11 minute read
artist spotlight
Developing a Dream
Marvella Duarte Coon came to the United States with a plan: spend three months learning English then go back to Venezuela and keep building a corporate career. More than 21 years later – happily settled in Pickerington with her photography business, a husband and two kids – that isn’t quite how things worked out.
Duarte Coon describes herself as a dreamer, someone who always chases after her wildest aspirations, no matter the cost. That mindset put her on a path to stay in the United States, to seek out volunteer opportunities and, eventually, to leave her safe career path and pursue her passion for photography by starting her own business.
“I am a person that commits,” she says. “If I want something, I will do whatever it takes.”
Photography had always been an integral part of Duarte Coon’s life. She easily transitioned her desire to capture intimate moments with her family and friends and a commitment to empowering and uplifting others into her photography work. But it wasn’t easy – it took moving continents and starting a family to set her on this journey.
Initially, traveling to the United States to study English as a second language at the University of Findlay served as yet another step in the path she’d already set out on. Even with her ambition, she quickly realized that learning a new language would take considerably longer than anticipated, and three months in the U.S. turned into a year.
As conditions in Venezuela destabilized around the turn of the century, Duarte Coon chose to stay in Ohio and continue her education. One year turned into another and Duarte Coon found herself with two master’s degrees, two daughters and a husband.
Now, Duarte Coon and husband Tim Coon’s daughters, Sophia and Alexa, are 8 and 6 years old.
Duarte Coon’s father bought an old camera as a Christmas gift for her in 2017, and it was a lightbulb moment for her.
“Working so much as a project manager really consumed a lot of my life and I was missing these first months, first years with my daughters,” she says. “Even though professionally I was very satisfied about what I had accomplished, personally I wasn’t. So, I was at a point where I needed to find an answer to what I needed to do to change things to be better, and to feel happier, and to be with my family and not miss those moments.”
Duarte Coon threw herself into photography, practicing endlessly, watching videos and even hiring a photographer to mentor her. In six months, Heartfelt Photography was born.
Taking early inspiration from the photos she regularly took of family, friends, travel and events, Duarte Coon now uses her skills to capture cherished moments for others.
“I love to bring happiness and success to other people,” she says. “One of the most beautiful things to me is to have photographs because those represent stories and those memories bring us happiness.”
Understanding the desires of a client and how to achieve their goal is one of the most important parts of Duarte Coon’s work. While some know exactly where they’d like to take photos and how they want them to look, many seek a photographer’s insight.
“I visualize the session: If it was me, what would I do?” she says. “What would I do if it would be for me and my family? You always want the best.”
Photography has also presented Duarte Coon with a way to give back to the central Ohio community. Though the amount of volunteer photography she can do is limited, she has a rich volunteering life beyond that including work at senior centers and more than a decade with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Ohio.
“If we can touch at least one life and make it better, it’s very powerful,” she says.
Having achieved so many of her own dreams – learning English, settling in the United States, beginning her own photography business and, her biggest dream of all, becoming a mom – Duarte Coon sees her contributions to others as a necessary part of her life as well.
She continues to preach the same wisdom that led her to a career in photography. She believes that, just like she is, everyone is capable of following their own dreams.
“Life is all about dreams,” Duarte Coon says. “If you really need to make a change in your life and start from zero, do it.”
Marvella Duarte Coon runs her business, Heartfelt Photography, in Pickerington, where she lives with her husband, Tim Coon, and daughters Alexa (left) and Sophia (right).
Cameron Carr is the associate editor. Feedback welcome at ccarr@ cityscenemediagroup.com.
Top homes sold in Pickerington
All information is collected from the Fairfield and Franklin County auditors’ offices.
376 Hill Rd. S.
5 beds 1.5 baths $580,000 Sold on 9/22/21
192 Kohler St.
4 beds 2.5 baths $536,865 Sold on 9/24/21
219 Kohler St.
4 beds 2.5 baths $432,565 Sold on 9/24/21
136 Fox Glen Dr. E.
4 beds 3.5 baths $415,000 Sold on 9/27/21
12337 Ebright Ln.
3 beds 2.5 baths $415,000 Sold on 10/15/21
138 Highland Ridge Dr.
4 beds 2.5 baths $412,910 Sold on 9/22/21
117 Sparrow Ct.
4 beds 1.5 baths $395,000 Sold on 9/30/21
205 Asbury Ct.
4 beds 2.5 baths $384,016 Sold on 9/23/21
443 Hill Rd. S.
4 beds 2 baths $380,000 Sold on 10/12/21
49 Grisby Ln.
4 beds 3.5 baths $375,000 Sold on 9/16/21
11400 Chanticleer Ter.
3 beds 2.5 baths $373,000 Sold on 9/20/21
366 Linden Cir.
4 beds 2.5 baths $370,000 Sold on 9/20/21
#1 Selling Real Estate Team & Realtor 439 Transactions Closed in 2020 ® in Central Ohio 2017–2020 (614) 561-3201
Source: Columbus MLS & Trendgraphix All reports presented are based on data supplied by Columbus REALTORS. Report published January 21, 2021 based on sales data available from January 1, 2020 – December 31, 2020. All properties, all counties combined. Neither the Association nor their MLS guarantee or are in any way responsible for the data accuracy. Data maintained by the Associations or their MLSs may not reflect all real estate activities in the market. Information deemed reliable but not guaranteed. Top Producer - Market Share Report. Copyright Trendgraphix, Inc. Samuel Cooper DBA Sam Cooper Team
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Sam Cooper (614) 561-3201 sam.cooper@herrealtors.com
393 Flat River Street | Sold $350,000 Remarkable home in the Villages at Sycamore Creek, separate 1st floor home office, great room with fireplace, formal dining room, remodeled kitchen with granite counters, white cabinetry, stainless steel appliances, pantry & eating space, 1st floor home office, full basement, owner’s bedroom with walk in closet, bath with soaking tub, fenced in backyard with patio, covered front porch. SOLD BY SAM COOPER – HER REALTORS
Sam Cooper (614) 561-3201 sam.cooper@herrealtors.com
13414 Needham Place NW | Sold $475,000 Remarkable home in the highly desirable Glenshire Subdivision. 1st floor home office w/ french doors, formal living and dining room, great room with fireplace, kitchen with granite counters & stainless steel appliances, backyard deck and patio with hot tub, finished LL with wet bar, full bath and rec rooms, owners bedroom with walk in closet & bath with soaking tub. SOLD BY SAM COOPER – HER REALTORS
Real Estate Section
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Book titles to add to your holiday reading list!
Adults: The Color of Dragons by R. A. Salvatore, Erika Lewis
An action-packed, romantic pre-Arthurian tale of the origins of magic (and Merlin). Maggie’s powers are especially fickle. With no one to help her learn to control her magic, the life debt that she owes stretches eternally over her head, with no way to repay it. Until she meets Griffin, the king’s champion, infamous for hunting down the draignochs that plague their kingdom. Neither has any idea of the destiny that they both carry, or that their meeting will set off a chain of events that will alter every aspect of the life they know – and all of history thereafter. – Publisher
Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone by Diana Gabaldon
The highly anticipated latest entry in the Outlander series. Jamie Fraser and Claire Randall were torn apart by the Jacobite Rising in 1746, and it took them 20 years to find each other again. Now the American Revolution threatens to do the same. It is 1779 and Claire and Jamie are at last reunited with their daughter, Brianna, her husband, Roger, and their children on Fraser’s Ridge. Having the family together is a dream the Frasers had thought impossible. Meanwhile, the Revolutionary War creeps ever closer. And with the family finally together, Jamie and Claire have more at stake than ever before. – Publisher
Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
The heroes of Cloud Cuckoo Land are children trying to figure out the world around them, and to survive. In the besieged city of Constantinople in 1453, in a public library in Lakeport, Idaho, today, and on a spaceship bound for a distant exoplanet decades from now, an ancient text provides solace and the most profound human connection to characters in peril. They all learn the story of Aethon, who longs to be turned into a bird so that he can fly to the paradise of Cloud Cuckoo Land, a better world. Like Marie-Laure and Werner in All the Light We Cannot See, Konstance, Anna, Omeir, Seymour, the young Zeno, the children in the library are dreamers and misfits on the cusp of adulthood in a world the grown-ups have broken. – Publisher
Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead
Harlem Shuffle’s a gloriously entertaining novel of heists, shakedowns and rip-offs. This ingenious story plays out in a beautifully recreated New York City of the early 1960s. It’s a family saga masquerading as a crime novel, a hilarious morality play, a social novel about race and power, and ultimately a love letter to Harlem. But mostly, it’s a joy to read, another dazzling novel from the Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Awardwinning Colson Whitehead. – Publisher
Teens/YA: Skin of the Sea by Natasha Bowen
Simi prayed to the gods, once. Now she serves them as Mami Wata – a mermaid – collecting the souls of those who die at sea and blessing their journeys back home. But when a living boy is thrown overboard, Simi does the unthinkable – she saves his life, going against an ancient decree. And punishment awaits those who dare to defy it. – Publisher
Finding My Voice by Marie Myung-Ok Lee
Seventeen-year-old Ellen Sung just wants to be like everyone else at her all-white school. But hers is the only Korean American family in town, and her classmates in Arkin, Minnesota, will never let her forget that she’s different. At the start of senior year, Ellen finds herself falling for Tomper Sandel – a football player who is popular and blond and undeniably cute – and, to her surprise, he falls for her, too. Now Ellen has a chance at a life she never imagined, one that defies the expectations of both her core friend group and her strict parents. But even as she stands up to racism at school and disapproval at home, Ellen discovers that her greatest challenge is one she never expected: finding the courage to speak up and raise her voice.
Dear Justyce by Nic Stone
An incarcerated teen writes letters to his best friend about his experiences in the American juvenile justice system. Vernell LaQuan Banks and Justyce McAllister grew up a block apart in the southwest Atlanta neighborhood of Wynwood Heights. Years later, though, Justyce walks the illustrious halls of Yale University … and Quan sits behind bars at the Fulton Regional Youth Detention Center. Through a series of flashbacks, vignettes and letters to Justyce – the protagonist of Dear Martin – Quan’s story takes form. What leads a bright kid down a road to a murder charge? Not even Quan is sure. – Publisher
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