Jessie's Self Portrait 365

Jessie L. Tyson (Southern JezeBelle to the roller derby community) is a summer camp director in Hardwick, NJ & a skater for Skyland Roller Girls out of Hackettstown, NJ and she's doing a Self Portrait 365...

She explains, "I'm using every diverse art form to tell the story of me. I'll be doing some type of self portrait for 365 (actually, 366 for the leap year) days. They will be plays, musicals, drawings, sculptures, found art, created art, borrowed art, assemblages, paintings, food, you name it! I'm going to be 30 in January and want to make a creative mark."


Why did you decide to do this project? I was at a Borders that's closing (sad day) and I saw the journal on the shelf. I'd just been complaining about how "off" I was feeling creatively, so I decided to get it. Half off can't be too bad, right? In reading the introduction and perusing the prompts, I just knew I had to do this. So I did!

I chose to do self portraits because for a long time I didn't want to really acknowledge myself. I'm straight horrible at taking compliments and, while I'm very open, I tend to hide stupid little things. It's hard for me to accept that people dig me, so this is a much more playful way to get comfortable with myself and how awesome people say I am. Because I'm probably pretty awesome.




How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? Already I've discovered so many things about myself. I find it really boring to continue a task. :) I tend to get caught up in the language of the prompts and see how I can make it work with what I'm doing instead of just jumping in like I usually would, which would ordinarily be the opposite. Oh, and I'm realizing it's ok to be imperfect! It's sometimes fun when things go awry!


See all of Jessie's self portraits on her blog HERE or on Facebook HERE.

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