A New Beginning.
Where would you start if you had to tell your story?
Its interesting to think of how to answer that question...
Part of me scoffs at the idea of starting at the very beginning, September 7th, 1992....but then another even bigger scoff comes from the cynical Jacy of two years ago, who judged anyone who asked for my birth time/date/place. You see this version of myself has undergone quite a few revolutions.
While I think anyone who knew me as a child would say I've always had a bit of whimsy about me. In fact my grandfather once wrote, "To Catch a Falling Star by Perry Como was written about Jacy, I'm sure of it." I've always had a love for the magic that life can bring. A love for the good things in life, and becoming obsessed with finding more of them to add to my list. I spent most of my childhood outdoors, barefoot and muddy. When it comes to things I'm most thankful for, the safe haven that I get to call my childhood home is top of the list. I spent my days roaming the 27 acres and surrounding neighbor pastures. Gathering wildflowers, berries, chigger bites and a deep love for the earth. I spent so much time at the creek, I could close my eyes and walk it from one end of the property to the other.
18 years of near idyllic bliss. We weren't rich- my mom a 1st grade teacher, and my dad a salesman for some sort of motor shit I still don't quite understand-but we had absolutely everything we ever needed, and we shared. I've been known to "bring home strays" - animals and friends alike, if anyone ever needed a warm meal, a place to crash for awhile or a blanket fort made to boost their spirits...well I was your gal. And my parents always welcomed them. Sometimes begrudgingly, sure, but no one with a good heart has ever been turned away.
While I'm sure I will talk lots more about that time in my life- Daniel (Buck) Watson will need his own dedicated series in this blog I'm most sure of it- its really best if we skip to the bad part.
Yeah, ya know, the part of the story where the plot turns to character development..... well I like to think my 20's were a decade of building LOTS of character.
After high school, I moved to Tyler to go to Nursing school at UT Tyler. Following my sister's footsteps to Tyler felt safe for me. I had never been away from my tiny 1a school- S/O to Douglass ISD and my graduating class of like 32 kids. (I honestly cannot remember how many...but trust me it wasn't more than 40.)
So the short 1.5 drive to Tyler was just perfect for me, I could pop home whenever I wanted and I could also feel far enough away that I didn't know every single person at the grocery store.
Life was good for awhile, just cruising on that 18-19 years of pretty solid life- I was a sickly kid, and lawddd knows I've always been sensitive and emotional, but for the most part I had been walking through life like I had the cheat codes, when I in fact had no idea I hadn't even gotten out of the training portion of my video game.
But as is inevitable in every good story- life came in with a swift leg sweep and knocked me on my ass...literally.
Again, in order to get this story out in less than a 900 pg novel, we have to skip some massive things in this plot....think of this as the cliff notes version of a very long and tumultuous Bronte sister's book....or maybe more like Danté's Inferno....but I digress..
ANYWAYS....
in 2013 I started having unexplained seizures.
There were some precursor signs...ish.
Some bullet points I'll leave here now with no explanation, but ya know maybe one day in another blog.
- 6 weeks premature birth
- Infant Botulism at 3 months old
- recurrent lung issues- bronchitis and pneumonia yearly.
- History of passing out and lips going blue- diagnosed exercise induced asthma and Neurocardiogenic Syncope.
But despite that list that honestly sounds pretty bad, I was a very healthy human. I played basketball and softball- I had multiple jobs and was excelling in school. So when these seizures popped up, it rocked my whole world.
It started out kinda casual- I had a pretty bad seizure and busted up my face- bruising, confusion, soreness, doctor's appointments. I mean it was all run of the mill really. We weren't sure why it happened- but ok whatever... we gotta try to fix it now. Just a speed bump- I have far too much fun and independence to be stopped by anything.
lol. yeah. life did not agree. My seizures progressively got worse and worse.
As the weight fell off me, my body revolted.
Bones ached, hair thinned, mouth raw. body so very weak.
The seizures came more frequently than they ever should.
New medications. New doctors. Specialists.
It became painfully obvious I could not continue on with nursing school. My own mangled psyche couldn't see it, becauseI was making the grades-that had to be enough!
But after my second seizure on the clinical floor, I was kindly and lovingly, medically dropped from nursing school.
Devastated. A shell of a human...hollowed out of all that couldn't go with me.
I often think of this scene from that Yellowstone with Tim McGraw
(Damn he held up, and Faith Hill is even hotter- worth the watch just for them honestly)
...anyways in this show 1883- they are helping this group of European immigrants claim their piece of the great American West.
They get to this big river- and they have to cross. There is no going back safely alone, there is no way to go forward without crossing it.
And so Tim McGraw's sexy ass starts telling them all to lighten their loads. They can't have anything other than essentials in that wagon or they will be too heavy to make it across.
All these families start crumbling with emotion- completely unable to face the reality of losing their prized possessions. Treasures from home....sacred relics of a life lived far away. The precious cargo that had travelled across the sea and to every spot until this one.
Slowly, defeated. Devastated. Hollowed out all the way to their core
...one by one, they all start to remove these precious pieces of furniture and memorabilia.
Littering the edges of the river banks with thousands of hours of hand carved artistry, soaked in the last memories of a homeland they will likely ever see again.
This scene plays in my head in certain moments of my life.
While it hadn't even been filmed yet at this time- this season of life was my first time to arrive at the river that demands surrender.
It carried me back home- forced to return to my parents for care.
All my independence was gone. No school. No job. No drivers license.
I couldn't even drop the shampoo bottle in the shower without someone rushing in to check on me.
Admittedly this portion of my life is one that is hard for me to remember. The seizures wiped a good bit of it. Seriously, I had to go on 3 first dates with my boyfriend at the time....just kept having a seizure and forgetting him.
I do remember there being lots of joy still.
I met these -dumb, hilarious, full of life- boys in my Microbiology lab class my sophomore year- somehow these goons, became my saviors. In charge of taking me to school, letting me crash on their couches, literally picking me up when I couldn't walk. My girlfriends would drive to pick me up in Nac, or meet my parents halfway. They fed me, found me when I was lost, and helped me find any scrap of self love I could muster.
It was during this pause of life- this season where I had been stripped of everything I had planned and set up, that I found a camera.
My grandfather was a hobbyist photographer with heavy duty equipment. Known for his uncanny ability to get the weirdest angle photo, and then print it poster size as a gift. No for real....he made posters for every single thing. Sports events, holidays....posters everywhere... not really sure what he expected me to do with the 12x16 framed photo he gave me of me and my high school boyfriend at prom- but he didn't care. The bigger the better. The bigger the lens, the equipment, the computer screen...I couldn't have asked for a better set up to slowly claim belonging.
In my downtime- I picked up his camera. I began just shooting anything and anyone who would let me (and could drive to see me).
The timeline gets scrambled for my brain, but between that complete loss of nursing school- I ended up enrolling in SFA, taking a dark room film class to get back into the swing of school.
I landed a job as an assistant to the SFA photographer, Hardy Meredith.
It was here that I started to take off.
My appetite for learning everything camera was voracious.
Where my memory used to lead my skills, it was now my intuition that had to take front seat.
Shooting every kind of event the campus could throw at us- sports, theatre, head shots, marketing promos, robotic competitions.... the list goes on.
It was clear I was in no shape to return to nursing school, so I changed my degree from nursing to the closest thing I could find to fit the classes I had already taken.
In December 2016, I graduated SFA a member of Omicron Delta Kappa, Deans List and with a degree in Health Science and Psychology.
I had plans to go to Occupational Therapy school, but with my photography career taking off and my long term boyfriend needing to finish his degree, we moved back to Tyler.
I took off as a wedding photographer full time. Shooting far too many weddings for far too cheap, but living my absolute best life.
My freedom had been ripped away, but now I was back in the drivers seat and I was pedal to the metal.
All gas absolutely no breaks- which ya know, was absolutely NOT what the doctor ordered, but for a bit I was making it.
Shooting photos on the weekends...babysitting my niece, Sophie, on some weekdays... I was busy, booked and blissfully unaware that my wagon was about to reach another river.
In May of 2017, Sophie was diagnosed with T-Cell Lymphoma.
She had a softball sized tumor growing from her chest wall, pressing on her heart.
Devastated.
But this time not a shell of a human.
I remember being so positive in the months after the diagnosis. The hospital became my favorite place to go. The precious slowness that came to be expected, confined to the hospital room on many days, occasionally allowed to room the halls. This place became a haven, because everyone else here knew. They knew what it was like to have your guts ripped out of your body as you hear the doctors speak the cursed words of a haunting diagnosis.
While I had much to say about this time in my life- I will keep it brief for now (we're only in 2017 ppl!)
After an unprecedented relapse, a Hail Mary dose of chemo, a global brain injury, 5 months trying to rehab a body nuked by the very worst conditions... we got the terminal diagnosis on December 22, 2017.
We had 13 days to sing songs of praise and love on our girl.
On January 4th, 2018 at 2:11 pm, Sophie Kay Skiles lifted away from her disease riddled body and headed straight into the arms of the divine.
Kissing her tiny forehead one last time, singing one more lullaby...then watching her father carry her body, wrapped in tiniest pink blanket down to the morgue..... it was a river I had never known could exist.
Every semblance of that girl who stood confident and ready to take on the world was 10 ft under the rushing water.
I was used to pain, I was used to fog in my brain...but this? This inability to breathe? This impossibility that had occurred and now I'm supposed to bathe myself? YOU WANT TO ME TO CHANGE MY CLOTHES?
oh...I'm the aunt....life still goes on for me....oh no....it's the funeral day, but I've already called in every favor I had while she was terminal...I can't reschedule this wedding.
Walking my way through life like a woman underwater- the camera acting as the boulder holding me to the ground.
I shot a wedding the day of her funeral. And the weekend after that.
And likely after that.
It gets really dark around this time- in all ways that the word could be interpreted there.
Grief broke me. I was unable to move.
I got further and further behind on edits
....on sleep
......on life.
But it kept moving, it just kept fucking moving,
People would say, " I can't imagine." and "I don't know how you guys are doing it/surviving."
And I would just look at them so detached, what the hell do you mean how? I don't know man, I am NOT a willing participant. I begged every single day for my lungs to shrivel up and leave my body.
Then as one does, I decided to make huge life decisions while completely underwater.
Engaged. Married. Divorced.
The most painful blink of an eye.
I remember sobbing as my ex-husband helped my friends load all my things into a Uhaul. This huge armoire we had gotten from my Aunt- a beast to move even with the capable muscles of this man who people regularly referred to as "Clark Kent".
And here I was, tears of the river I had been drowning in for 3 years cascading down into a puddle on the floor. The floor I swept, next to the rug I excitedly picked to match the curtains we had received on our wedding registry. The pictures on the walls, showing 7 years of love and memories- washing away with me.
Except this time I decided it was time to float.
I took a deep breath in and dried my tears- straightened my shoulders..... I knew I would not longer fear the river, I would learn to navigate it.
There is so much more to be told, and I know finally, that I'm ready to tell it.
My journey from there to here started very simply...with that one breath.
My breath had been rising to meet me, even when I begged it to stop, but in that moment I finally asked for it. I asked for the air to fill my lungs with strength, just enough to move. One step at a time. One breath at a time until I found my way home.
The interesting thing about a home is that the home is exactly where the heart is.
I know you've heard the saying....
So if you can't breathe, can't live in your own chest...how can you find your home?
Tempest Artistry is born from that search. The search for light in the darkness...yes, but also that next step. The one where you carry that torch that once led you through the tunnels and you throw it down into the hearth of your own soul. Warming you from the inside out as you learn to tend it.
Creating a home inside yourself that feels cozy and true.
Tempest came to be from the storm cloud I have tattooed on my shoulder. Tempest is a violent windy storm, and thats exactly what I was weathering as I got that tattoo.
The Artistry portion was one of great dissent amongst my review board of friends and family. They rightfully argued that it was too broad- it didn't depict me as a photographer.
But I just knew, I knew I needed more art than just the digital camera....I knew there had to be more for me and this space.
So I did it, changed the name, the look, built this website- got my friend Justin West, of Brands and Threads, to design the logo. With just the picture of my tattoo he designed something directly out of my dreams. I was primed and ready to take off...
But it just still wasn't right. I held far too much fear in my heart. This home I was warming up was not ready for guests. It wasn't ready to take on the responsibilities of art again. I couldn't see the world how I wanted to, or at least not consistently enough to run a successful business.
Another river....one that was much sneakier, but just as deadly. The river of self doubt. The shadows of all the ways I had hurt myself and others weighed on my heart like a dementors kiss. Draining me of every bit of creative life I had.
This time though- I knew how to float.
Releasing my grip to everything- I let go, knowing what was meant to be will always flow back to me.
Steering my body through the ever changing currents of healing and finding supplies along the way.
Yoga coming in like a flotation device, buoying me through the rapids and sending me up for breath anytime I pull on it.
Gardening....Fairy spots of the day....the perfect playlist....candid photoshoots of my loved ones.... rubbing someone's shoulders in savasana...sunsets, sunrise, full moon, new moon, light, dark, everything all the time...right here, right now.
Flowing with me. Present.
And here we are, nestled on the shore- supplies in hand, I am building a place that feels like home. The home that I've been building with each breath right in the center of my chest. I couldn't decide what Tempest Artistry was, because I didn't know how to be the woman that would find herself on the other side. I didn't see that my pain isn't he highlight of my story... it's my origins. It's the chemical vat I was thrown into that gave me my superpowers.
This is not about my pain, it's about the alchemy of it all.
The ability to feel the intensity of it ...and then transmute that into something that resembles art.
Something truly lovely.
That is what I want Tempest Artistry to be
Love.
In Action.
With no boundaries on what that means, how it will evolve or who it will serve....
Photography
Yoga
Energy work
Astrology
Storytelling
Community Building,
Raw authenticity
Tomfoolery
Shenanigans
all things Joy bringing.....all of it has a place here, because I get to decide what decorates my home.
So welcome in, This is Tempest Artistry- a safe place to shelter from the storm.
I'm glad you're here.
