I am beyond honoured to welcome my dear friend Jazzy to The Wholesome Seed, to talk about healing through art! Jazz, and I have been friends for years now, both hailing from Southern California, but funnily enough, our paths didn’t cross until we were in Australia!
Jazz and I met through our older sisters. My sister and Jazz’s sister worked together during college, and when my sister found out Jazz was moving to Australia, she put us in touch as I had been living in Sydney. We spoke on the phone while she was in Bali and we instantly hit it off! She was planning on staying at a hostel in Kings Cross (a bit of a dodgy area) I immediately told her to cancel her accommodation and told her she would stay with me on her arrival until she was acclimated enough to find a desirable area in Sydney! A couple weeks later, I arrived home from work to find beautiful Jazzy sitting on my couch.
You know that moment you meet someone and it feels like you’ve known each other forever? Well, that was one of those moments. She instantly felt like a sister to me and our relationship continued to grow. She has been such a beautiful person in my life and I am so excited to share her story!
Jazzy is now living in Spain with her husband and is an extremely talented artist and photographer. It has been amazing to see her art evolve through the years. Today we are talking about the power of healing through art, the highs and lows of living abroad, and how you can incorporate art into your daily routine.
Without further adieu, please welcome my dear friend and soul sister, Jazzz Monet.
Introduce yourself to The Wholesome Seed community!
I’m Jasmine Monet Davis (my friend’s call me Jas, Jazzy), I’m an artist and photographer from sunny Southern California but have called Northern Spain my home for the past three years.
I grew up in a smaller suburb outside of the big city of Los Angeles for most of my life used to the familiarities of suburban living – seeing the same people, going to the same local hangouts, and for a while that seemed like a satisfying life. It wasn’t until after college when I found myself working long hours in the entertainment PR world that I realized I didn’t want to be trapped in this cycle of commuting, working, living for the weekend, and starting all over again the next week.
So I took leave for 6 weeks and travelled for the first time out of the country in my early twenties. I went to Kenya with a friend to volunteer and it completely shifted my life perspective. It was the first time I saw people that looked like me but had a completely different world experience and somehow seemed to enjoy life even with less material things than me.
That first trip to Kenya was the catalyst for my curiosity about how the people in the world around me lived. I found that with a camera I could more easily slow down and observe what was happening and capture how it made me feel. Whilst in my travelling, I also reconnected with my love of art again – when I was missing home or not feeling like myself, going through a hard moment, I would draw or paint. Somewhere along the way, I realized that creating art was more than just a hobby and it became my passion.
There is a beneficial connection between art and mental health, can you share your experience on healing through art?
Growing up, I can remember that I was constantly being imaginative, playing, making things, and as I got older, that slowly got put on the back burner as I became more focused on being a good student or a committed worker. And in doing that, I felt less and less connected to that playfulness. When I got into my 20s, I found it much harder to express myself emotionally. I held a lot of turmoil inside and I would push down uncomfortable feelings because I didn’t have the right emotional literacy to deal with those more complex feelings.
Strength for me looked like pushing through, being self-critical, and letting no one see you cry. I built a shield of armor that “protected” me from being hurt. But really, all it did was keep all of that rage, hurt, fear and confusion locked up in me.
However, when I put that energy into creating something, words didn’t have to be at the forefront and I could just use colors or shapes and forms to convey things that my mind found complicated to translate. It was so freeing and healing to not be tied to language to express my emotions.
This really became apparent to me after I lost my older brother in 2021. It was a pain I wouldn’t wish upon anyone. It overcame me with grief and depression and, for a long time, anger. The world truly felt less colorful for me. I retreated into myself again, holding onto emotions that were painful and numbing – almost like a comfort blanket.
Art became like an unbiased outlet for all these bottled emotions to be released. I could turn to it when my heart would hurt. I felt listened to and not pitied. I felt empowered to feel all of my emotions again. It helped me be able to process all that grief and anger without judgement. Even to this day, I appreciate the clarity and comfort it brought me.
Can you tell me about your experience as an artist living overseas? How has it influenced your artistic journey and style?
Being an artist overseas is something I’m so fortunate to experience. I get to dive head-first into other cultures and see other ways of living first hand. As an artist, I’m always in search of inspiration – I mean, if you think about the word itself, ‘inspire’ means to take in. And being in a foreign place and outside of my comfort zone sometimes makes it feel much easier to witness inspiring moments because you’re taking so much new stuff in from languages, architecture, historical roots, religions, family dynamics. The list goes on.
My style is always evolving, I think whatever I’m creating will always have some mark of where I’m at in my journey. For instance, I’m working with flora that I find locally in nature or on the streets of my city and I incorporate it into my piece now through drawings, flower pressing, or natural dyes. It’s quite a nice time stamp to look back and see the influences on the pieces.
The other day we were standing in front of the historical cathedral in our town that was built in the 13th or 14th century and it had such beautifully intricate details carved into the stone above the arches and those little carvings took them years and years to complete, and it reminds me to embrace a slower form of creation and not be in a rush to finish.
What are some unique challenges you face as an artist living overseas, and how do you overcome them?
I think when you grow up for a long time in one place; you take for granted the familiarity of places and ease of access to networks. Moving overseas, regardless of how seasoned a traveler you are, is always like starting from scratch when it comes to that aspect of creating genuine bonds or understanding how your new city operates. Both things that take time to cultivate.
One of the most unique challenges I’ve found is building a community with other local artists. The language barrier for the first year was difficult, as my level of understanding and speaking Spanish was near zilch.
One way I’ve found that always works for me is the digital space. Social media is a great tool and I’ve come to love it because it’s helped me find new friends with the same interests.
Also, a tried-and-true method is just asking to hang out with people and being open to new experiences even if you suck at speaking the language. This method helped me make friends that I still have today and even helped me find a job as an art teacher for kids wanting to practice English.
In terms of maintaining a healthy lifestyle, what are the key factors you prioritize while living abroad? How do you balance your art practice and taking care of your physical and mental well-being?
Since art is not only just a creative release but also the way I make a living, I’ve had to navigate creating boundaries around resting and finding other ways of recharging other than just art. At first, it was a struggle to understand that rest is also a major part of my creative process. I would beat up on myself for wanting to just lie around and read, watch TV, or sleep in. Living abroad added this extra layer of FOMO, because I would think “take advantage of this ‘day off’ and go see and do all the things not everyone has time to experience living here.”
However, health is wealth. And I like being wealthy! Over the past few years, I’ve learned to be more compassionate towards myself when I’m tired or run down, because I know how necessary it is for myself mentally and physically. There are three key areas I need to be checking in regularly to stay healthy and well-rested. Spirit, mind, and body… particularly in that order.
I love to meditate daily, read spiritual texts, sit in contemplation, and do breath-work as I find it helps me untie the knots of my thoughts and connect to something bigger than just me. Moving my body has always been so important to me and training with weights at the gym is so satisfying. Luckily, Spanish culture is one of lots of walking and being outside and with friends often, so I also get to feel active even when I’m just catching up with friends.
Tips for anyone wanting to incorporate the therapies of art into their routine?
Start small and make it fun. I think people feel intimidated by the idea of “messing up” or not being a “good enough” drawer or painter. We forget that art is about playfulness. Embrace not knowing what to do. Children are the best way to observe this – give them paper and a pen without instructions and they’re off to the races. Art can be whatever you want it to be, scribbles on the page, painting on leaves, cutting out things from magazines, baking cupcakes, writing a poem, literally anything.
You could start by grabbing a low-cost notebook from the dollar store or your local store and put on one of your favorite albums and song by song just start writing words or using colors (paints, pens, crayons) to portray what the song makes you feel. Or go for a walk with your notebook and when something catches your eye, a building, a flower, a sign, stop and quickly sketch it.
At the end of the day, it’s making a commitment to play – so even if that means once a week adding 15 minutes of scribbling on paper into your routine, it’s a small reminder of your infinite creative power.
Where can people find you?
You can follow me on instagram @jazzzmonet to see me in action, join my newsletter for more monthly inspiration and you can shop my latest work on my website.
