Debriefing Statement Pieces Session 001: Jasmine Adams
Jasmine loves old film cameras, Kadir Nelson, painting her subjects facing the viewer, and muting her favorite artists on Instagram.
Statement Pieces is a series spotlighting the artists in the Essence Nyrie community. Real conversations in the artists’ studio, in their element. Part interview, part portrait session, it's a celebration of the people who make things that last and hold meaning.
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READ/LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW HERE.
… Guys, not gon’ hold you, I suck at making time to write. And then when I manage to make the time, I can’t make my mind up on what to write about. Then when I decide, I’m scared… to be wrong, to be unclear, to be too off-brand. Oh my goodness, it’s exhausting and it’s not that serious.
In an effort to get myself more active on here, I’m gonna loosen up my writing (write how I speak) and start this new series where I talk to cool people. I hope you like it!! I hope you discover your new favorite artist or just a new word to live by. I hope you’re left as inspired as I am. And I hope it makes me fall back in love with writing. Maybe as I find my groove, I’ll start writing like I’m in English class again. But for now, it’s this.
I got the idea for “Statement Pieces” as I was scrolling socials (sad but true). These days I have so many creative genius mutuals all over the world doing the most interesting things. I have so many questions and curiosities, and yet for some reason I feel like I have no good excuse to talk to/bother them about it… I don’t know, I’m in therapy now; we’ll see where that gets me lol. But the truth is, most artists, especially up-and-coming, love an opportunity to talk about what they love.
Anyway, this concept allows me to connect with them on a real level and also amplify their work, as deserved. I only have so much of a platform, but I’ve got some other ideas brewin’, so who knows where this may go. We shall see!
The first session was with Jasmine Adams. She’s so dope, her space goes crazy, her work is even more nuts. This experience really affirmed my decision to start this series.
She’s a Baltimore-based painter, photographer, and digital artist. I was introduced to her when she tagged me in a video of her twirling in her Orchid Pink Parachute Dress. It was everything. Clicked on her page, saw the painting of a gorgeous family on a porch. I had to know more. Here we are.
The full interviews will live here on my site’s blog. Here on Substack, I’ll be giving some additional commentary and bits-and-pieces from the conversations before and after the interview. This post is already getting long though so I’ll keep it light this time.
With Jasmine, we really had a ki, so we jumped around off topic and got distracted a lot hehe. After the interview she was telling me how she forgot to speak about how she likes to paint the subjects facing the viewer because it affords them more dignity. I noticed that she did that when looking at her work and could acknowledge that it did something for me as a viewer but never quite considered the real people depicted in her work. This really hit harder when she told me about the family porch portrait that initially drew me into her stuff.
The painting is actually of her grandfather, who died at 50. It’s based on a photo from the Odunde street festival in Philly, and also features her grandfather’s girlfriend at the time, her daughter, and little Jasmine. She explained how her grandfather’s story and humanity are forever immortalized in it, and she uses it as a reminder that stories can go on even after someone’s passing.
When you read the full interview, there’s a part where she says something like “All my work has to go at some point, except maybe the one behind me.” She was referring to this painting then. It means so much to her, and it was palpable when talking about it. It makes 100% sense why she would and definitely SHOULD keep that one close to her, but of course a tiny part of me was like “There goes my aspirations of buying it one day” lol. That’s ok; I was eyeing her “It’s Not Easy Being Green” painting too, inspired by the Kermit the Frog song with the same, because of course.
All in all, I left with a different perspective to view art with and new paintings to put in the “Future Home” section of my vision board.
