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REDEFINE YOUR NARRATIVE MAYA KRAMER: AERIAL ARTIST
ANNA JUDD RUNS AMERICA LINEAR VORTEX LEGGINGS
FALL FASHIONS
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Cover Photograph by Brandon Carter
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10 AERIALIST MAYA KRAMER 12 LAURA GUESE: UP IN THE AIR 14 ANNA JUDD RUNS AMERICA 18 ZELENE JIANG’S “SLAM” 20 STONES THAT HEAL BY ANNÉ GANGEL YOUR NARRATIVE WITH 22 REDEFINE SELF-TALK 28
PUBLISHER / EDITOR RICHARD KALISHER ONLINE/SOCIAL EDITOR SARAH HUMPHRIES CONTRIBUTORS CAROLINE BORUCKI JULIA BRESNER CAROLINE GEYS LAURA GUESE TRACEY HAWKINS ZELENE JIANG ANNA JUDD MASSIEL MANCEBO ELYSE RAINBOLT
For inquiries or submissions, email richard@nuemagazine.com
A CONVERSATION WITH....
MAYA KRAMER
Who is Maya Kramer? How would you describe yourself? Maya Kramer is someone who cannot and will not be defined. Maya Kramer is a dancer, an aerial artist, a choreographer, a creator, a writer… and a passionate spirit. Did you always know that you wanted to be a dancer and artist? At what age did you begin pursuing it?
Interview by Massiel Mancebo
probably when I did the circus tour in Holland, because it was a classical circus experience, working with traditional circus performers. Everyone else in the cast were part of generations of circus families. We were building a tent every morning; we were living in a caravan; we were working with animals. It was the most traditional circus experience and it was my first circus job. That made it even more amazing.
When I was four, but I think on a certain level I always knew that I wanted to become either a dancer, circus artist, or a gymnast. (I did gymnastics as a kid as well.) I don’t know if it was me wanting to be a dancer, or that my mom signed me up for dance classes and I ended up liking it. I don’t remember which came first; I was quite young (laughs).
Wow, how long did you work in the circus for?
What has been one of the most memorable experiences in your field?
So many. I think that the challenge that most artists face, and that I faced is breaking out of the “tribe”, breaking out of your family expectations for you to be come some “normal” person and not
There are many. I think that the one that I would say was the most memorable was
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It was a month-long, summer circus in Holland. We traveled all over small cities in Holland. What have been some of the greatest challenges you’ve had to overcome not only in your career but as a person?
pursue your passion or career, to pursue a more stable job and a more stable income, and to stay in your country and have babies... and overcoming that. There’s also a lot of loneliness. I think about Charlie Chaplin and the song he wrote called “Smile”. You can feel that loneliness within him. You leave your country and you leave your people; you leave your tribe and you go out and live a completely different life that nobody can relate to except maybe the people around you. But they’re not the same as family. Overcoming that has been my most difficult challenge. What have been some of the most interesting and exciting people you’ve had the opportunity to work with? There have been so many! But I think the one that I am most proud of right now is the Japanese singer Ayumi Hamasaki; she’s one of the most famous singers in Japan, she’s like the Madonna of Japan…it was super cool because I got to go to Japan and work with her and
her dancers. Their work ethic was unlike anything I’ve ever seen. They would finish an act and would be crawling on their knees in pain and tired, and be ready 5 minutes later to go up and do it again, full force. That was really inspiring for me. Aside from dancing and performing, you also teach. What is the first and most important thing you teach your students? That’s a good question… I think everything is important. Something that I definitely focus on in my teaching is how to transition from one movement to another. It’s not about an exercise, but about a whole experience. It’s not just my arm moving from right to left, but it’s how my arm is moving through space and what my relationship is with my apparatus, or to myself, or to the people around me, or to my space. What have been some of the most exciting places you’ve traveled to with your talent? There’s a lot, but let’s see… I would probably say the Philippines, because it is a very interesting country. I got to work there with an outreach program that helped kids in poverty. It was really nice because it was a beautiful place, beautiful islands. The kids were so curious, and when I was teaching them dance, they were so happy. It really gave me such perspective about life, just seeing how there are people in the world who really have nothing. They live 7 people in one tiny little shack; when I went to one I thought I was going to fall through the floor because of how feebly it was built… and here in America we have everything, and people don’t realize it; it gave me a lot of perspective and it was truly exciting. What are some of the things you do routinely to keep in shape mentally and physically? I train every day, every single day. Every once in a while I take a day off. Every day I do aerial, I do ballet, I do yoga, conditioning exercise. I do some pole dance. I go to the beach and train on the rings and the ropes. I go to the gym, and I do my own routines where I just allow my body wherever it wants to go. I take zumba classes, I go salsa dancing… everyday I’m active. It’s all stuff I love to do. The hard thing for me is that there are very few things I like to do that don’t require anything physical, so sometimes when my body is tired, there’s nothing I want to do! (laughs) I don’t want to do anything that doesn’t
aerialdanceartist.com
require me to move. Do you have any dietary restrictions that you follow? I have a very fun answer about that, because a lot of people ask me and my answer is: I eat whatever I want. However, what I want to eat are usually things that are very, very good for you. I don’t eat junk food at all, I just can’t, I have no interest in it. I eat a lot of vegetables, a lot of fruit (I love fruit, it’s my favorite), and I love chocolate. (I like that maybe even more than fruit, but I like dark chocolate; it’s 70% and it’s organic.) I eat some chicken, some fish, not so much red meat, maybe once a month on a special occasion. I really don’t ever feel like I restrict myself at all. I eat whatever I want, but I just will never ever crave a donut. It doesn’t appeal to me at all. I think once you start changing your dietary habits, you stop craving things that aren’t good for you because they don’t really taste good. It’s just a habit. I started changing my dietary habits when I was 16; it’s been so long that now I wouldn’t crave a burger. If you were stranded on a desert island, what five things would you take with you to keep you motivated? Hmm… I would take with me a machete or something that I could open coconuts to keep myself nourished. Probably some sort of motivating music; music really motivates me because it’s my work. I would say maybe some sort of a rope, but maybe I can make my own from what is out there (laughs). I would take a good man with me! He can open coconuts and keep me company. I would take an animal, a little dog, a little pet. That’d be nice. Is there a statement quote or proverb that you live by, and use for inspiration? There are a ton, there are a million quotes. I live on all of these and they feed me. In fact, this was one of the ways that I was able to overcome the whole thing of separating from the tribe and moving away from my family. But of the two that come most strongly to mind, one is Marianne Williamson: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure…” It’s a much longer quote, but it’s amazing and worth reading. The other is by George Bernard Shaw: “ The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
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LAURA GUESE: UP IN THE AIR As an artist, staring out an airplane window never fails to provide me with endless inspiration. Watching the clouds build and drift, shapes form and then vanish, all while moving through the different layers of atmosphere, is a fascinating sight. When I view these atmospheric creations, I feel transported to another world, weightless and free. Time slows and my worries seem to fade into the distance. It is no wonder many travelers request the window over the middle and aisle. A window seat is one of the best parts about flying for the serenity that can be found by simply observing these otherworldly, ethereal cloud landscapes. Suddenly, the view out the airplane window proves it isn’t just about getting somewhere but rather the point lies in becoming lost in a canvas in the sky.
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In this hectic, fast-paced world, I seek out these simple moments of peace, even if that moment comes from a tiny, four-sided opening up in the air. I am infinitely intrigued by the idea of being away from it all, lost in a place of hopeful tranquility. For this reason, I am inspired to paint skies viewed at higher elevations. I envision the viewer in a more peaceful dreamlike setting, away from worries and anxieties to a landscape of brilliance and promise. My paintings are places of my imagination. I find my work the most honest and authentic when I create from a feeling or an image in my mind’s eye.
Many of my paintings contain building thunderheads viewed at higher atmospheric levels, surreal and fortress-like. My work embodies the concept of “castles in the sky,” or striving toward the impossible. I am captivated by the idea of attempting the impossible because I believe anything is truly possible. The clouds have sharp edges similar to the harsh exteriors of castles, yet they still evoke a certain cloudy softness and luminescence. This series of paintings isolates the shapes found in building thunderheads onto a solid backlauraguese.com @lauraguese
ground. The clouds appear strong and solid, yet they are simply water vapor. I love that natural contradiction. It is my hope that the viewer becomes lost in the intricate details of the clouds. I aim to transport the viewer, much like the canvas that is the airplane window, to a meditative and peaceful place. I love to create a moment for the viewer where time stops, anxieties fade, and they feel at ease, just as they might feel while simply gazing at the clouds out of the window of an airplane.
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EXPLAINING “SLAM” By Zelene Jiang
The huge black door opened. I felt minuscule in front of it. I had nothing but tubes of paint, a canvas, and a roll of yarn. The emotion was strong, but the image at that point was unclear. I remembered the words of Karl Jaspers: “Humans can only attempt to grasp authentic being by action, decision, a leap of faith.” I like yarn; it is linear and flexible. Even though yarn is material, it seems to have a soul. Yarn dances and talks. I put its slim body on the canvas according its whim. I paint over it and bury it, thinking about all it can symbolize: population explosion, traffic jam, homeless, people, child labor, human trafficking, climate change, war, separation...but with a
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rhythm. I could not get rid of the images of hundreds of banners in my grandfather’s huge funeral; they danced so vividly and beautifully in the wind. Colors are monsters. Colors scream and run with shackles. I try to unlock them. I run after them while I also lead them.
It seems to me at times my blood flows out in waves Like a fountain that gushes in rhythmical sobs. I hear it clearly, escaping with long murmurs, But I feel my body in vain to find the wound. Charles Baudelaire, “The Fountain of Blood”
couple entwined, I saw a whip with a horse’s body. I used lines like waving fabrics to create cells and build architectonic forces, which see both dark and light, imagination and limitation. Colors fall and crash, yet they are more at ease once immersed within the canvas. They are still alive, with the mark of motions. They are wet; they gradually dry in the wind.
Time stood still when I painted, but the finished canvas communicated the depth and length of the labor. The canvas became full, and images emerged from a seeming void. The door was gradually closing at first, ending with a slam.
I heard sounds. I heard music. I weaved them in multiple layers. I saw hammers hammering nails non-stop. I saw a
I was drenched in sweat, exhausted. I washed my paint-encrusted hands, and returned to the mundane.
zelenejiang.com
FALL 2015 NUE 15
ANNA RUNS AMERICA
© Miss Robot Photography / Image Courtesy of Anna Judd After a couple days of running, everything around me began to sharpen into focus. I appreciated the beauty surrounding me as if I was seeing it for the first and last time. The desolate California desert, with nothing but miles of crumbling road and dirt and sky, transformed into a landscape of golds and brilliant blues. The road was always a long, black triangle starting at my feet, and coming to a point far away on the horizon line. When I crossed the border into Texas, the setting sun turned acres of red soil into a shade of pink so soft it seemed I was viewing the world through rose-colored glasses. Abandoned, dilapidated homes on the side of the road became mysteries to unfold, and I would search them for clues as to who lived there before, and what happened to them. I’d find old family photos, waterlogged diaries, and naked, disheveled dolls that stared at me with one eye open, the other stuck shut. People I encountered became increasingly lovelier too, and I began to see myself in the eyes of everyone, the divine in me instantly recognizing the divine in them. And then there's the hard part of running across America. You have to run against traffic, so if a distracted driver happens to be drifting into the shoulder at ninety miles per hour, you have to jump out of the way before you get run over. Sometimes you must run on the freeway, which is loud and nerve-wracking, and leaves you covered in a grimy layer of dirt and sweat at the end
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of the day. Sometimes, you will be able to shower, and sometimes you will go days without one. When the sun sets over the desert, rattlesnakes slither out from the sand and rocks to warm themselves on the black asphalt, and lay right in your path. Once you've almost stepped on one, you start to see them everywhere, even where they are not there. Dusty ribbons of shredded tire from semi-truck blowouts look like coiled serpents from far away. There are feral dogs that seem to roam every two-lane highway and backroad in the county, angry homeowners who accuse you of trespassing when you accidentally cut across their property. Then, there’s all the things you can’t prepare for and simply have to learn the hard way. If you told me three years ago that one day, I would run across America for veterans, I would have laughed in your face. I’ve been an oil painter nearly my entire adult life, and never imagined that my career would take such a dramatic turn. When I decided to be an artist, it is because I believed that artists had the power to change people’s hearts, and in doing so, could change the world. Painters, musicians, writers and philosophers help us look into ourselves by approaching our hearts from angles we don’t anticipate. They navigate around our blind spots to show us truths that we were somehow unable to see. The most impactful art is that which sheds light on truth, reflecting culture back onto itself.
© Miss Robot Photography / Image Courtesy of Anna Judd I became disillusioned with painting when I began to feel that the image was losing it’s power as a tool to provoke thought and inspire change. I stopped painting altogether for about a year, feeling uninspired and hopeless about visual art’s cultural relevance. This is when I started running. It began as a way to meditate, as a way to free my mind and spirit. It felt a lot like the creative process. It was a time when I could detach from my identity, and exist totally in the present moment. The fear of both failure and success melted away as I lost myself in the simple work of putting one foot in front of the other. I began to ran marathons. I had no talent for speed, but it seemed that I could run interminably without exhaustion or injury. My body recovered from long runs quicker than most. As I steadily increased my mileage, I considered my perceived limitations, and wondered what would happen if I continued to push them. I toyed with the idea of pushing the limits in my art as well, to move beyond painting into a medium more effective as a catalyst for change. Then, one day, I decided to run across America. After months of mulling over the idea, I decided that I wanted to do it as a performance art piece, a social experiment to see what happens when a person gives themselves over completely to one purpose. The design for this plan started to form, and immediately it became clear that this was an opportunity to create a living, breathing artwork that would affect change in it’s viewers by asking for both their observation and participation. My goal was to show that when communities come together,
individuals become empowered. I wanted to create opportunities for others to experience love, compassion, and kindness. I was inspired mostly by Mahatma Gandhi’s Salt March through India. Millions of people marched across India with Gandhi to protest British taxation on salt. The real purpose of the march wasn’t to change the policy, but to find one issue that all Indians could agree on, and in doing so, unite them. Deciding on this “common ground” for the run for was extremely challenging, because there are so many problems in the world, and each seemed very worthy of getting attention and support. I chose to run for veterans primarily because it was the one cause that I didn’t want to support. I felt that I had nothing in common with veterans, as I had always identified as non-violent, and a peace advocate. My lack of compassion for these people served only to protect my own identity, and I had no reason to judge them. Eventually, I realized that if I truly wanted to push my limitations, and use the run as a way to encourage others to be more empathic and accepting, I would have to start by doing it myself. If it was easy for me to accept everyone but veterans, that is where I should focus, and expand my own scope of compassion first . For over a year, I learned about PTSD, the veteran suicide rate, and the issues they faced when trying to reintegrate back into civilian life. So many of the problems that veterans face are indicative of issues that affect everyone in our culture: unemployment, poverty, depression, anxiety, addiction, lack of medical care, and an inability to find their place in the civilian world.
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Š Miss Robot Photography / Image Courtesy of Anna Judd I assembled a team of people to help me execute the project. I enlisted the help of Robot Mofield, an phenomenally gifted photographer and filmmaker, and we began to interview veterans on film, attempting to gain a first-hand understanding of the problems that they faced. We went to VA hospitals and veteran homeless shelters, trying to learn as much as we could, so we educate others about the problems as well. We solicited sponsorships from health food and athletic companies, and at the last minute, secured a 31-foot RV from a health food company called Frezzor that would serve as a support vehicle and our home on the road. I trained very hard for the year before I left, as my goal was to run forty miles per day, six days a week, for one hundred days. I felt that it was important to make the mileage high in order to garner the attention necessary to make the project successful. The route took me through the deep South in the early summer months, and we planned to arrive in New York before it got unbearably hot. Little did we know the journey would present more obstacles and trials than we ever thought possible. Both my self-confidence and naivete made me believe that I was somehow invincible avoid injury and obstacles simply by willing things to go smoothly. Within the first two weeks, I has lost all of my toenails and sprained both of my ankles. In the end, it took 155 days to run from one coast to the other, and my average daily mileage was about 27 miles per day. Like any great piece of art, there existed in our journey across America a delicate balance between extreme violence and extreme beauty. The exhaustion and physical pain of running so much was offset by the unspeakable natural beauty we encountered. The horror and despair in war stories shared by veterans were softened by accounts of love and brotherhood. The immense stress I felt at the task I had to accomplish was counterbalanced by overwhelming support I received from friends, family, and the veteran community. Thousands of people across America formed a protective cocoon of support around me as I made my way from one coast to another. Whenever I felt that I was out of strength, someone was always there to pick me up, to give me the courage I needed to keep forging ahead. Robot became like a sister to me, we were able to experience the un-
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conditional love and camaraderie that so many veterans had told us was impossible outside of combat. Our friendship deepened in a way that linked us forever, a bond that feels stronger than blood. From very early on, runners started showing up to join me as I ran through their towns. Most of these were runners were members of Team Red, White, and Blue, an organization dedicated to building networks of support for veterans and civilians through physical activity. In nearly every major city we ran through, members of Team RWB would show up to escort us through. Sometimes, random cars would pull over to the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, and people I had never seen before would appear to act as both my guides and my friends. Friends from California started flying out to help drive the RV, so Robot could ride next to me on her bicycle, both keeping me safe and documenting the journey. There were thousands who ran with me, joining me in an effort to raise awareness about PTSD, the veteran suicide rate, and the need for community. We learned a lot of lessons on the road. Some were about America, some were about humanity, and some were about ourselves. Because we avoided the major highways, and traveled mostly on the old, two-lane highways, we were able to see the part of America that was in a state of decay. The old roads weave through towns of industry and farming that were once prosperous and booming. When the new, bigger highways were constructed, commerce moved with the flow of traffic, slowly hollowing out the each community until it became an empty shells. Lines of run-down brick factories and boarded-up buildings would sometimes dominate entire streetsI learned to never listen to fear-mongering, as some of the most amazing experiences I had were in neighborhoods that people warned me were dangerous or too poor. I learned that I was capable of both enduring and accomplishing things I had never imagined. In Arizona, I ran with an Apache man who opened up to me about growing up on an Indian reservation, and introduced me to his beautiful family. In Louisiana, I walked with a corn farmer for 30 miles as he told me about his ancestors that fought with the Confederacy during the Civil War. A few days later, I ran with an African American man who told me about his experience growing up in Jackson, Mississippi during the Civil Rights movement. It often felt that each new vista that appeared was a different periods of history. After we passed through Dallas, and began our descent into the South, things got a lot harder. The air conditioning unit was knocked off the top of our RV when our friend accidentally drove it under a low bridge. Coincidentally, entering East Texas was like passing from a sauna into a steam room. The weather was brutal. At the end of the day, when I needed to cool down in order to recover, the temperature in the RV wouldn’t allow it. I would toss and turn all night in puddle of sweat, slapping hungry mosquitos off of my body. In Alabama, we were involved in a fatal accident, when a man slammed into our RV going about 120 miles per hour, and died right in front of us. The back panel of the RV was completely ripped off and stayed that way for the remainder of the trip. Bit by
bit, everything was wearing down. By the time we got to South Carolina, I too was deteriorating both mentally and physically. I had developed what seemed like a bleeding stomach ulcer that made me incredibly weak, as well as plantar fasciitis in my right foot. On some days, every step was painful. At the same time, the project was gaining momentum, and more news cameras and people were showing up to root for us. I was determined to finish, and learned to ignore the physical pain and push through it. Because I had been given so much by the community so that I could finish, quitting was never an option. When we crossed the border into Virginia, and I was at the end of my rope, everything turned around. We took a sharp left, heading north for the last 1000 miles of the run. When we arrived in Richmond, the weather cooled down by about ten degrees and a massive wave of support crashed on us, propelling us all the way to the finish line. Different people ran with me nearly every day, and my performance skyrocketed. In Washington DC, a group of runners from Team Red, White, and Blue came out and took us on an impromptu tour of the National Mall. In Fredericksburg, we ran through a battlefield with dozens of veterans and community members. In Baltimore, an entire Army brigade joined me for 26 miles, running in formation behind me and singing cadence as rain poured down on us. When I ran into New York, hundreds of people who had been following my journey on-line sprinted the last miles with me to Freedom Tower, which marked the finish line of the run. Running into New York City was both exhilarating and terrifying. Robot and I dropped to our knees and cried happy tears when we arrived at Freedom Tower. It occurred to us both that we never really imagined what it would be like to actually make it. We never thought about what would happen afterwards. Without meaning for it to happen, running across America had become a metaphor for deployment itself. Although the outer journey appeared quite different, the inner journey bore striking similarities. My goal in the beginning of the project was to empathize with those who were different than me, to understand and to love them by pushing the limits of my compassion and acceptance, and unintentionally picked the perfect way to accomplish this-- by going through something incredibly similar myself. My journey did not end in New York, and it continues to unfold. If the run across America existed so that I could understand deployment and empathize with those who have gone to war, the months after were meant for me to understand what it is like to be a veteran. I have been home for seven months now, and transitioning back to normal life was by far the most difficult aspect of the journey. Because of it, my awareness of the problems veterans face deepens and expands every day. I understand PTSD in a way that would have been impossible for me without running across America first. One would never guess that this tree-hugging, yoga-loving artist from Southern California would have so much in common with combat veterans, and feel that
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Š Miss Robot Photography / Image Courtesy of Anna Judd they are somehow kin to me, but I do. All of us are a product of our environment and our experiences, but underneath our fragile identities, we are the same. Our true common ground can be found when we decide to love one another ,regardless of our differences. It is crucial to our survival that we commit to look past race, religion, and political ideology, and work together to build a peaceful world. I have seen that it is possible. On the outset of the project, I imagined that it would be empowering veterans. With humility and the utmost gratitude, I found that the individual most empowered was me . Anna Judd continues to work as a fine artist in Southern California. Her artwork can be seen at http://annajudd.org. She is currently working on a book about her journey across America. Any questions or comments can be e-mailed directly to runannarun2014@gmail.com.
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Stones That Heal The Jewelry of Anné Gangel
Colorado and Maui–based jewelry designer-artist Anné Gangel is a woman of contrasts and eclectic elegance, elements that are reflected in her jewelry line and unique style. Anné’s Gemini personality shines through each of her energized jewelry designs! Her bold statement rings reflect a raw, organic edge that contrast with her delicate, refined earrings and necklaces. Anné likes to mix elements of silver and gold while keeping the rawness of the stones intact. Each piece of her jewelry is meticulously handcrafted and embodies an energy-healing aura. Anné attended college at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff Arizona where her creative passion and spirituality were perfectly molded from exposure to Sedona. In Sedona, Arizona, Sedona, with its special Vortex healing energy, Anné took an interest in “crystals” and “healing” stones which carry a deeper and more personal meaning. “I like to meditate and bring peace, love, and happiness to everyone I meet.” With the help of the stones’ natural healing, Anne infuses special blessings and energizes (charges) the stones with a personal
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message. “Clearing the energy and literally talking to each stone as I cleanse them, giving my jewelry line a beautiful, spiritual blessing and knowing that each work-of-art will go to the right person to help them on their life path.” Right before the passing of my father, he encouraged me, ‘Work on your jewelry line!’ I’m happy that I finally took my father’s guidance of becoming an entrepreneur and living my passion, as an artist.” Anné knew that her niche for helping people and creating beautiful healing jewelry was just the beginning of her life purpose. This year, Anné had the pleasure to be mentored by the woman who invented the angel cards, Doreen Virtue. “I now do angel card readings and incorporate the stones that people need for healing.” Anné Gangel Designs, is displayed in high-end boutique stores, galleries, and yoga studios throughout Colorado and Hawaii. “The Feminine energy and the ‘Aloha way’ felt natural to me with my passion to shed light with a smile to everyone I meet.”
annegangel.com
Positive and Negative Self-Talk: Redefine Your Narrative By Julia Bresner
Have you ever found yourself struggling to find the energy and motivation for a major lifestyle change? Have you ever become a victim to your own self-criticism? Do you doubt your ability to begin a reinvention, and follow through with your goals? You are not alone. Many people struggle to begin their journey to healthier eating and better living. But did you know that your biggest enemy could be the thoughts in your own head and that you have more power than you know over your self-talk? What exactly is self-talk? By definition, it is the act or practice of talking to oneself, out loud or silently. These automatic thoughts are inevitable, everyone has
them, and they can be positive or negative. For example, self-criticism can be a positive thought process that helps us learn and grow from our past mistakes. But negative self-talk and too much criticism can be damaging. It can reinforce negative thoughts we have about ourselves, and ultimately, we may begin to define who we are by our destructive narrative. Positive or negative, that voice inside your head impacts how you live your life; it can help guide you to achieve your personal goals or can act as a barrier. Positive self-talk puts the power in your own hands.
Questioning why you have these negative self-images
positive reinforcement is a great strategy to build confidence. For example, and counteracting them with
have you ever found yourself thinking? •
“I want to lose weight, but because I love to eat, I know I will just gain it back.”
•
“I already ate cake today, so I might as well eat whatever I want for the rest of the day, it doesn’t make a difference.”
Counteracting those negative emotions with positive statements, can reshape those negative self-fulfilling thoughts. •
“I may love eating, but I am in control of what I put in my mouth. I am in control, and by starting with small changes to my diet, I am taking steps to achieve my goals.”
•
“It is ok that I had that slice of cake, I will make healthier choices for the rest of the day.”
Self-talk is self-fulfilling. Many of my clients believe they are powerless. Telling yourself that you are powerless and incapable of change will result in failure to achieve
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your goals. If you tell yourself that you will succeed, then you have a much better chance of success. You might not notice immediate change, but in time, and with
persistence, you will make the changes that are important to a healthier and happier you. For example, if you decide to cut soda out of your diet, you might not immediately notice the positive results this will have. However, by continually reinforcing your self-talk with words like, “What I am doing is healthy and WILL bring change,” you may notice over time that you have lost weight. It’s hard work.
We all agree there is nothing more important than our health. Without it, we wouldn’t be able to live a positive and fulfilling life. So how do we ensure it is a constant priority? How do we stay motivated to keep ourselves in shape? And how do we avoid making excuses for ourselves that can prevent us from achieving our nutrition goals?
The following seven positive thoughts are mantras that I use personally, and that I’ve seen work for my clients to help keep them stay motivated to reach their goals: •
I know I am in control and will make the best decisions possible to be as healthy as I can be.
•
I am confident with who I am, and I am working on a better me.
•
Good choices make me feel energetic, happy, and alive.
•
My body is a temple, and the positive decisions I make help protect my temple.
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Whenever I exercise, I am improving and I am a happier individual.
•
Every positive choice I make is a step towards my goals.
•
Challenges will come, but I will not allow myself to begin thinking negatively. I will always rebound.
Using positive thoughts to reshape personal narratives is empowering. Positive narratives open up the possibility of living more fulfilling lives and can help us realize our goals. We have a choice. Choose positivity.
Do you want to begin your journey towards better health and living? Do you want to reframe your narrative in a positive light and obtain your goals? Do you want to become the best “you” possible? Please feel free to contact me at Julia@Verve360Nutrition.com. I provide personal health assessments and customized nutrition plans, weekly discussions about your challenges and successes, and twenty-four-seven support. Together, we can achieve your goals and help change your life for the better. Choose positivity. Choose a healthier you. Julia Bresner, owner of Verve 360 Nutrition, is a Holistic Health Nutritionist, Motivational Coach, and fitness trainer, certified through the Institute for Integrative Nutrition’s cutting-edge Health Coach Training Program, and holds a BA in psychology from the University of Connecticut. She has studied over a hundred different dietary theories, practical lifestyle management techniques, and innovative coaching methods with some of the world’s top Health & Wellness experts....from Dr. Andrew Weil to Deepak Chopra. Through personal experience and her position as Director of Amari Medical, a private practice specializing in weight management, she has developed strategies to support, motivate, and encourage others to achieve weight, health, and nutrition goals. Read what some of her clients are saying...
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FALL 2015 NUE 23
THE LATEST FASHION
Clothing: Caroline Borucki Photography: Andrew Bondlow Model: Brenda Lezon carolineborucki.com
home . fashion . art
coming September 2015 www.rareatlantic.com
Photography: Jesse Hamrick Model: Tracey Hawkins
LEATHER & VELVET
Wardrobe made and styled by: Elyse Rainbolt
Wardrobe: Gunmetal calf skin leather jacket with hand painted lining
Jewlery: Wealth or Black Magic
Photography: Brandon Carter
Black calf skin leather jacket with hand painted lining
Makeup: M.A.C.
Models: Elyse Rainbolt Feni Hagman
Black calf and gunmetal leather bag Ponte du Roma striped leggings
Assistant: Chana Reynolds
Velvet bellbottoms
Shot in Denver, Colorado, at Finn's Manor and surrounding neighborhoods in the Five Points and Rino districts
FALL 2015 NUE 39
(left to right) Allison Zunich wearing 'Tectonic Boundaries', Tara La Plante wearing, 'Floating Vortex', Kelli Bohlman wearing 'Isosceles Vortex', Nereida Villareal wearing 'City Center'
All photos (unless noted):
Makeup: BeautyLoveLisa.com
Photography: FranceascaSeiden.com
Jewelry: Wes Hatem https://squareup.com/market/ weshatemm2m
Styling: AshleyCatuzzi.com
LINEAR VORTEX LEGGINGS
Caroline Geys takes leg fashion to a new level
Belgian-born visual artist Caroline Geys is no stranger to experimenting with different mediums. She is continuously bouncing back and forth between graphic design, apparel, painting, drawing, installations, and sculptures. Caroline says, “Since my work stretches into various media’s so does my thinking, fueling a velocity of ideas from one medium to another yielding one consistent factor, color. I experiment with color palettes in all of my series; it is a part of my expression, throughout life’s paradigms, exploring the metamorphosis within the context of my life as a visual artist.”
shirts’ products. Caroline began putting her imprint on these products and earlier in the summer had a vision for a fall leggings collection, “Linear Vortex”. The name came from a series of digital work which she had started in December of 2014 and is now made up of 45 different designs and continues to expand. Caroline has been working in marketing for
architecture firms since she graduated from college so it makes perfect sense that she is inspired by linear architectural lines. This collection was also inspired by the Pantone Fall 2015 color pallette, she says. Caroline grew up around her father’s art collection and went with him
For the last four years, she has been living in downtown Los Angeles in a work/live loft, a space that she’s always dreamed of having. While living in Miami, she collaborated with We Love Colors in 2009 and 2010, a Miami-based apparel company that is geared towards dance apparel and activewear. She was the first artist to be featured on that website to offer custom hand-painted hosiery to customers in the States. While Caroline had been creating custom hand-painted orders of sneakers and other apparel for collectors and friends in the years before, her partnership with We Love Colors allowed her collection to be available on a broader scale via the internet. Around the same time, she was also working with a New York-based company called MusicSkins, who generated her designs on skins for phones and laptops. Fast forward to 2013 and she began utilizing Society6 as a tool to create her designs on a wider range of products like home decor, prints, and phone cases. Earlier this year, Society6 introduced the leggings and the ‘all over print
Tara La Plante wearing 'Floating Vortex'
Alyssa Dominguez wearing 'Autumn Diamond Vortex'
to galleries, auctions, and museums throughout the U.S. and Europe. Growing up, one of her favorite pieces was a print by the leader of Op Art, Victor Vasarely, that was hung in the hallway by her bedroom. She tells us that this piece and other Op Art images have consistently been imprinted in her mind throughout her life. “I focus on the exploration of various individual forms that make up a city: the micro within a macro dynamic including: architecture, topography, and cultural and physical infrastructure. Essentially, encompassing the idea of organic vs. environmental and the nature of urban development,” says Caroline. “Every line, dot and color illustrates a connection made among these elements as they meld and recreate each other, serving as points of growth within a composition – specifically in the way larger cities accumulate architecture over time and the difference in landscapes between urban and rural locations.” While residing in Downtown L.A., she has met a wonderful circle of creative people in her neighborhood. For her photo shoot, she wanted to include some of her closest downtown girl friends for the fall Linear Vortex collection. “I am lucky to have beautiful friends but it was important for me to portray in this photo shoot that we are all different sizes and shapes, and we don’t have to fit the industry model physique that we are always surrounded by in the media. It was such a fun experience to meld my passion, my friends and my neighborhood all into one for this photo shoot.” The “Linear Vortex” collection is available for purchase at www.Society6.com/CarolineGeys/ leggings You can also visit www.Society6.com/ CarolineGeys for her other products and her website, www.CarolineGeys.com to see the breadth of her other work.
Allison Zunich wearing 'Tectonic Boundaries'
Ashley Catuzzi wearing 'Urban Reflections'
Kelli Bohlman wearing 'Isosceles Vortex’
(left to right) Allison Zunich wearing 'Tectonic Boundaries', Tara La Plante wearing, 'Floating Vortex', Kelli Bohlman wearing 'Isosceles Vortex', Nereida Villareal wearing 'City Center'
Nereida Villareal wearing 'City Center'
All leggings available for purchase online: www.society6.com/carolinegeys.com For more informaiton: www.carolinegeys.com IG: @carolinegeys
(above) Carolyn Geys (above and below) Video stills by MichaelAtallah.com Formal title: Filmmaker / Concept video coming soon. 'Pacman' Utility Box - #Beautify Hi-Fi Project BeautifyEarth.org 1601 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA, 90026
Caroline Geys wearing ‘Somewhere in the Fall’, Alyssa Dominguez wearing ‘Autumn Diamond Vortex’, Ashley Catuzzi wearing ‘Urban Reflections’