Vitamin We #28: Exploring the Blurry Line

Aurora, Art & Design, and Interview

(1078 words)

Hi, creative souls ~

Happy Mid-May!

Has your newsfeed been dominated by colorful, magical images of auroras worldwide this past week? In our January 2024 trends edition, we’ve shared that solar storms will be frequent this year, bringing more aurora shows 😎

As above, so below. As we absorb these special lights and auras from the Sun on this blue-green planet, I wonder what kind of magical transitional phase we are going through together!

Maybe, like us, you are exploring the blurry lines of an in-between phase; it’s essential to focus on grounding ourselves to ensure we have the capacity to embrace the ebbs and flows of life. This is exactly what the We team has been doing—handling the foundational aspects of our everyday lives, such as health, finances, careers, and homes.

Meanwhile, we’ve also been weaving our web of artist-storytellers slowly but steadily!

Today, we are thrilled to announce -

the new 🌟 We Stories Show 🎤 is LIVE!!!

This is where we interview artists and have real conversations with them about everything related to an artist’s life journey, inside out.

We are sure you are as excited as we are. Scroll down to read more!

- Ponny, Editor 

Aurora Show Around The Globe 🧚🏻

Nature never disappoints us as the ultimate source of art inspiration!

In case you haven’t been online much or do not happen to be in the right corner of the world to be WOWed by your sky, here’s a quick aurora show around the world:

Why are there so many magical colors?

Are you missing Kelly & her art?

Here you go, one of her latest posts on IG! If you haven’t followed her yet, here’s her beautiful account ❤️‍🔥

We Stories Show - Real Convo With Artists

 📣 A new format for bringing stories to you!

We have been so excited to be creating this!!! 💌

We started this initiative of sharing stories because, as creatives, we tend to work by ourselves, lonely at times, and we don’t get to hear about the REAL thoughts of other artists behind the art, behind the glamourous social media under the limelight, and behind the vulnerable human’s life journey of artists and creatives.

And, since a facial expression 😉 is worth a thousand words that can’t be captured by audio alone - here we are, bringing you with joy our first artist interview in 2024:

Episode #1: Exploring the blurry line between art & design with Maria Jose

Host (K): Kelly Llanos

Guest (M): Maria Jose Jaramillo Arredondo, a contemporary jewelry artist + graphic designer + tattooer

In this first episode, Kelly chatted with a friend she met in Colombia who then moved to Florence, Italy, and they only recently reunited in Barcelona!

It’s like being invited to a friend’s home 🏡 and you are sitting together in the living room sharing this intimate conversation with these two lovely souls 💖

Some highlights of the convo -

K: You describe yourself as an “artist-in-progress.” What is the life of an artist-in-progress be like?

M: It's a mess😂. It's like trying to think of all the projects, big or small, that you imagine and being inspired, but at the same time, knowing that it's not easy, as you need to live from something.

You need to do things that people connect to even if they don't always connect to you, eh… so it's been hard to find that way of what am I going to do that speaks to me, but also speaks to the rest of the people or at least, some people…

But life is an art in progress. It's just trying to experiment and see what matches more with my personality,… checking the inspiration of everything I'm learning in every part of my work, and finding what gets me more towards myself.

K: What is the biggest challenge of being an artist? There could be emotions that often block us many times…

M: Yeah, I think the hardest challenge is when you are around artists, seeing what they are doing all the time, and getting inspired by them while trying not to take the negative part of it by comparing yourself with them.

Also, I feel I'm not the best technician. I enjoy doing not-perfect stuff, but in my mind, it needs to be perfect because people tell you it has to be. So I just like to challenge myself every day, like, okay, I just continue. I continue and I continue and I continue, and I force myself to do it anyway, trying all the time and not stopping.

K:  What are you moving towards? What are you looking for right now?

M: I don't know if every artist feels that way, but I have this thing that I want people to see it and be like “that's Maria Jose”, you know, “that's her”. I'm working towards that because I also work with a lot of media, and I don't want to stop doing that, so getting like a bigger way of showing my things that people can still see that it has something that’s mine.

K: Yes, I call that as a voice. I don't talk about styles but more like a voice.

M: I love that, because it's true! It's that maybe you change the tones that you use or the shapes or how you show them, but your voice is still like there saying what you need to say, so, yeah.

»» 💖 Watch or Listen to the Full Episode Here! 🎧 « «

Some of her powerful sayings:

❝

"losing yourself in the making… so no one (art) peice repeats another"

Majo Jaramillo
❝

"Taking what you have in the moment to create something organic…something that it has to be in that moment"

Majo Jaramillo
❝

"what I try to do as an artist in most of the things, is to take the things that I see and create stories from them"

Majo Jaramillo

Are you feeling inspired by her story?

Find Majo Jaramillo's intertwined tales delicately fused into each piece of Colombian jewelry at @mil64.joyeria.

Join her as she crafts more stories while experiencing the Barcelona adventure at @mariajoyitaar.

Do You Want To Be Our Next Guest? 🤗

» Or do you have any tips that might help our Show reach more people?

Get in touch and email us at [email protected]!

Enjoy the month with greater joy and love in every moment!

Sending Love💗

~Curated with Love by We Stories Team 🥰 ~