We recently connected with Jorge Parra and have shared our conversation below.

Jorge, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

 

After I left my life as a Research Chemist ages ago, and switched massively into Photography and Visual Arts, there has been quite a number of projects I could talk about. I had to rely on my Personal Projects to rebuild my whole new life from scratch. A total transmutation occurred!

The core of the matter is that, as long as you create, develop and maintain Personal Projects, which others call Passion Projects, Side Projects, etc, alongside your commercial work, there will always be the possibility for you as a creator to explore new avenues, new enterprises and new ways to enhance both your creative process and your life.
Bottom line, the individuals are responsible for opening themselves up to new possibilities for their own process, growth, and destiny.

At this point in life, after many of these Personal Projects, I can certainly talk about a special one that is taking shape, slowly but surely, and started to grow from an idea to a certainty. It started up during the pandemics, a moment when most of my commercial work went down the drain and even when I was still able to handle myself financially, thanks to my private workshops and one-on-one private coaching, plus some commercial clients that I could provide images for, shooting in my natural light spaces and home studio premises (see AtHomeProduction.com), but my mind was still curious about pointing out a specific idea that could be turned into a full-scale project..

Eventually, the brainstorming found a way, involving some unusual images I created during an Art and Meditation Retreat in Thailand a few years ago.
I started showing some of the images in Fine Art Exhibitions, invited by different galleries. I showcased some of the Limite Edition Metal Prints of the PETALLIKA series in Art fairs like the West Palm Beach Art Fair and other private venues, with an excellent rapport with the prints.
I found out that many creatives, from fashion designers to architects and interior designers to graphic artists, all were encouraging me to share my files and make arrangements to develop some ideas they had in mind about how to put them to use, so we could build a collaboration project.

Then the pandemics came and all those ideas discussed went down the drain, with everything technically paralyzed. It was the paralysis that gave birth to the idea in my mind to develop a line of Sustainable Luxury Casual Fashions for women, using these cool art pieces. A true and original mix of Art and Fashion grew up in my mind and from this process the Wearable Artifacts (WA) brand emerged.

So, from one angle, the pandemics created chaos and yet, from another point of view, new possibilities and ventures were created.
Fast forward to today, we have prepared an online store for these fantastic Art-to-Wear sustainable products, and we made a series of built-in features to help with our sustainability goals..

To begin with, let’s call it Back to Slow Fashion: we are producing a limited amount of “classic” designs for the garments and focus more on the Artwork and the top quality of the manufacturing process.
We KNOW that fast fashion with slight design changes and super low prices (and poor quality materials) are the driving force for people to become hyper-consumers. On many occasions, people buy stuff they don’t need and probably won’t use. We HAVE to create a new level of awareness and consciousness for people to buy things that last longer, that do not wear quickly and with designs that clearly bypass the trends for each season.

Second, we are using incredible inks and dyes that guarantee the longevity of the vibrant colors of the Artwork in our products. We are also using some recycled and upcycled materials, but the real kick of Wearable Artifacts lies in the fact that you definitely buy less clothes and use them for longer periods of times, while retaining the color quality of the printed Artwork, and staying in style, so in a simple way, users of the Wearable Artifacts products are contributing their 2 cents on sustainability.

If something came out at the early stages of the pandemics, in discussions amongst well-known fashion brands and designers, was the idea of limiting the production of garments to 2 seasons per year instead of 4 seasons. Sadly, those great ideas are not being followed up, with everyone trying to recover financially from the low sales during the pandemic. But we should still look into options!!!

Also, we are donating 5% of all sales to non-profit organizations, so we also give back to the community that has helped us grow and thrive. I feel it is the minimum every project should do.

So in retrospect, what I see is that Wearable Artifacts, (www.Wearableartifacts.com), which started as a personal project is becoming a meaningful project, that connects Mindfulness, Art, Fashion, Sustainability, and giving back to the local community, all in one shot!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

I usually say that I have lived two totally different lives in this one. I studied and worked as a Research Chemist, doing interesting stuff, first working on the chemistry and biochemistry of the brain, then I switched into Electrochemistry, a fantastic field that keeps researching the possibility of developing cold fusion, a process that could become the top non-pollutant source of energy for humanity. So I was deep into these fields when I got forever entangled with Photography, my true call, and one day I just left behind my career as a Chemist and turned myself into a Visual Alchemist.

At this point, I have been working as a photographer/videographer for my own company, Jorge Parra Photography, established in the USA since 2007. We provide all sort of Production Values to our clients, which happen to be Advertising Agencies, Marketing Companies, and Direct Clients from the Fashion, Health and Beauty, Hospitality, and Luxury industries. I usually say that I go as far as I am invited. Some clients need just everything from me, casting, locations, permits, catering, etc., while others clients just need that I show up with my camera for projects they produced themselves.
More info about all of this can be found in my main website www.JorgeParraPhotography.com, and my company services are available just one text-email/phone call away.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I sincerely feel that the goal of any artist is to contribute in whatever possible amount to the bettering of society through their vision. It is evident in time that it is the artists and their vision that create movements upwards in the civil society. The art manifestations create several levels of trends, impact the viewers in unexpected ways and that can eventually help people advance their own individual goals and the ideas to reach those goals.s

A society without a thriving art community stays frozen, and anyone can verify this by looking through history.

I hope I can bring up some contribution to society through my own work too. In this regard, I feel that the Wearable Artifacts projects may bring some of these social goals into reality.

Other, more personal goals are minor in scale and relevance.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

Along the commercial projects, I have worked constantly in my Fine Art Projects and exhibitions and continue to do so. Amazingly, just during the pandemics, the emergence of the Crypto markets and the NFT platforms has become an amazing source for artist and new collectors to establish cool connections globally and entirely outside the realm of galleries and museums, therefore opening the doors to more creators to showcase their work to world. As I enter the marketplaces I begin to grab a better understanding of what entails working in Digital Arts and how that expands my own horizons.
It follows that my Fine Art Works is moving towards the NFT spaces, which brings a brand new perspective to the Visual Arts.

The world of NFT’s and the world of Crypto Currencies and Smart Contracts are all linked. We are at the very very early stages of impressive changes in both the financial worlds and the art worlds too, thanks to the popularization of these new tools available for all.
We are at this point so early in the process, that no more than some 4 million people worldwide are currently involved in the Crypto / NFT processes, and it reminds me of the onset of the internet when only a few people were using browsers to navigate the “information superhighway” while the rest of the world kept asking themselves things like why do we need electronic email for??
Well, some 10-15 years later, everyone was hooked up, and nowadays, it is just absolutely normal to be connected to the internet at all times through our smartphones, tablets, computers, ad other devices, and email is practically becoming “old school” to the new generations.
Well, the same thing with Crypto and NFT’s.

They are here and they are not going anywhere. The faster we engage in these emerging technologies, the better for us and the upcoming generations. It is only that as of today, too many of us do not have the clarity to understand this for real. There is a learning curve that takes time, and this is one of the reasons many people have not engaged in these technologies.

Soon we will see many more interactions between NFT’s and real-life items, properties, IRL objects, merchandise and tools.
I am at this moment working in the implementation of the NFT’s into the Wearable Artifacts brand to expand the user’s experience when interacting with our website and products and how buyers can further help with the sustainability and community goals we have in mind.

Lastly, I am happy to report that I have been invited to participate in New York NFT, starting June 20th, by far the largest series of NFT Art exhibitions ever, and there will be a huge number of both IRL (In Real Life) shows, as well as Virtual shows across several galleries and exhibition spots in Manhattan. I just built my first Gallery in the Metaverse for this event. Some if the original artwork for the Wearable Artifacts brand will be on display, and some additional news about the WA brand and NFT’s are coming up. Stay tuned!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://JorgeParraPhotography.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/JorgeParraPhotography
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/jorgeparraphotography
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/FineArtKrypto
• Other: https://WearableArtifacts.com https://instagram.com/WearableArtifacts

Image Credits
Art Images from the Petallika Limited Edition Series. ©Jorge Parra. Models: Kamila Formin, Klaudia Pankin, Eliza Zachary and Leticia Guedes.
All photos ©Jorge Parra.
Hair and Make up Stylist: Jesus Bravo Production
Coordination: Jorge Parra Photography for Wearable Artifacts.

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