Nelson & the magic

Products of our environment

As I walk into Nelson's living room I am surrounded by plants, clocks, sketches, pottery and old phones. It’s a space that could feel chaotic but is instead warm and embracing. Everything is placed with care and attention to detail. The walls drip with character and you get a glimpse into his history with each object.

Nelson is a visual artist and production designer in LA and has found a niche in repurposing antique items to create something new. He was born in Ghana before immigrating to New Jersey when he was six. His family would then travel to Ohio where he would spend the rest of his youth in Cincinnati. His childhood was marked by a lack of resources and a constricting loneliness.

“I didn’t feel like I belonged there. When I first moved, I was the only black kid in my neighborhood and all of my classrooms. This was back in the early 90s when parents were telling their kids not to hang out with me because I’m black.”

“I'd have kids come up and tell me that they couldn't hang out with me. So I spent a lot of my early adolescence alone. I’d be at home or with the few friends that I had, either playing or working on my imagination. It was extremely isolating and that’s what instilled in me the sense of wherever my place is in this world, I have to go and find that place.”

“My family was dirt poor. I never had money for art supplies. I almost felt like my life was in black and white because all I could do was draw with pen on paper. I never had access or the resources to get canvases or anything else you think you need as an artist to create.”

Cali fest

As Nelson reached young adulthood he found himself fighting an uphill battle. The pressures from constantly working, not feeling creatively fulfilled, and being a new father were beginning to push in on him.

“I was going through one of the saddest, most depressing points of my life. For black men it's always been hard in general. I applied to at least 70 different places and didn't get a single callback. I was struggling to pay my bills. I wasn't working on art because I couldn't. I was just doing things to survive that didn't make me feel good about myself.”

“It seemed like every creative project I tried got stomped on. I tried throwing an event at Waterworks. It's essentially this big recreational pool and me and my cousin's rented it out. We were gonna throw this festival called Cali Fest. I got some local artists to do all types of cool stuff and hustled to get the rental money up. And they arrested me.”

“This was early Facebook days, I created a Facebook event page and it blew up. It was one of the biggest things in Cincinnati at the time. The cops started looking at it actively [because] it was stepping on another promoter’s event. All of these internal and external politics started to take place so quickly.”

“When I went in to pay the final deposit, I remember feeling weird like that feeling that you're being watched. We go to the receptionist and she is taking her time, doing nothing at the keyboard. I had this feeling and when I turned around this old white guy was reaching for me. I flinched up a little bit, he pulled out his badge, and they arrested me.”

“They took me back and they had printouts of the comments from the event page. They said, ‘We need you to get on the event page right now and tell everybody that it’s canceled.’ There’s people in the comments talking about being able to bring in weed and stuff like that. It's just comments and they're like, ‘We need you to shut it down.’ They let me leave. I had to post that it was canceled. The city paid for two of those big electronic signs on each side of the street that says, ‘Cali Fest is canceled.’”

“I’ll never forget that because it instilled in me that this place will actively stomp on any idea that I have to try to thrive. I lived in one of those places where they've been building all these factories and they have a factory position with each of our names on it. There isn't anything else that was there for us. Cincinnati has changed in the last 10 years that I've been gone, but like it's still very behind in a lot of ways.”

“I was in a bad place and I got to this point where every almost every single day, I was thinking how I could end it. I was thinking I could walk down to the Purple People Bridge and jump off. Every single day I was coming up with a new way. Thinking about the impact. Really fucking ideating this shit.”

“I was thinking like that for a couple weeks. My best friend had just went to prison. One day I was like, ‘All right, I'm gonna change.’ I started to go to the library. I started reading books on computer programming. I’m going to learn something brand new. I remember taking my friend’s bike to go to the library to read these books. I didn't have a car or anything like that.”

“I locked up the bike outside, went up on the third floor, could see the bike and somebody walks up and yanks the bike off the fucking chain. Just rides off. I ran out of the library and I couldn’t find him. I was really low thinking this city is beating me up.”

“I remember the thought coming to my mind, ‘If you're ready to die, then you're ready to start all over.’ Within a week I packed up a bunch of stuff in my apartment, took it down to the Skid Row version of Cincinnati and gave a bunch of shit away. And then hit the road and drove out here.”

Fresh start

Nelson had a few friends in LA but making ends meet in one of the most expensive cities in the world was scary. He hit the ground running and began taking photos and making videos for friends and local musicians. He was couch surfing when one day his car got broken into and every piece of his camera gear was stolen. The equipment was worth $10,000 and represented years of hustling and patience. Knowing how difficult it’d be to rebuild, he focused instead on painting and drawing.

He was creating a logo for a friend and discovered that he couldn’t draw a leaf from memory. This prompted him to reconnect with horticulture. He filled his life with plants. Simultaneously he was discovering a passion for carpentry and production design after working as a production coordinator for TV. In his spare time he would thrift home decor and fill his apartment with trinkets and antiquities. Still he was struggling to find a way to make a living as a full time artist.

“I knew I was closer to mental breakdown than being able to sustain myself as a painter. What else am I good at? And I started to explore different things. I was trying to experiment.”

“I had this old clock that was hollowed out. You can see through it because it’s a glass. I remember sitting there thinking, I bet I could put some plants in there. So I tried and it was hard. I remember loving that creative challenge and wanting to see it through.”

“I started to incorporate nature through plants and flowers into my artwork and also started to use a mix of mediums. I was able to really dive into my creative practice as it is now. The more I learned to build with my hands, the more art I was able to create. I went and learned floristry from some amazing floral designers and infused those two to really build my profession and work that I do today.”

He has carved out a niche of blending nature and antique decor. Combining man made with mother nature.

Planting seeds

After years of acquiring different skills and techniques, Nelson has established a workshop series where he teaches people how to do floral painting. Recently he went on a trip to Kyoto to teach one of these workshops and share his knowledge with others.

“The more that I go out and learn, the more that I have to offer people. The greatest goal of my life now is to venture out further and engage with people that can teach me more. Teach me how to create new things or the same things in different ways and then continue to share that with the people in my life.”

“The community that I have been building has been fulfilling in and of itself. The majority of people that come to workshops, they have 9-5’s or they might not think of themselves as the most creative people and I get to show them why they're wrong.”

“I run into people all the time that believe they aren't a creative person. To be a creative person you have to be good at some traditional art form and that's just not the case. We all live creatively in some aspect. The way that people juggle their responsibilities on a daily basis is super creative.”

“I've seen people with the most extreme lack of resources finagle their way to sustaining themselves. It’s creative in nature. People believe they have to have certain things to practice creatively and that goes out the window when you see somebody take a pile of sticks and make a sculpture. It's far less about what you're able to get, and it's more about what you're able to do with what you have.”

“In my current practice a lot of it is centered around accessibility because of the things that I went through when I was younger. A lot of my art is being able to take the things that are around me and create value with them. If I allow the lack of resources to limit me, then I'll never be able to do the work that I want to do. But if I view everything around me as a resource then the possibilities are endless.”

What inspires you?

“I’d say magic. There's nothing that couldn't make me believe with the way this world is, that magic isn't real in some form. Magic being a word for all different types of stuff like miracles and providence, whatever it is. There's some type of magic at play that allows this world, this universe and this life to be the way it is.”

“To really feel it requires a lot of silence and stillness. When I can get away from my own mind and my own problems and behold the magic of life and this world, it's enough inspiration. Even looking out this window, I can sit in awe of what humans have been able to build. I love urban landscapes just as much as I love natural landscapes. There's something in all of it.”

“This recent [Japan] trip, it kept hitting me how magical this life can be. All you have to do is stick around to see it. Be present enough to be with it when you have it.”

Nelson ZêPequéno • March 31, 2024