Jayanti's Blog

The mundane is merely Magic in disguise…

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Mundane is merely Magic in disguise!

Two weeks after my last post, I lost my apartment, lost hope, lost a lot of tears and my beloved Tinkerbell figurine lost a hand and broke her wings. How silly symbolic. Well, I see your lesson and raise you an epiphany, solidified faith in my dreams, more helping hands than I can count (you!) and an even deeper appreciation for the love surrounding me.

This is the tale of how Tinkerbell took her broken wings and learned to fly again.

Exactly one year ago, while I was having the time of my life in LA, something stirred in my spirit whenever we passed Laurel Canyon Boulevard and I knew it was a significant place for me. The winding road, the trees, the rocks, the energy!! It was like driving into a magical forest then exiting into the blinding lights of Sunset. ["What just happened? Did anyone else feel that??"] I believed I was supposed to be there and would eventually return, but my dreams and hopes of ever returning to that enchanting place diminished for a moment when I lost my place a couple of months ago and moved back in with my mother. And while the flame of hope for a musical future was being washed away by tears and years of disappointment, I received a big, heavy package all the way from Canada, sent by my friend Erika last month (also known as the Blue Monster, keeping my Facebook “like” page). A book about Laurel Canyon and all the artists who have lived there. I had no idea! Musicians lived there? Generations of them?? Wow… I started believing again, if only a little bit.

A few days after, I had a profound and cathartic interview with the Grown Folks Music blog and spoke candidly about my woes and hopes, the dance of my undying faith in my passion and this dramatic feeling of dying imagining giving the dream up. I’ve received many heart warming messages from you all (some of you I already knew, some of you were new), telling me you enjoy the songs I sing and write, not to give up and how touched you were by the interview and related to certain aspects of my story: being vulnerable as a woman, the struggles of “making it” as an artist or simply daring to dream… with everything you have, foolish as it may be. You made me realize we all need to smile in the face of disappointment and it becomes a lesson, to smile in the face of darkness and thus become the light. You have rekindled my flame with your energy, I am incredibly grateful to you. Thank you!

Mundane is merely magic in disguise. That’s the title of this blog (top left, see it?), one of the lines in my song “High on Life” and my soul’s motto. Every day is (supposed to be) special, but some days seem to shout: “Hey that line you wrote? It’s true! Magic is everywhere! Keep believing! Don’t give up!”. Today was another one of those magically mundane days. Two presents presented themselves to me on this seemingly ordinary Thursday. The pure joy of receiving a package, times two! One: I received these gorgeous Nadine Calor earrings I won two weeks ago on facebook, inspired by the magical night’s sky. Just the kind of thing a nocturnal nymph would wear. Oh yes!

And the big surprise, an early birthday present from the UK: the reincarnation of my special Tinkerbell figurine, which my mom originally bought for me years ago to inspire me while pursuing my passion for music. It had an important place in my apartment and I looked at it daily for hope, it inspired me to keep pushing for my dream. The original one lost her wings and hand while my belongings got shipped from there to here and silly as this may sound, that upset me quite a bit.

I remember telling my friend Michael (from Manchester, like the guy from Big Fish and the Bee Gees, but I digress..) about these “bastards” breaking Tinkerbell’s wings, but I never expected him to send me a brand new version of the fairy I’ve owned for years for my birthday (which is in November, and I suppose… today!), wings and hand intact, bearing the message that’s been propelling my wings for years: “Let Your Dreams Blossom”. I will. I promise. Promise me you will too?

jayanti.me

Oh yeah!!! After last week’s countdown with the 4 ET mixtape photos, we launched my website: jayanti.me, home of Exotic Tinkerbell.

The website serves as a social media hub, which updates itself in real time to give you a look into the ET realm and my ramblings: my latest tweets, facebook status updates (even if you’re not on fb), youtube videos, songs and of course my most recent blog posts. Win and I thought it up, and knew immediately what it would look like. We would use the photos of our upcoming Exotic Tinkerbell photo shoot as a backdrop and wanted a minimalist look (zen!) with small buttons on the right and nothing else. And we wanted the background pictures to refresh themselves during your stay as a way to introduce myself to you, before you even got to the full gallery. And it’s so good to meet you! I hope you feel me beaming amazing vibes to you, cause I most definitely feel yours! Thank you all so much for the love!!

Besides launching the website and social media platform, this was also a launch of the Exotic Tinkerbell Photo Album. You can find the 13 photos under the 5th button (flickr). The photos were essential for the feel of the website. The world I escape to during my highs and my lows: Harry Potter and Disney meet Arabian Nights and a burlesque room in Josephine Baker’s days… A visual representation of my personality. From morning to night, steamy yet light, introverted to extraverted (I scored exactly 50/50 in a test I did as a psychology student), a girly girl who hangs with the fellas (Girl From Mars), listening to their guy talk during basketball while yapping their ears off over tea, an only child who loves making new family and adores the huge family she was born into, the European born daughter to Surinamese parents, mom East Indian, dad Creole Black. I wanted this shoot to display my duality, and the way I embrace it. Never choose sides, why can’t I be both?

After the photo shoot, working with the incredible makeup artist Yohana Yfara and Winand & Vinod Singh shooting me with two cameras -different lenses-  simultaneously (duality!), we started working on the website we envisioned. Clean and simple looking, but with a lot of coding needed to make the website think for itself, collecting all my babbling from twitter, facebook and youtube to make jayanti.me a place that breathes and moves as I do. Winand knew the perfect person to create the actual website, someone who had previously worked in the creative field as a film/television producer and decided to listen to the little man inside and quit this seemingly glamorous job to pursue an old hobby: web development. George Sait was the perfect guy. Like Win and myself, he has given up on a stable income to go for his passion (in my case singing, in Win’s case leaving a high profile ad firm to become a freelance creative conceptor). And if there is one word I love and live by, it is passion! I hope you will or have found yours!

My very best hug to…

Winand Singh (conjuring up the ET concept with me, photos, designing jayanti.me)
Vinod Singh (photos)
George Sait (web design, losing a weekend of sleep and ghetto guerilla coding)
Michael Fitzmaurice (overseas coding and rubber ducking
)
Yohana Yfara (makeup)
Wendy (hair)
Van Dijk: Wendela, Barije & Tatiana (styling except my own purple blue jumpsuit)

…for working on the Exotic Tinkerbell photo shoot and website with me… and to you, for reading this all the way through!

Interview with Urban Monks

Wow, I am very very proud to be the latest feature on Urban Monks, an inspiration website for creative people. And aren’t we all creative? You might be doing the 9-5, but you like to think outside of the box, try to find the unique little things that make your life more interesting, conjure up the most crazy scenarios, if only inside the realms of your mind. I know you do. You’re a human being (if not, please leave a comment!! please!!!!!). Hence, you’re creative. It’s in your design. You need to challenge those neurons. Let it out!

And in the meantime, if you’re interested, read my first online interview. It includes pictures! A picture of my hand and an empty tea cup!! Yes!! And also, two new photos from the Exotic Tinkerbell shoot..

Exotic Tinkerbell

January 26th 2010 was one of the happiest, most blissful days of my life! An extension and crown upon months of preparation, hours of conversation, saving (thanks mom & Win for the extra support!!!), creating a mood board, diary entries, inner traveling, outer channeling by means of the right setting and perfect wardrobe (Van Dijk!), working with my favorite makeup artist (Yohana!!!), an amazing hair stylist (Wendy!!!) and to top it all off: shooting with my best friends, Winand and Vinod Singh. Two rooms, two moods, two elements, two cameras, two angles, toooo smooooove!!!

We made our first selection last night, and now I’m going over the first batch to make the final cut. We will use these pictures for the new website, which will hopefully launch in March [May, hooray!]. Here’s a first glimpse of our shoot: Vin shooting Win shooting me working as the creative collective “Me We”!

-click image for full size-

Things are really coming together for me on all levels, I’m surrounding myself with the loveliest, most inspiring, gifted and giving people blessed with incredible talent and the purest of spirits. Beautiful Yohana, the makeup artist with an incredible eye for detail, literally sprinkling me with fairy dust to make the magic shine through, the ladies at Van Dijk (Barije, Tatiana and of course Wendela) helping me with my gorgeous wardrobe, Wendy the buoyant spirited hair stylist with pizazz and flair while doing hair (girl you funny!), Winand and Vinod really stripping me to my core then turning it inside out to show my soul on camera for everyone to see. We really captured me: Exotic Tinkerbell. People don’t tell me I’m an alien for no reason, and now we know what E.T. really stands for! ;o)

I made a playlist for this day, click to see the titles and create a sonic image of the Exotic Tinkerbell photo shoot. I also played the album “janet” by Janet Jackson and “Les Fleurs” by Minnie Riperton.

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