, “Oh yeah, I lived here. I lived in Thailand for a year. And then I moved here for two years and I've gone and talked to the monks in wherever. And I'm so enamored by a life lived so freely and this (Sanah Art Residency in Tulum) for me felt very free.”

There was no routine. There was no plan. We're staying here for free because of an exchange for art, like how cool is that? I've never had that opportunity. So I wanted to challenge myself in a way to take this time, to let go of all the pressures and stresses of life that the city always gives you. And I still feel those pressures. On this journey, it's like the only pressure that I had to think about was like, what was I going to create?

I feel like that was such a whirlwind of words, but I guess the creation behind my self portrait was that I am now finally understanding a little bit more of my identity. I still don't think I know everything about me yet, because every time I say that “I'm this,” I learn something even more, then I'm like, “Whoa, I didn't even think about that.”

I didn't expect myself to become this amazing person—or not that I'm amazing. You know what I mean? I'm amazing. But I just said that so that I can manifest or put that out as a positive affirmation about myself.

Alexa Ashley: What do you think in this latest piece that you are letting go of or learning about yourself or expressing?

Caitlyn Gaurano: “This piece, it's a reminder for me to let me know that I am more than I will ever know. That I am more, that I am a badass bitch, that I have value being here and that I am worth it. And I'm not small. That I am this force.” So that's why the butterflies are there. Because it expands my energy out into the world.

“This piece—it's a reminder…that I am more than I will ever know…that I am a badass bitch, that I have value being here and that I am worth it. And I'm not small. That I am this force.”

—Caitlyn Gaurano

Eyes Wide is supported by members around the world

Photography by Alexa Ashley (#1, #2 & #3) & Caitlyn Gaurano (all others)

Theme music by Kymani Thomas

Hosted by Alexa Ashley

Audio Editing by Infinite Sounds

Listen above, on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Transcript:

Alexa Ashley: I'm Alexa Ashley, and this is Eyes Wide. In this episode, we get to hear from master lightworker, nature chaser and photographer, SnipezArt. He gives us an intimate look at what it was like being introduced to photography through skateboarding and how being robbed at gunpoint changed his life.

SnipezArt: I feel like the coast (Oregon Coast) is always a place that you can go to any time of the year— it’s like an escape for me. I feel like when I go to the coast, like whatever stuff I was dealing with back in the city, I can just come to the coast and just like wash it all the way and kind of have a refresh on life.

The coast always puts me in this state of mind of peace and happiness and like, everything is going to be okay. The coast is just amazing. It's water, you know, I just enjoy all the elements but the coast for sure is the best vibe for me. And plus I'm from Florida, you know?

So I'm used to going to the beach. And seeing the sunset and seeing the water. Another reason why I like to come out here to the coast is because there's a skate park out here at Cannon Beach. Sometimes I'll just hop out, park, skate over to the coffee shop or something and then roll around the skate park. And then it's just right here on the coast.

My homie, Isaiah, amazing, amazing skateboarder. An amazing photographer and I kinda always skated with him and he had a Facebook and I was like, “Yo, what's up with these shots?” I was like, “Are you like a photographer or something?” And he was like, “Yeah, man I like to shoot, you know, on my free time as a hobby.” And I was like, “Wow.” I was like, “Damn, that's dope. Like you making those photos look dope.” And I was like, “How do you do that?” And at the time he was a big fan of shooting the light trail photos with the dragging lights and stuff like that, you know?

And I was like, “Man, it just looks so dope. I want to actually learn how to do that.” And I didn't get into it right away. I just kinda kept looking at his stuff. And then I kind of saw a couple of friends that he had that were other photographers. And I was like, “Wow so there's a community of like photographers out here, just shooting.”

And then I moved to Spokane Washington for like five months. My homie lives in Spokane and he's like a rapper. He's a good guy. And he's like, “Yo, you should come out to Spokane and just visit man.” And he was like, “Yo (it was about to be Halloween) we can go to the theme park out here in Idaho.”

And I was like, “Okay.” So I drove to Spokane to hang out with him. And then that's when I started fucking taking photos. I worked at this tire shop and every morning it was super cold and there would be snow on the ground. So on the way to work, I would just take random photos of snow and like maybe the sunrise. I would leave at like 6:30 and the sunrise would be coming up.

So the sunrise was dope with the snow and the trees and I didn't know how to accept nature at the time and shit just looked tight. And then I fucking left, drove to Florida and then when I got back from Florida, after a month, I went to the pawn shop and bought a camera. And then I just had this whole, like eye-opener of what I wanted to do. I wanted to do something different.

My mind works crazy but it's like I know what I'm doing. It's like, I don't know. I've always been 10 steps ahead in life. So I've always just been like, “You know, if you do this and do that, then you can manage to do this. And if that don't work out, you'll still have this to fall back on and do this and do that. So just fucking try it.”

I go through worst case scenarios first...that's what helps you figure out your 10 steps ahead process. Cause it's not gonna work out like every time or how you want it...I got robbed at gunpoint, you know, set up on a photo shoot. I trusted a friend and they introduced me to someone and the girl that wanted to shoot with me ended up just kind of just being a front and it was all a set up and it was impulsive because I wanted to shoot photos and I wanted to shoot photos of a cute girl and she was down to hang out with me.

So I was like, “Cool, well, I'm down to hang out and like, shoot some photos, like whatever she's hot,” you know, but not thinking that what's about to happen is totally not what I had in plan and I didn't even have nothing in plan. I just wanted to hang out with her and shoot photos, you know? And I wasn't trying to hook up with her or nothing like that, because she was already kind of talking to my friend, but my friend was like, “Yo, she's not my girl. She's from LA, just shoot photos, like, she's cool.” And I was like, “Yeah, I'm down.” And then, when she robbed me with the guy that showed up, they both just left. And they left me at the beach, took my car, took my camera, took my phone, took my debit cards and they just left me there.

I walked the strip for like two minutes and I saw this guy walking his dog and it was at like nine at night. It had just got dark. And I was like, “Someone really just robbed me right here in a parking lot of Alki Beach, like okay.” But what's crazy is that my first thought told me in my head, I was like, “I hope she's not trying to rob me or something.”

And it was just super sketchy and she was acting super sketchy. She was texting on the phone, like the whole time we were driving to the beach and none of that shit added up until after I got robbed. And then I saw everything and I was like, dude, you were so blinded by her beauty. You didn't even know that she was setting up a robbery the whole time she was in your passenger seat. Just texting some guy. Because when we pulled up to the parking lot, I noticed there was a weird car parked across. And like, it was the only car there. So I was like, whatever, like it's Alki, I'm always here.

I always come over here and I shit you not, dude walks up and is like, “Hey man, you got a cigarette?” And I was like, “No, I don't smoke cigarettes, man.” And he walks away and then I like turn around and there's this fucking shadow that just comes right back and I'm like “The fuck?” And I'm just seeing this shadow and he just walks in front of me.

He just pulled out two guns and I was like, “Okay, not only does he got one, he's got two.” So I was like “The fuck?” And then he pointed the gun at me and then pointed it at her. And he was like, “Get on the fucking ground.” And she was like, “Oh my God.” And she threw her phone down, acting like she was getting robbed with me.

And then he made me take my hoodie off and lay face first in the grass and like put the gun in the back of my head. And then all of a sudden I heard footsteps run and she ran off, but it wasn't like a scary runoff. Cause I mean, someone that's going to run from you, the dude's either going to try to shoot you or he's going to try to run after you and then leave me there.

It was weird. The next thing you know he grabbed my keys, my camera. And he was like, “Just don't move, lay there, keep your face in the ground.” I heard my door close and then I saw my car back up. And then when I saw my car back up and take off out the lot, I saw the same red Ford Taurus pull right behind my car.

And they both just jetted out. And I was like, “That was a fucking setup because the girl that was with me is gone. Like it ain't like she ran and got scared and like, Oh my God and ran down to like a coffee shop or something. She left me and went with him.” So he jumped in my car and she took his car and they both just left.

It's really true when they say you see the light, you see this weird movie flashback for about 10 seconds and it runs across your face. It's like this thing that you see before you die. And only people that are about to die are going to see it. And if you don't die, then you're back to normal, but right before you're about to die, you get this weird fucking flashback that comes across your face like a screen. I swear to God, like it was…it was crazy.

So from ‘86 when I was born to like my dad pushing me in a Power Wheel, to me being in middle school, dating one of the hottest girls at Workman middle school for like a weekend, me getting laid for the first time, me skating, me dating chicks. It was a weird flashback that all happened within 10 seconds. From start to finish from ‘86 ‘till now. And it was scary. And I was just like, I had my eyes closed and I was just like, “This dude is about to kill me.” I was like, “He's about to shoot me in the back.”

I was like, “He's probably going to take everything I own (and I've already seen his face cause he's not wearing a mask) and he's probably going to shoot me.” So I was like, “I'm dead...my mom doesn't even know I'm laying here face first in the grass about to die.” And the only thing I could think of was if I died, like that'd be fucked up. That's the last thing my mom would want is a phone call of me getting robbed for photography and blah, blah, blah. You know? So after that I was just like damn dude, that shit was crazy. After that, my dad was like, “Yeah, don't try to retaliate. Don't go looking for the girl,” blah, blah, blah. “You know, you gotta just leave it in God's hands and just keep doing what you're doing.”

Cause he just was like, “Dude, there's no point, you didn't lose your life. It's a car and a camera. Like you didn't lose your life. So you got a chance to walk home.” So after they took my shit, I called the cops or whatever, and they went looking for the car and they found the car like a couple miles up.

They just went through my shit and just threw the keys somewhere and left the car on the side of the road. Cops said the car was running when they showed up and there was no keys. No, no, no. I'm sorry. The car wasn't running. I'm sorry. They said the trunk was open and it was just sitting there, but there was no keys.

So they had to tow it and I was like, “Why did you guys tow it?” I was like, “You guys should have called me first so I could come see the car. I got my own key, now you just towed it.” But he was like, “Dude, if you really got robbed, like you say you did. Then you're going to get the car out of the tow yard for free cause they're not going to charge you...are you sure it wasn't like a drug deal gone wrong or something?” And I was like, “What? A drug deal?” I was like, “Are you serious? You think I pulled up to Alki to do a drug deal? And I got robbed.”

I was like, “Bruh, look up my Instagram...I just made an Instagram not too long ago...“I got like 3000 followers, I really do photography. Go look at my stuff...here's the girl that robbed me right here...that's what she looks like. This is her Twitter. This is her Instagram, this girl right here. I'm a photographer. I am the victim here,” you know? And they were just like, “All right, well, blah, blah, blah.”

And then they kept my car for like a month and a half dude. And I was like, “So what's up with my Beamer?” And they were just like, “Yeah, we're still trying to, you know, blah, blah, blah.”

And I was like, “You know what? Give me my car. And I was like, release my car right now.” And they were like, “Well, if we release your car now, then the case is over. Then that's going to look suspicious on your end.” And I was like, “No, give me my car...there's no drugs in my car. There's no weed in my car. There's no liquor in my car...there's no residue of anything,” because at the time I didn't smoke weed. I didn't start smoking weed until after I got robbed. So I was like, “Dude, there's nothing drug related in that car. The car's in my name.”

And it definitely made me look at people way different. I'm way more alert on who was around me. I'm way more alert on what's going on. I'm way more alert on who's walking behind me and all of that. It's crazy.

Eyes Wide is supported by members all over the world. Find out more.

Photography by Alexa Ashley & SnipezArt

Theme music by Kymani Thomas

Hosted by Alexa Ashley

Audio Editing by Mo Isu

Listen above, on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Transcript:

Alexa Ashley: This is Alexa Ashley with Eyes Wide. In January of 2020, I got to sit down with makeup artist, model, and designer, Elliott Rae Stone, to talk about technicality and gender expression as art.

Elliott Ray Stone: I was a very curious child. I did ask a lot of questions and I still do ask a lot of questions. I think then I just didn't know what questions to ask. I would ask questions and not really be able to get any answers because nobody really knew how to answer the questions that I was asking, because they were very nonspecific.

They weren't questions that necessarily had answers. And so now I know how to ask a question. I do remember I was one of those kids, I'd go play outside and make mud pies and we had animals. And so we would run around with our dogs and do sports, that's what I remember from being a kid.

As I got into being probably like 10 and 11, my mom was actually a Creative Memories—I forget what they're called—but the ones who sell the supplies for scrapbooking. So I actually really got into scrapbooking for a while because my mom had all the supplies and I was like, I want to do that.

It's fun shapes and colors and pictures. And I got to use little cutters and stamps and stickers. And I do remember my grandma used to host card-making parties where you would do embossing and you get to play with glitter and felt tip pens. I do remember being interested in wanting to participate in a lot of that, but I wasn't necessarily ever given the opportunity to participate because it was all the adults. I didn't start doing art until closer to middle school, high school. I was president of the tech club at school. And I was on the board of directors for the art club in high school. But when I was really, really young, it was all about sports and learning.

So I was playing soccer and I was doing school and AP classes and extracurriculars and it wasn't until I got to college that I actually started exploring the creative side of my brain. Because I started school as a chemistry major, anticipating doing science the rest of my life.

And I didn't know what kind of science I just knew that was what I was going to go to school for. And then after a year I was like, I just don't love it. I don't feel passion for it. I don't really want to do it anymore. And so I actually changed my major without telling my family. I was working at school over the summer and I was just thinking a lot about what I liked about the science program and what I didn't, and it ultimately came down to, I didn't love the math, I didn't love the actual science. I loved the visual reality of science.

So when we were doing the reactions and we got to make things change color in the test tubes by adding different chemicals or when we got to light something on fire and it grew, or it had a blue flame or a purple flame, like that's what I loved. And then I realized that design was something that kind of mixed the technical with the art. So it took me a couple of tries to get there. First I thought maybe I'll do English or maybe I'll do writing. I didn't have any clue. So I was just taking my common core curriculum.

And then I think I took, I want to say it was either an art history class or like a sculpture class. And once I took that class, I was like, this is what I want to do. I like the technicality and I like the art. Then I realized that a lot of the technical things that I was doing as a kid were artistic.

It just didn't feel like it because of the mentality that I had had, because when I was president of the tech club, I was doing web design. We were learning coding and so I was doing a lot with color and color theory and yes, I was doing it in a programming language, but I was creating art essentially.

And we would do little video games in flash or like it was basically a multimedia course. So we would do little things here and there. And I was in a pottery class. So it shouldn't have been a surprise to my family because half of my family are artists.

My mom's side of the family, her sister's husband is a designer and a 3d artist. Her brother is a graphic designer. My dad's mom is a painter. It's not too far off from the rest of my family. It's just that wasn't a part of our culture growing up because my dad was in technology. So that's like what we assumed we all were going to do.

And then now as an adult, I realize how much more art can be. So drag is a crazy art form. And so, I've done drag a couple of times just to kind of have fun with expression and honestly gender is art. And so even experimenting with how I present in gender has been really awesome to explore in the concept of art and what I can do with clothing and fashion and makeup and hair.

I feel like honestly art can be anything that elicits a reaction out of another person. There's so much, I've been watching Glow Up on Netflix, which is a makeup artistry show. And one of the things that they talk about is, it makes us have different opinions, it's art, because it makes us have different opinions about it.

And so I thought that was really cool. Gender and the exploration of gender has been around since the dawn of time. There have always been people who don't feel like they fit into the construct of gender. And that's proven with Native American two-spirit people, they literally have a word for it.

And that was before colonizers came over and created the Americas. So I definitely do get a lot of heteronormative CIS people who are shocked or confused. And I think it's just because they don't necessarily understand the scope. They don't understand that kind of the lack of a binary.

That's all they know life is, like black and white, man and woman, fire and ice. There's two opposite and opposing things. They don't realize it's on a spectrum and there's a lot in the middle too, and a lot on either side. So drag is an expression of hyper-femininity, and that's kind of why drag exists.

This was an exploration of that. And then you have drag kings who are the opposite side of the spectrum, which is an exploration of hyper-masculinity. But then you also have men and women, and then you have kind of everything in between where as an assigned male at birth who leans towards a lot of traditionally more feminine things, I never fit into one or the other.

I was always kind of somewhere in the middle. So the fact that I've been able to explore that and kind of interact with people in that way has been a lot, there've been definitely some instances where I'm afraid and then there are some instances where I feel really free.

Now it's gotten to the point of kind of just being comfortable. So if I'm going out and I haven't shaved and I'm not wearing makeup but I want to wear a pair of heels and a dress, I don't feel weird because I used to feel like I had to present as feminine or masculine. Like those are the only two options, but surrounding myself with people who kind of break those norms has kind of allowed me to be comfortable and expressing that.

So now I'm like, I kind of just do whatever the fuck I want. If I feel super feminine one day with my body, but not my face. I'm fine with that. If I want to just be scrubbing it in like a pair of sweats and a sweatshirt, but go full glam, I'll do that too. I think honestly, I kind of get joy now out of eliciting a reaction from people in whatever way it is, whether it's confused or excited or angry, because it starts a dialogue, it starts a conversation about it. I'm very passionate about helping people understand the dynamic of gender. When I'm wearing four-inch stilettos— because I'm already 6 feet tall—so when I wear stilettos I'm 6,4.

So I'm this very, very tall, thin person walking around in the city and people are like, who's that? What's going on? Is something happening? But more so than anything, I think the biggest joy I experience when I present as more feminine or as confusing to people, is little kids.

My favorite thing is when little kids come up and ask me, like, “are you a boy or a girl?” And I can have that conversation and say, neither, I don't feel one way or the other, or when a kid will ask their parents, and then it forces that parent to have that conversation. I've gotten to overhear some really, really nice conversations.

There's been some that aren't so nice, but I've gotten to kind of hear the goodness of people through how parents explain to their kids the openness of gender. There was one conversation in particular. I was at work and I was wearing a dress and heels and makeup and this little kid asked their parent what gender I was essentially.

And then the parent was like, why don't you go ask? So then this little kid came over to me and was like, “are you a boy or a girl?” And I told them, “both or neither, I don't necessarily feel one way or the other.” And then they went back to their parent and asked, “what does that mean?”

And so then the parent was able to explain that sometimes people don't feel like a boy or a girl and they kind of just like to look how they want to look. And I was like, that's so wholesome. And I love that they did that and took the time to educate their kid, instead of just being prejudiced or close-minded about it.

I think it helps that I'm a really nice person too. So I never get upset at people. And so if people are rude or don't know. Like when people ask my pronouns, I'm like, whatever you want. Literally I don't care. I respond to any of them. And it honestly depends on how I feel at the time.

So some days I do feel like I'm more gender neutral. And so then I'm like, oh, they them works. Or like some days I do feel more masculine. So I'm like, oh, he him. And then other days I'm presenting very feminine in those times I'm usually like she, or they works just as well. So people are always very appreciative that I don't care. But it took a long time to get there. I mean, I would say the last two to three years have probably been the most explorative of  gender and identity and have brought me to the point where I don't care. Because before that I was very aware and that was one of my buttons that people would push on purpose and I'm like, whatever.

I don't know that it was necessarily a trigger. I think just for so long, I felt like I had to pretend to be something that I wasn't. That anytime I wasn't identified in the way that I was trying to present, I got upset and was basically like, “How do I fix that? How do I make it seem like I am more masculine and identify as he,” so I shaved my head or would wear short buzz cuts or very short hairstyles.

And I would wear baggy jeans and boots instead of well-fitting clothing. I have always had a higher voice and that's one of the things I haven't ever been able to change. And so after college, when I moved to Seattle, to the Hill(Capitol Hill), instead of Queen Anne, was when I kind of finally started meeting people who didn't necessarily identify one way or the other.

And it allowed me to explore comfortably because I knew that they were respectful and that they were a part of that community. It was more so just a shift in my thought process, but it had to happen. And so it happened and it's great. I guess I did explore it a little bit as a kid, but in secret.

I would always try on my mom's heels, when she wasn't there, if she had any, I don't actually remember that she had any, but I would try on her flats, like the ballet flats that have the cute little accessories. Or I would always sneak in her makeup bag and put lipstick on or mascara or something, but there wasn't a space to explore it because my family was very masculine growing up.

It's all guys except for my mom. So I have two brothers and my dad. And so we would do hunting and fishing and dirt biking and outdoors and cars. It's really funny sometimes. And sometimes I honestly do it on purpose, but sometimes I will look super feminine and then I will participate in really masculine activities just to like fuck with people.

Because a lot of people don't know I helped my parents build our house. So I know how to do carpentry and electrical work and painting and siding and scaffolding. I know how to fix cars. I can change the oil, I can do engine work. I can pop the lights out and do like replacements on headlights and taillights and detailing. And I used to ride motorcycles. So when people talk about street bikes or dirt biking, I can actually participate in conversation. So I'm sitting there, in a dress and stilettos and a red lipstick, and I'm talking about things like, how to fix the car engine, or what to do if your radiator's overheating.

And people are like, wait, what? You know how to do what? And then there are other times where I'll be sitting somewhere in like a trench coat and I've got my glasses on, a beanie and I look very like, not broey, but like very hipster, very Seattle. And I'm talking about doing ornate calligraphy or baking or traditionally more feminine activities.

Like how I love to clean, because it's a stress reliever and I'm like, really like, what? So that's always fun. I was born in Florida, but my family moved here when I was two. So I just consider born and raised in Maple Valley (Washington) basically. It was fine. I mean, it's a small town, it was a small town when I was growing up. Now it's like started booming.

So there's a lot of new developments and a lot more people, there's a lot of churches, so it's very conservative and very gossipy. There's a lot of like, “this is what's happening with who and like why and how,” and information I don't need to know, which is kind of why I don't really do holidays at home anymore.

I don't necessarily need to hear about why someone's getting divorced or the fact that someone left so-and-so and now they're going to court over it. It's not interesting to me because I don't need to know the drama of other people's lives, but that's kind of what's interesting to people because there's not really anything else to do.

So when I was growing up doing those activities, like dirt biking and being on sports teams and doing extracurriculars, it made sense because it gave me something to do that wasn't just sitting around, talking about other people. Because I don't think that's something that people really need to do unless it's in a wholesome and uplifting way, like talking about the goodness of other people.

I think if people made that shift in mentality, it would be a nicer world. Honestly, Maple Valley was very, it's what it needed to be for that period of my life. I will say, I don't know necessarily that there is destiny or I don't know that our lives are pre-planned. I don't know that there's like an entity out there who says like, this is how your life's going to go and then gives us free will.

And then we really don't have free will because it's supposed to go a certain way anyways. But I do believe that things happen for a reason. And there is a time and a place for things to happen. And I do think about this a lot. I can see pivotal moments in my life where had things gone differently, I would not be where I am right now. Growing up in Maple Valley, I probably never would have chosen to go to SPU if I didn't live in Maple Valley because it was close enough to home that I could still visit. And it aligned with my parents' belief systems and then had I never chosen SPU, I wouldn't have ever chosen to settle inside Seattle and Capitol Hill. And if I had never come to Capitol Hill, I would have never grown into my true self and experimented with gender and expression and made the friends that I have, and kind of started to think more critically about life in general and come up to my own conclusions.

Had I not gone to Maple Valley as weird as it sounds, I probably just would have been one of those people who just becomes really unhappy with the world and the way the world works and gotten stuck in a small town. I feel like it's what would have happened.

I would have been one of those people that never leaves home. Gets married at like 22 and has some kids. And not that that's bad. I do have some friends who are in that boat right now, but they're also pursuing their passions. I don't know that I would've ever figured out my passions had I not left Maple Valley. So it was nice to be there so I could leave. I mean, it was okay, but had I grown up in the Midwest, The colleges I would have chosen would have probably been colleges that were somewhat isolated. Like Western, it's in Bellingham, it's a very small city.

It's kind of out of the way. As great as that sounds now, had I done that for college, I feel like I never would've had any experiences that led me to question my life and my personality and my mentality and my thought processes. But because I was at SPU and I was in the city, I feel like I was exposed to a lot more.

And by being exposed to a lot more, I was able to learn a little bit more. And then it caused me to want to learn even more. I think that's honestly, my biggest passion in life is learning.  Whatever it is, whether it's going back to school or teaching myself how to do something.

I know how to do a lot of things just because I've taught myself how to do them because I like to learn. So had I gone somewhere else or had I grown up in a small town. I don't know that I ever would have figured that out. And so I feel like I would have just settled for staying stuck wherever I was.

I want this year to be a year of growth—Whether that's in my relationships and in my friendships or in my job or in all of the above. It's just to kind of push myself to do more than just be content in my space. Cause that's where I was a lot in 2019. And I was like, no, I need to do more.

People are telling me all the time I need to do more because they see my capabilities and they're like, no, you need to do more. So that's my goal this year is just do more. I mean my best friend, Lisa, she lives in Atlanta right now. So I want to try to make a trip down to her this year.

She was doing pottery when she was in Seattle. So she gave me the names of the studios that she went to so that I could do a little bit of investigation there and take some classes and kind of putting my feelers out there with new jobs and hopefully this one comes to fruition. And then that would introduce me to kind of a new lifestyle.

Essentially. I've never worked a nine to five. Ever. So working that consistent Monday to Friday schedule and having weekends off, I feel like it's going to open a lot of potential doors for me in terms of things I can say yes to, like, I was asked to walk in a fashion show in February and doing makeup.

I get a lot of those opportunities that I have to miss because it's always on the weekends and I work the weekends. So I think part of the saying yes to new opportunities is also saying, yes to kind of past opportunities. So I'm not going to start saying no to the people that I have in certain circles, just because I'm in a new circle.

I want to make time and space for them and say yes to them too. So I think it's just a funny little time management shift because you're in a new space, but you still need to say yes to the other spaces that you were in. 

It's really funny, but I will look up karaoke tracks on YouTube and just put them on repeat and sing along to them while I'm getting ready or if it's a song I want to try out, I'll record myself doing it and then listen to it and then delete it.

I don't know that I love to hear myself recorded, but when everybody else is drunk, they don't really care. So I sound great to everybody. The first couple of times it was really nerve-wracking because I don't really drink a lot. So when I go out and do karaoke, I'm pretty much sober, but that's one of those things I love, I love to do it.

So I was like, no, I'm going to do it. I'm going to go every week. It's going to be my thing. So my friend, Alex—she's my cheerleader—she's like, “I'll go with you, but I'm not going to sing.” I was like, “That's fine. I'll sing. It's fine.” I usually try to do different ones. A comfortable song that I sing all the time is by Lauv, his song “I Like Me Better” because It doesn't really require a lot of effort to sing it. And so it's easy to warm up with. But a friend of mine sang Lady Gaga’s “You and I,” and ever since then, I was like, I want to sing that. And so occasionally I'll bring that out of the woodwork.

I always like to surprise people by going old school and doing like Frank Sinatra, because my voice can go deeper. My typical range is in the tenor realm. But then when I sing Frank Sinatra, my voice drops down a little bit lower and everybody's like, “what is going on?”

If I were to die tomorrow and I wanted to be known for something, I feel I would want to be known for my kindness. I don't know that I've ever hated a person. I don't know that I've ever vehemently felt negative emotions towards anyone. Towards corporate structures—Yes. But that's just because that's a little bit too much. I have a lot of acquaintances and I have a lot of friends. And I always hope to be a person that people can feel comfortable coming to because of my kindness and because of my intention with people.

I don't ever want people to feel like they’re other than, or not a part of. And so in my friend circles, I always try to make sure people feel included and welcomed, and that it's a safe space to be in, which has done good things and bad things in my life because I do also end up learning a lot of information that I don't necessarily want to, or need to know about other people.

But I also am very grateful that people are comfortable sharing those things with me. So I think I would want to be remembered for my kindness and for being known as an empathetic person, like kindness and empathy. 

Eyes Wide is supported by members all over the world. Find out more.

Photography by Alexa Ashley

Theme music by Kymani Thomas

Hosted by Alexa Ashley

Audio Editing by Mo Isu

Listen above, on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Transcript:

ALEXA ASHLEY: This is Alexa Ashley with Eyes Wide. In this conversation, I get to sit down with Dyesha Belhumeur to talk about her experience growing up as a gay black woman in America, and how she's found confidence in her identity, despite societal barriers and is working to give others the same. Dyesha is a graduate from the University Of Washington's foster school of business, and is the founder of Undefined, a clothing line designed to encourage the black community, people of color, members of the LGBTQ community and women to live outside of the box society has placed them in and empower those who wear it to express the most important aspects of their identity, culture, and beliefs.

ALEXA ASHLEY: What was it like growing up as Dyesha Belhumeur?

DYESHA BELHUMEUR: Well, I was born in Harlan, Oregon to a single parent. And shortly after that, we moved to Federal Way, Washington, where I lived for 13 years. I went to Federal Way High School which is one of the most diverse public school systems in the nation. So I was always a part of this melting pot culture and then I went on to college at the University Of Washington and went for a business degree with the foster school of business.

The feel of growing up for me, it was always very family-oriented. I grew up with actually a lot of my cousins, very close cousins that were more like my brothers growing up and then childhood friends that I grew up with became close to me, close enough for me to call them my cousins.

As much as I liked to play and enjoy the same things that other children did, I also had to grow up a lot faster. Being the child of a single parent and being an African-American woman, all of those just meant that I had to grow up a lot faster than a lot of my other counterparts.

Things like learning how to take care of yourself as soon as you get off from school, being able to walk yourself home from the bus stop knowing that you have to do your homework and be able to cook yourself a snack and do all those things before you're able to go outside, which could mean that you're doing all those things before your mom even gets home. Learning how to prep dinner at a young age that it's easier for your mom to be able to make dinner when she comes home. Just learning how to take a lot more of an active role in the household at a very young age. Growing up as Dyesha was, I think it was fun, but it was also knowing that you had to have a lot more of an adult-like life.

So when I was younger, being raised by my mom, she really didn't raise me trying to teach me the differences of black and white. I wasn't raised automatically from kindergarten up just knowing that I was different because of the color of my skin.

And so the realizing point that I noticed, like, okay, I'm different was that point when I actually looked up the definitions of white and black and in the dictionary. And part of that was because it was black history month at my school and like every other elementary school you learn about the Civil Rights Movement and Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa parks. Being an African American child, I think a lot of teachers don't really realize that maybe as a child, you don't really realize that you're African-American. And so there came a point where it was kind of like them asking, like, “what was your take? How do you think it would feel to be this color during that time?” And I felt like they kind of had a habit of asking people of color that question rather than just anybody and everybody, because at that age you really don't know. I kind of looked at it like, why are you asking me this question? You know, why am I supposed to know the answer to that question?

And so I went home, and I had this conversation with my mom about what is black, what is white? What do these things actually mean? And what does it mean for me to be black? And that's when I actually looked that up in the dictionary and I actually still own that dictionary to this day, the Webster's dictionary.

I can remember what my room looked like when I looked it up. I can remember exactly where I was sitting when I looked at that in the dictionary. And at that age as a child, I think that really, I just knew what I processed at that time...it was one, I was different and two, that my difference was looked down upon. It wasn't something that was good and so from that point, that's how I started to move through life was just understanding that I'm looked down upon generally, because I have this color skin because I am labeled as a black person—as being black. And so knowing that, it just changed the way that I navigated through the world.

I think it almost kind of like removed my innocence as a child because it's like, as a child, you have an innocent happiness about you and I think that it kind of just removed that innocence and it was like, at that point I had to be automatically conscious of everything I did.

Because I had to understand what story that told to other people out in the public eye. I think really from that point it's almost like in my mind, there was just a dichotomy, you know, like there were only two worlds. There was the white world, there was the black world.

And if you didn't fall into the white world, you automatically fell into the black world. If you didn't fall into the black world, you automatically fell into the white world. So there was no way to kind of straddle in between. So was that just kind of the lens that I looked at everything through.

So for me, everything was either a black or white issue at that point. So I looked at economics, like how much money do you have? At least what does it look like you have based on your appearance, you know? And so I started to kind of figure out, okay, generally, you know, those who are labeled as white and dress, maybe a little bit better, have less hand-me-downs, have cleaner clothes, but then those who are black, maybe not so much, you know?

And so I think I just started to move through life, really labeling things as, if it was white, it meant this. And if it was black, it meant this. And then as I got older, I started to see those things in education. You see white school districts versus African-American or people of color or minority school districts, and you see how things are treated differently.

You see the differences and the amount of money that's granted to each of those schools. You see differences in the conditions of their gyms, in the conditions of their schools, in the people that actually go to those schools. So I think from that point, it automatically changed the way that I was even able to view the world. So I automatically started looking at everything through the lens: what is black and what is white?

ALEXA ASHLEY: It seems like you move fast when you want to do something like start Undefined. Where does your drive come?

DYESHA BELHUMEUR: I think for me, really it was my mom. I saw the way that my mom struggled being a single parent, getting no help from what should have been my father.

And you know that caused her to have to drop out of college cause she got pregnant with me while being in college. And I saw just the way that all of that really just affected her, going forward, affected her ability to raise me. It affected her ability to be as present as she would have liked to be in my life.

Because you have to sacrifice making money or being a whole part of your child's life when you're a single parent, putting food on the table or being present at a basketball game. So you've got those two weights. And so I think that really what it came down to was it's like, I'm not doing this really for myself, I'm doing it for my mom. I'm doing it so that when she hits 60 years old, she's not worried...when I was told growing up that I should be retired by 65 years old. And realistically, that's just not a retiring age now.

And so really my drive came from feeling like I needed to be that counterpart for my mom because she didn't have that. So I think for other people who are looking for a drive it's really just finding your why, like, why is it that you get up and do what you do every morning? Because I think if it's just to make money, that's not going to be a big enough reason why, and you're never going to really have the drive to really do what you want to do.

Your reason has to go a lot beyond that. For my reason, it's to make sure that my mom is taken care of and she doesn't have to want. It's to make sure that my grandma's able to go comfortably because at the age that she's at, it's only a matter of time before she reaches that point.

And there's so many things that she still hasn't seen as an 80-year-old African American woman who went through the Civil Rights Movement who actually fought in a court of law for her equal rights to be able to live in an apartment complex when a white man refused to rent to her and my grandfather, who was white...I have a purpose that's a lot bigger than me. I feel like I'm striving also, not just to put myself into a position of success, but also to help bring other people who are African-American, who are people of color, who are LGBTQ, who are from marginalized minority communities and help bring them over the fence so that they can do the same thing.

Because if we don't have enough of us who are willing to help each other get a leg up then we're going to continue to just struggle as whole groups. Throughout the rest of our lives. So I think it's really just about finding a why and finding a reason or a purpose that's bigger than yourself.

ALEXA ASHLEY: That's awesome. So it's like...on the practical side...a need for your family and your mom, and then the other side, it's like this whole people group that has been historically marginalized. And especially members of the LGBTQ community and people of color and that combination and lifting them up.

DYESHA BELHUMEUR: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And I mean, when I think about just the things that those people of color African-Americans, Indians or native Americans, Mexicans, LGBTQ, like all the things that they've had to go through and struggle just to have basic human rights that are aligned with those who wrote the constitution is, I mean, that's really why I do it, you know?

And I see the ways that those affect families that are similar to mine from the person's complex to lack of education, to just really feeling like there's no way for you to win and trying to find a way to make it. I see all those trends on a daily basis. I see the way that those affect people in my family.

I see the ways those affect people in my community. And I feel like if there's not people like me who are willing to kind of be the staple of the community or lead the charge, then we're always going to continue to remain in that position. So, I mean, that's why I do it because I feel like there's other people who need to be able to look and see somebody that looks like them doing what they've always wished to do. And until they see that, they're not really gonna feel like that's something that's achievable.

ALEXA ASHLEY: You said before, and it's a feeling that I get as well, that you're confident in your identity as a gay woman of color. And for somebody else who is maybe younger or just hasn't gotten to that point yet, what would you tell them?

DYESHA BELHUMEUR: I think, honestly, it really comes down to not listening to other people's opinions or yourself and allowing you to discover who you are. If I would've allowed myself to, because I mean, people have said lots of things about me. I mean, from when I was in middle school, before I even knew that I was a gay woman. I've had people tell me, I looked like a man or I talk like a man or I've had a nickname when I was in middle school, I had the nickname “Dykeysha,” because it's dyke, as meaning you’re gay. And at that age, I don't know that I'm gay...you know, and so if I would have allowed all of those things to shape me or to grasp a hold of my mental, then I think that I would be a completely different person.

I would probably be very shelled off. I would not be very comfortable in my own skin because society doesn't allow you to be comfortable. Society tells you that something's wrong with you. Society tells you that you shouldn't be this way and not that way and so I think primarily for me, one of the things that really helped was just the support of the people that were around me.

The people that I considered to be my family, that I really considered to be my close friends, having those people support me, made it so I didn't really care what the stranger walking down the street said as they walked past me or what the other person on the other team said as they were playing a basketball game against me, as long as I was accepted and welcomed by those that were closest to me. It made me a lot more comfortable and I think that also I took that in stride.

It wasn't me having to be comfortable with being a black gay woman all at once. It was first, I had to be comfortable with being black. Then I had to be comfortable with being a woman and then I had to be comfortable with being gay. And so you go through these different stages of comfortability and I think it's hard to be able to, like, if you're somebody who's just grappling with all three, it's hard.

There's so many intersectionalities that are really there, and there's no book of how to deal with that, you know? And so I think it just comes down to really segmenting it into pieces that you're able to deal with. At one time, you know, for me, it was first dealing with my racial identity because I felt like that was really most pertinent to who I am.

Then it was dealing with my identity as a woman, because that's what I first understood. And then it was dealing with my identity as being gay, as I became older and fully understood that that's what I was. But until I came to the realization that that's who I am, I wasn't able to start being comfortable.

And I think that until you really know who you are, you're not really able to be a hundred percent comfortable in your own skin.

ALEXA ASHLEY: So to somebody that doesn't have that support group or people that accept them for the way they are, would you say find that community?

DYESHA BELHUMEUR: Find that community or figure out why it is that they don't accept you because I can tell you I wasn't right away accepted...my mother and I, we had a falling out to where it almost rocked our relationship. Our relationship was almost tarnished because of the fact that I was gay and she didn't understand. The problem was, you know, it was coming off as she was mad at the fact that I was gay and she didn't want to have a gay daughter, but really what it was at the root, she just didn't understand what it was to be gay.

She didn’t understand that being gay doesn't necessarily mean that you want to be a boy or that you need to change your sexuality, which there are some people who do feel like that, which is a whole other group. But you know, it just means that I like women. I see myself with a woman and that is what I am attracted to.

And it really just took me and her having to have conversations, her having to have conversations with people who are her friends who are in her same age group. Having to tell her their understandings and how they grappled with it and what they learned. And so it really just comes to an educational process.

I think it's very easy for people to get frustrated and shut down, especially when it comes to things that they don't know or things that they're unfamiliar with. And I think that at that point, it's just about how do I create a conversation? Because if it's a family member for instance...that's somebody who you would probably care for...somebody who cares for you just as much.

And I think that at that point, it's not allowing the frustration of “you're not understanding who I am” or “you won't accept me for who I am.” I think it's more understanding, well, why are they having trouble accepting and start from there and kind of build your way up because you want to be accepted.

And I think it's just figuring out how do we go about doing that to where I'm not putting myself at odds. But at the same time, I'm helping to educate you and help you understand so that we can be on this level of acceptance.

ALEXA ASHLEY: You inspire me, who or what is inspiring you lately?

DYESHA BELHUMEUR: I think really my entire life, my main inspiration has always been my mom. Really, that's why I do everything. You know, I could have cared less to go to college. I could have cared less to get an education. I could've cared less to get a degree. I could care less to work in the finance world, you know? But I do it for her. I do it because I feel like I've been given a chance or an opportunity that she never had. And so being able to capitalize on that opportunity for the both of us I feel like is something that we need.

And also my grandfather, he passed away when I was in high school. And I just really saw how caring he was for everybody that was around him. He doesn't have to know you, I think that he was more of like a feeler, he could feel people who were going through difficult times. He could feel people who maybe had issues, he could feel people who just maybe needed to just be loved out a little bit. And so I think that I looked to my mom as inspiration for my drive, and I looked at my grandfather as inspiration for character. And those two together kind of make me who I am I feel like.

ALEXA ASHLEY: Could you talk more about the logo that you have on your clothes and what it symbolizes?

DYESHA BELHUMEUR: So the unity fist was first seen as like the primary symbol for black power. It became a primary symbol for the black power movement and it's still kind of seen as that to this day, but also today it's kind of taken a turn in that it's seen a lot more as a symbol of unity, so unification, solidarity.

And so I kind of did a play on both, in using the fist. The shackle—it's a broken shackle actually and it goes a little bit with the fist. The idea behind it is through the solidarity of marginalized groups— marginalized people, people of color—that that's really the only way that we're going to break the shackles, that we're going to be able to dismantle structures and basically systems of racism that continue to hold us back.

You know, we're not going to be able to do it one off. We're not really going to be able to do it, I don't see, as individual groups—it's going to take the solidarity of every marginalized group. Mexicans coming together. African-Americans and Africans coming together. Native Americans coming together. Filipinos, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans. I mean, literally every minority group that you can think of. LGBTQ, trans, like every group that you can think of, it's going to take the solidarity and the unification of all of those marginalized groups speaking up and demanding for equal rights for equal treatment and for humane treatment.

I think that we've reached a point where a lot of ill treatment of people in these groups has been normalized. I mean, how many times do you scroll up and down social media and you see transgender or gay men or women who have been attacked solely because of their sexuality or how many times do you see African-Americans or Africans who have been killed by police officers? In the line of duty. These are things that we've seen so often now that they're just normalized, you know. We can see it on the TV and we can flip the channel, we can see it on social media and we can scroll right past it because it's something that we're so used to seeing now.

The only way that we're going to break that and really call attention to what is really happening is through the solidarity of all of these groups. And I think that that's where the crown comes in—really we're only going to get to see our true potential in being an active group. In being an active group. In being a group that exercises activism—that's really the only way that we're going to see change, I think, in this system. And until we start to do that, we're going to continue to see black bodies on the five o'clock news. And until we decide to take a stand, it's going to continue to be normal in culture.

So really the reason—the motivation and the meaning—behind that logo is through solidarity and unification of marginalized groups, that's the only way that we're going to see our true potential in this country. African Americans and Africans, we are said to come from a land of kings and queens. That was also a play that was added on to the logo.

ALEXA ASHLEY: I see your line and the graphics as reminders of your power. Do you feel that?

DYESHA BELHUMEUR: I think so, these are very bold pieces. You have to be a bold person to walk around with a power fist or something that's traditionally and generally understood as a black power fist on your chest. It's a very strong symbol and it commands attention and you not only have to be a strong individual, but you've also got to be very thick-skinned. I can't tell you how many crazy looks I've gotten when I've worn my KXP bomber or when I've worn my shirt that says legalize blackness, and I've had people be like, “what do you mean legalize blackness? Like what does that even mean?”

You really have to be cut out for this clothing. It is a reminder of your strength and of your power. It's a reminder that you choose what you are defined by. You don't have to be defined by stereotypes. You don't have to be defined by what society says is black, or what society says is white, or what society says is gay. You get to define that. And that's really what Undefined is about—it’s really turning stereotypes on their heels and allowing the individual to define what they feel are the most important or pertinent aspects of their identity and their culture and what makes them, them.

ALEXA ASHLEY: It's almost like it's a reminder and a call to action. Even if you don't feel ready, if you wear it, you have to be ready.

DYESHA BELHUMEUR: Yeah, for sure. And I think it's almost a call to action to wake up, you know, right now I feel like a lot of us are asleep. By walking through and just enduring the system, we're perpetrating it—we're allowing it to continue—and until we wake up and we're like, okay, this is done. I'm going to do something about it today...I think that that's where we're at now. And that's the step that has to be taken.

Image by Mia K Visuals

Videography by Alexa Ashley

Audio Editing and Mastering by Tukyo

Video Editing by Tukyo