006 | 100 Bjorn
100 Strangers Project
I walked into “Lil Jup” one day and noticed a new piece of art hanging on the wall. It’s a pretty big piece with a cosmic theme fitting of a cafe named after the giant planet. On a black background, we see about 12 round yellow swirls in different sizes scattered across the canvas. Each yellow shape has a bit of blue coming off of them. A lighter silvery blue fills in most of the negative space around the yellow orbs. I scanned the QR code posted next to the piece and was taken to an instagram post of the artist creating the artwork. I gave it a like.
As I walked up to order my drink I was thinking about shooting the artist a DM about his artwork and if he’d like to collaborate on 100 Strangers. Just then my phone buzzed with a notification from Bjorn, the creator of the piece saying, “I wanna be a stranger in your project”. I guess it was meant to be.
Bjorn 006 | 100
Bjorn greeted me with a portrait of myself on the back of his business card. His boots were painted as were his jeans and hoodie. He told me that he’s also a fashion designer and few runway shows have featured his clothing lines. After grabbing a couple of coffees we got to making some portraits. As with all the other strangers up until now, I photographed Bjorn with my Pentax 67 with the 105mm Takumar on Ilford HP5 pushed to 1600
Q&A
Rick: What’s your go-to coffee drink here?
Bjorn: I got the cubano
Rick: Great choice! Can you describe yourself in a single sentence?
Bjorn: I can do it with a single word. God’s
Rick: Tell me more.
Bjorn: I am who I am in the I am.
Rick: So how would your best friend describe you?
Bjorn: My friend Tozcha says I’m like the sun. Like a little sun. She likes my light… the way I shine and how illuminate and encourage her.
Rick: What’s a quality you admire in other people?
Bjorn: Truth. Like when people are genuinely themselves. I think it’s rare to find people like that.
Rick: Why do you think it’s rare?
Bjorn: I do think people are naturally themselves, but that nature is filled with lots of busyness. Things like status, profit… their jobs. I feel it in myself too.
Rick: What’s something you’re really good at?
Bjorn: Painting. I can always grow and get better, but I’m good at painting. I’m good at breathing. I woke up today.
“I wanna be a stranger in your project“
Rick: Where do you go to find inspiration?
Bjorn: God is the source of my inspiration. That manifests in a lot of different ways. Lately, I’ve been interested in how light is the source of everything and how that light fills everything with life. So I’ve been doing pieces of a sun or like the birth of the universe.
Rick: What’s something you wish more people knew about you?
Bjorn: That I’m human. Some people have said to me, “I love your paintings and I’m a fan of your work, but you. I don’t know about that.”
Rick: Oh geeze… Who says stuff like that? Let’s talk about your art. What does creating art do for you?
Bjorn: It feeds me spiritually. It’s where I go to dance with God. If I had a sacred duty, or a divine duty, it would be to paint.
Rick: I love hearing other artists talk about their creative process.
Rick: Here’s a time machine, but it’s stuck in reverse. So you can only go back in time, and once you set the date, that’s it! That’s the only day you can visit. You can travel back and forth between that date and the present as many times as you want.
What is that moment in time that go back to?
Bjorn: The first moment of time... the like, the first hour… in the beginning.
Rick: What do you think that is? What do you see there?
Bjorn: Well, I see just pure like explosive fucking energy. Like just... so like calm and channeled and explosive, like being in the redwoods, kind of like that feeling. But like, it would be the birth of the universe, the creation... be so full of light, I feel. And such a contrast too, because I feel like there'd be such like silence and darkness and then there would be just huge light. Or there was just always light. See I don't even know. I don't know what it would be like, but and I think that would be amazing to see just that, that creative act, that first creative act.
The amazing stories of people literally surround you, if you just open up. I love this series!! Such a gifted artist, and your telling of him is also a gift.
Love ya Rick. Thank you :)