Shifting the Lens on the Black Female Experience and Women of Color to Drive Social Change with Photographer Delphine Diallo

Amazing energy that I can listen so many women processing the shoot. Another woman's coming, listening, listening, processing the shoot. 15 women a day. So I was obsessed because I didn't know how to express commonality, not through colors of skin, but through the eyes. So we turn the page, whatever the color of the women, and suddenly with turning the page, you realize the commonality of a New Yorker. And boom, I now create oneness, transcending race. That's my goal in my work. But I have to do the work through the eyes of a Black woman because I am a Black woman. The construct, the way that society see me is Black. I'm not seeing myself like this. I'm showing you my other sisters and Black women, like vision and form, which from that Black form I'm gonna take a transcendental formless form. That's my work.

This is RX Chill Pill. Now is the time to stay well. Each episode teaches your brain how to become resilient with amazing stories, knowledge from experts, and short meditations you can do anywhere, anytime to elicit your relaxation response. I'm your host, Dr. Juna Bobby MD, resilience and stress management physician and mother of two amazing kids. Today I'm honored to have as my guest a very special portrait artist Delphine Diallo. Through her work in unique and powerful portraiture incorporating collage and mixed media, Delphine strives to go beyond the conversation of race and to depict the common universality of the human soul. Delphine said in an interview with Artnet.com that photographs so far in history have a very limited interpretation of people of color. So I had this amazing passion and dream to embody a new mythology of women of color. Portraiture for me was the key to doing it. Delphine's art has been exhibited in museums and galleries around the world, and she's represented by Fisheye Gallery in Paris. Her photojournalism work can be seen in the New York Times and Washington Post, among many other publications. Delphine's most recent photojournalism assignment with National Geographic covers amazing images at the protest in Washington, D.C. Calling for the end of the pandemic of racism. You can also find her work on the COVID of Teen Vogue, where she had the honor of photographing youth activist Malala Yousafzai. In a field of photography where only 13% of artists are women and less than 3% are women of color, Delphine continues to build a powerful, unique style, vision, and following. We talk today about her childhood, her biracial French-Senegalese identity, her mentors, and her painful but amazing transformation into the artist that she is today and her most recent passion project, Women of New York.

Hey Delphine!

Hi!

How are you today?

I'm good.

I'm so excited to be here with you.

Me too.

Delphine's been amazingly creative today, helping me set this all up. It's my second On Location. Interview.

So congratulations!

Thank you, and thank you for your makeshift— I couldn't fit this microphone onto your table because it's this beautiful carved wood. And after watching me for a little while, she got all these planks and we got it together with a couple of 20-pound dumbbells. I love this about you. Because you are so creative and imaginative. I mean, I know that's your job, but at some point it wasn't.

That's— I mean, that was me from the beginning, I think, of the beginning of time. Yeah, I mean, I think this is my essence.

Your essence?

I'm very creative. I'm trying to resolve I see things through imagination. I don't understand mathematics, but actually creativity is very mathematical, but it's a different way to see things. So I can put things together, but if you talk to me about numbers and equations, I get lost. I just, I just, I think human beings can listen to rules, can apply the rules, but doesn't mean they have to follow them. You know, you're already very constrained in a specific order and condition and rules of a society. It's really a lot of rules there. So if I, if I'm not creative in a rules society, I'd rather go and live in nature, you know, because I think it's the only aspect of myself who, who can really be honest and open and loving because I have access to something that I don't have to be in competition or being judged. You know, creativity is something real, like something pure, beautiful.

Like, I understand you're not being a rule follower. I mean, rules are great. I'm gonna say I always have both sides, right? You have to have rules or else people. Yeah, yeah, I mean, things will fall apart.

There's principles, right? So those principles are being acquired because you, you are disciplined to understand them and to, and to practice them, right? Yeah. But at certain points, I felt, um, they can't define who you are and what you're doing in life. And that's what I'm saying. It's like, if I apply them, which is meditation, you know, making space for realizing that we are mortal people and we have to be grateful for everything in life. I'm aware of it, right? So the awareness of being able to follow principles in life, they're of giving, you know, of giving, of exchanging, or communication, of social behavior, or making sure your friends are okay, your family is okay.

Um, breaks certain rules, meaning within rules. Of compassion.

I mean, that's what we made for. We made for, for expansion, but not expansion in terms of economic, uh, financial, you know, matter, like material. We, we made for a growth of, uh, of expansion of consciousness. Yeah, you know what I mean? So yeah, it's like the material world is one thing, but I felt the Western world specifically is, it's focusing and directly, directly inspire kids to be materialist, like in a very big sense, like, you know, having 5 kids, having 4 cars, having 3 houses. What I'm saying, it's a lot, it's a rule of society, you don't have to do this.

Creativity requires moving past certain rules. Right, I can totally relate to that, and sometimes I feel bad about myself for not conforming exactly.

Oh, there's a guilt in me for sure. It's not disappearing. It's like each time I know I'm breaking rules, I am aware of it. And I'm—

let's give an example.

For example, the decision to be an artist. It's like when I decide to be an artist, I'm like, oh my God, it means I get an agreement with myself and the world and society to not following the rules anymore. The belief system, it's a new machine that you activating. Nobody's believing in you when you say it.

When you're becoming an artist?

Yeah, nobody. Like, it's a program who's never been taught to anyone, even if people go to art school. It's actually very strange because they create a society who now wants artists from art school.

Art school?

Yes.

So they want you to have art school training? Yeah.

Okay, which is kind of crazy because I did School of Visual Arts.

You went to School of Visual Arts in New York?

No, in Paris in 1997 to 1999. Communication visuelle. Okay, visual communication. So it's more based on graphic design, you know, to be— to actually, they train you to— for you to jump into an industry who needs a visual maker. So graphic designer, special effect artist, video editor.

This is—

that was my training.

Which school did you go to in Paris?

Académie Charpentier School.

Mhm.

And of course they were programming me. Yeah, you understand? Like, they— like, whatever the knowledge was, good or wrong, they were programming me to serve their services, the services of the economy, which is, uh, the the economy of the advertising, the economy of the music industry, whatever the industry needs. So at one point you become serving again the will of everybody's vision. So again, it's like you don't—

school for 3 years for visual arts.

Yeah.

And you were taught a trade basically, so you can go out and get a job in a company.

Yeah.

And have your 9 to 5 job.

Yeah.

And yeah, so you were working working in a regular job. Yeah, this is in your 20s?

Yeah, I was 23. I worked 3 years in a music production company, and we're doing special effects. I was doing special effects and graphic design for celebrities, like celebrities, musicians, singers. Yeah, for Universal, Warner, Vagram company, Sony Music, before the industry fall down after, of of course, the arrival of the internet and free access to music, you know. All that stuff was before. That was when the time, like, musicians used to make a lot of money selling CDs. It was very exciting at the beginning because you get out of school, you're just in a very artistic, you know, surrounding. Everybody is cool.

Uh-huh.

Everybody's cool. I call that, like, cool. But there is a limit to it. The limit, it's really, it's not art. So I started to ask myself the question, it's like, why I was so frustrated? And that frustration was coming from my side only. I was the only responsible for not seeing the potential and the, and the tremendous gift that creativity gave me, then I actually use for others.

So you really felt like you weren't using it? Was it because they were asking you to —make art within the boundaries of what they wanted to sell commercially?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, always adjusting your creativity, which was not really yours. They were using your craft. So basically you were making something and they would say, change this, change that. Yes, I was crafting for them.

You have to make it like this. Yes. Okay, so that didn't sit well.

Oh, at 29, I just did a big breakdown where I just realized, like, that was not me. Like, I wake up, like, probably the 30s, you know, when you arrive to 30s, you just realize it's like, but that's not me. Like, what I'm good at, what I'm really good at.

And when that happened, when you say breakdown, what do you mean?

29, 29 years old, when I was like between New York and Paris, and I was trying to move, I was moving to New York to actually expand my knowledge to America, but especially to speak English. I speak Spanish as well. And I was working with other production company. I didn't want to be in Paris. —so I wanted to give my knowledge of graphic design in New York for other companies. So were you freelancing at that point? Yeah, I was freelancing, and I was actually hired for my first visa to an American Latino company. It's called American Latino TV. So I was trained, and I trained a month crazy to be able to video edit content for Latino audience TV. It was called American Latino TV. Okay, so you start freelancing, and I start freelancing because you didn't want to be tied down to this job. You want to explore new things.

Yes, yes, yes. Okay, and then speaking of being multilingual, you're— let's go all the way back. Your parents are from—

my mom is French, um, and my dad is from Senegal, and I'm born in Paris. My both parents and I are still together. They're living in Paris. They're still together? Yeah.

And is she Spanish? No, my mom is— Where did you learn how to speak Spanish?

Oh, my ex-boyfriend. I was with a Colombian man for like 14 years. So I speak Colombian, yeah. That's a long time. I speak Colombian because it's a different Spanish, you know?

You learned it by just being with someone?

By being in love, loving the family, listening to them talking all the time, and suddenly it just came out of my mouth. 7 years. Oh, I'm speaking Spanish. It's beautiful actually, because I didn't know when it happened. And same for English. I'm really good at immersive experiences. Actually, I was not good in school.

So you didn't learn English in school?

I learned English when I moved to America at 29 years old. Wow. Yeah, I only speak English for 10 years now.

So you just start talking to people? I start to talk to people, yeah.

And I start to listen a lot, and I start to go out only with people speaking English. No French people around in New York, no French surroundings, completely immersed myself. So for me, is the, is the fast to grow, it's immersing. Immersion. Yeah, immersion. It's like using all your senses, a very fast tool for me because I am a sponge when it comes to these experiences. I really learn from them. I record everything, you know, like it looks, it feels like my 5 senses work at the same level. Yeah, while I'm sitting in the class, there's only few senses working. Interesting.

So you, for school, was not great?

No, I was bored.

You were bored and you were doing that one-dimensional learning?

Yeah, I only like history class because the teacher was creatively stimulating when she was telling stories.

What did she do, dress up?

No, she was standing up and she was like moving her arms talking about history or even geography, and she, she was very vivid and passionate about her knowledge. And so suddenly, for me, it was very easy to learn from someone who's passionate.

So she got your curiosity going?

Yeah, because she loved what she did. Yeah, she loved what she was doing.

She must have like created images for you of history.

She was the image. She was the image. She was very very vivid person, you know, like talking with the arms and, and a face and emotions. Yeah, she taught— she— that's what I'm saying, she was emotional teacher, and I like this. I learned faster, you know.

Yeah, I remember my one physics teacher— well, actually two of my physics teachers, one in high school, one in college. The one in high school used to have these little dolls that his wife sewed up. They look like little ghosts. And he called them gremlins. He would teach us like gravity and the force of throwing things by throwing it around the classroom. Right, we need teachers like this. And then in college I had a guy, he opened— he's my physics teacher— he had an icebox and we're like, what's he doing with an icebox? Yeah, he opens it up and like 100 balloons came out floating into the classroom.

Amazing gravity. Let's see. Start? No, helium. Oh wow, even better.

Yeah, yeah, he had balloons that were helium that float. Yeah, but if you put it in, um, dry ice, the helium contracts, so the balloons become shriveled up tiny.

Wow, that's so magic, right? Yes.

So then when he opens it up, like hundreds of balloons came out.

He knew how to teach. Yeah, and we're missing, we're missing teachers like but I, I'm not against, you know, them. I just say that if you need to teach to creative, you know, Mike, I'm a lefty. I am the 10% of this planet. Wow. So my right brain is well, like, developed. I wonder, and I just realized, like, recently that actually I didn't know that we were so few. Like, we don't think the same way because from the beginning that we're born, we just realize we don't think like it. We don't think like the people next to us, and it's okay actually.

Do you ever try to, uh, use your right hand to write? Try to—

I did, I did when I was younger because I would love to be ambidextrous, you know. It was the coolest things ever when someone tell me like, can write so cool, you know. But I'm fully lefty, like from my— like if you scan me, I'm sure my entire body on the left side is where I have way more muscle, way more kind of flow of energy than my right side. Interesting. The more I'm reading about this, the lefty and the right brain, and I'm checking in history, the lefty was seen as a sinner, or as people who don't think the same way that the rules and the people give you. So we're the ones actually who are outsiders.

So there was like a superstition about left-handed people?

Oh yeah, oh yeah, big time. In which culture? In a lot of cultures. Really? That's so interesting. Christianity, we're just like evil people. And then in Islam, I can't eat with my left hand because it's the hand who's cleaning. Really, the lefty are the one that people know they're just not normal, you know?

But now you're special and creative. So when we go back to your schooling, you're bored in school. Who brought out all this creativity?

From the day that I was born, my mother always told me creativity since I, like, since I remember her to give me tools like drawings and teach me art class, teach me how to draw very young age. I used to draw faces, you know, even before I, I was old enough to draw faces and study anatomy, around 5 years old. She told me colors, so she gave me a bunch of colors and I was already an abstract painter.

When you were 5? Yeah, I have it.

I can show you a picture.

Yeah, I'd love to.

But what I'm saying is, like, I was very— my mom could see that I was very sensitive to, to art, so she pushed me and she teach me everything that I knew, you know, the base of arts when you start to study art school. I start this at 6 years old, at 5 years old. Wow. Like, every weekend, every Sunday afternoon, my mom was teaching me anatomy perspective, architecture, colors. Like, we had a very specific schedule, and I think the schedule was on for at least 3 to 4 years. And I learned also I have to read the biography of painters from art history. So my mom had a membership to magazines who were only about the biography of painters. So she knew what she was doing.

Is she a teacher?

She was in accounting, but I think her best passion— She was an accountant? Yeah, but she was a painter, but she never was able to live off of painting. She sold at the beginning a few paintings because she was painting portraits of people, like regular people, right? She was doing reproduction. So I grew up with the reproduction of Mona Lisa in my living room. I have the pictures of her Mona Lisa and the real Mona Lisa. And let me tell you something, I'm telling you that my mom She's a master, but she never knew. So she really grew up with Mona Lisa in my living room.

Deep down, she's this artist. Yes. Was she unhappy being an accountant?

It just was something she— She was unhappy, but she knew that she was a privileged white person. Yeah, my mom, she's aware.

What does that mean? It means— Why was she a privileged white person?

She was living with a black man. Like, yeah, I was gonna ask you about that. You know, like, you have to understand our how society works there, like in Paris. Like, she was a blonde short woman, and then she was, she was with a black man, like dark, like Senegalese. So we have to— I have to put in perspective also what kind of energy she also need to have for protecting herself against like racism or, you know, criticizing, but also to be able to build a cocoon for me and a family. To feel like I'm safe. Just kind of like sacrifice everything, like, for be able to be a mother and someone that you can count on. That's why she become an accountant, you know. I see, she gave up— very practical. Yeah, she gave up the painting because she was— she told me she was lacking of courage. She raised me the way that she wanted to become.

She's like, I'm— she wanted to teach you everything she loved and learned. Yes. And she saw that spark in you. Yes. She saw that you were artistic. Yeah. So she nurtured that.

And she, she would teach me art from the beginning of my, of my, you know, my life. And she put me in jiu-jitsu martial arts at 6 years old.

Yeah. Was she a martial artist?

No, she kind of knew. She just found the discipline. She just knew. It's so interesting. I have to ask her because she always tells me, it's like, I would never put you to ballet because I don't want you to be weak. I don't want you to be a girl because I think she suffered from it. She suffered, she suffered a lot because she grew up around like 5 brothers and they would not pay attention to her. So she didn't want me to be a girl. She wanted to be like who I am right now, actually. She creates me, she creates me, but I'm, I'm, uh, but you loved it.

Yes, you weren't like rebelling against it.

No, actually it's the opposite. It's like actually, uh, when some people say, oh, you I'm not yours and you— this is what you want from me, blah blah blah, you know. Like, my mom didn't tell me that— be an artist, right? She didn't tell me anything, right?

But she just found the strength in you. She was my guide.

She was my direct guide. Like, some people are— I have mentors, but I recognized when someone is my guide because we have the same DNA. And then I have the potential to do it, which she didn't. She never did it, you know what I mean?

You're making me like have tears in my eyes. Oh, and chills. I am amazing.

Yeah, and I'm, and I'm, and I'm approving her 100%, and she's a part of my life because she's— she creates me, and I'm the result of a creative outlet to the world. I'm, I'm the piece of my mom, you know what I mean? And boom, and I'm like giving extension to my mom that she can come to my life and see my exhibitions, coming to with me in Amsterdam, traveling with me in New York, and see other of my friends and artist life because she contributed.

It's like, it's cool, Mom, thank you. But also, she, um, she wasn't bitter about not becoming an artist.

Yeah, she's sad. There's a sadness. She was sad. She's sad. My mom has a sadness, um, but she's Hiding really well. It's very recent, and I'm, you know, I'm getting older, so I'm aware of more energy, and I can read the energy better of people in general, and especially women I love. She's 29 now, so I think we talk about this now. I have a very deep conversation about my issues or our issues, or thanks her for supporting a Black man.

What does she think about that?

She won't talk about it. She won't? Yeah, which is kind of crazy. It's like, it's a time like '70s and '60s, like this generation of our parents won't talk about the constraint that society put on them, and they should. And me, I'm the result of like, I need to get out of Paris because this country is racist. There is no identity, you know, expression and representation anywhere. I need to get out of here.

But do you feel it's less so in the States?

America is one of the most advanced countries when it comes to civil rights, human rights, and evolution, but it's a mess. But there is a fight, but we can see the fight. You understand what I mean? There's an industry for Indian people. There is a big industry for Afro-Americans. They fight for civil rights. The growth between the civil rights movement and now, it's kind of fantastic. Nothing happened in France for 20 years. It's that slow. Yeah, nothing happened. You go to the movie theater, there is no almost black people on the screen. Really? Yeah, it's like, it's like, it's like traumatizing. Wow. Like, stop it, guys.

And it's so interesting to see your fresh perspective on America. Yeah. And for me, I grew up here and I came here when I was very little. But when I go back— well, I haven't been back in a while, but I have been to back to South Korea and it's very homogenous. I mean, compared to the States.

And we are— we're talking about the experience of the Western world. So we can't compare when the East, China, even the continent Africa, and, and Asia itself. It's like, so it's not, it's not a multicultural society at, at the base, even today.

That's what I'm saying.

Yeah, but the Western world has a responsibility, and the responsibility of the Western world after colonization is actually to now open doors and opportunities to many of us which come from different places, because they've been using us. Okay, so this is what the Western world is very interesting, is because from using and carrying so much pain from, you know, slavery, and also using, you know, Chinese people and killing Native Americans and whatever they did at the beginning of the century, even for 200 or 400 years, it's like now there is a time for consciousness to grow. And now people are more wealthy, they're not hustling like before, they're not poor like before. And I mean, there is poor, but I'm saying there is a growth in economy right now. So people have a voice, and it's very recent that minority have a voice. So if minority have a voice now, and it can be Chinese people, Indian people, you know, Native American, Black—

well, I, I see that as a general people situation because if you go to other continents or other countries, even the difference between being Japanese, Korean, and Chinese would be a huge detriment to you if you try to move into their society, even though the rest of the world sees you as the same color or the same.

Yeah, but that's why, that's why Western world is so important because it's important. It's like, it's like, it's like actually he's the access who actually can reach the level of oneness. Into the acceptance and the forgiveness of everybody's sins or everybody's choice of religion. This is the time, this is the 21st century. That's why I'm in America.

Yeah, and that's been the way that everybody's seen America.

Fertility or like whatever is the fight, because it's very ugly but also very amazing. I am telling you, I will never be be able to do that even one second in France, okay? I just want people to understand that Europe doesn't have an economy at all for people of color.

I see. Okay. And it's interesting because you absorbed America so much, right? You said you didn't speak to anyone who didn't speak English, for example. Yeah. So you were open arms about America.

Yeah. And especially in New York because everybody's come from different place. I mean, people from all around the world. It's not especially American, and my first roommate was Brazilian, from India, from so many places with different, you know, English accents. That's how I learned my English, Latinos like speaking English and spake English, and then it makes me more excited about the language actually. Yeah, I was like, oh my God, like I have to understand what, what she said. You can't deny it, the English is one of the first language you can actually put people together. That's wonderful, you know, all around the world. And what about your dad? So my dad was the opposite of my mom, very tough, a lot of authority, probably frustrated from the outside world as well, you know. He used to work at UNESCO and I never knew exactly what he was doing. UNESCO is a United Nations company, and he was consul as well for Abdoulaye Wade, president 10 years ago or 15 years ago. He was in France now for like 40 years, so My dad is born in 1937. He's 80 and he looks like 60. Came in France because Senegal was a French colony. When they become independent, he keep— the first crazy thing is like when the French colony stopped to be, you know, stopped to have Senegal as a colony. It was in '68 or '64, I have to check the date. '62, I think. They asked the Senegalese, my dad was moving in France, but because he was both, like if you Senegalese, because you belong to the French colony, you can actually go to France. Yeah. So you have double identity. Okay. You have a French nationality and a Senegalese nationality. Oh, you can have both. So my dad, yes, so my dad is laughing when people ask him, it's like, where did you get your paper, visa paper? And he's like, you don't know the story. Through the time that he spent in France, he was a French teacher. Mm-hmm. Like, I have pictures of him with him around white kids. I'm like, wow. Well, you're white also. Yeah, but what I'm saying is like, he was like, he was really dark teaching class to 6-year-old kids, white, all in a very kind of small province outside of Paris, you know. Where did you grow up? It's called Beauvais. You know, he struggled. He was a teacher and then he couldn't find a job after. He had to work for the same things that the MTA, the subway, you know. And then after, he end up to be working at the United Nations, which is amazing.

That's amazing.

At the office job, an office job for 10 years. And then he couldn't find a job for 10 years after that. That was a very tough time for my parents because my mom has to handle everything. So French people are a little bit racist in the fact that they have jokes of Black people, they have joke about Chinese. In the '80s, there was very kind of like trendy to talk like this, and actually that was not being seen as racist.

So my dad— normal.

Yes. So my dad was not actually— didn't want to be around that energy. And now I understand why he was not around the white family of my mom.

I see. Do you know them?

Yeah. So you're— I grew up like in the summer. Yeah, yeah, I grew up in the summer vacation. We go to the summer house, um, at the beach in the west of France.

So, so they didn't like disown your mom or anything like that?

No, but it was complex, so my dad didn't want to be around them. Sure.

Okay, what about your Senegalese side? I discovered them later.

At 23, I started to travel there, and then I now keep traveling for the last 10 years every year. So I'm really connected with my family in Senegal, and they really— I really— they really understand me. Okay. It's true, my family in France, I accept few cousins that I really get along with because they're kind of crazy like me. They travel. What do you mean by crazy?

Well, they travel, they travel.

We have— so you're like a nomad? I don't judge any kind of like race, and I'm not criticizing and judge anybody because they're different from me.

Whether it's age, race.

Yeah, so when you get older, you realize people does that on daily basis. We in New York, so we don't realize it. Okay. But most of the world does. If they see people who doesn't follow the rules. Do you understand? We lucky to be New York.

And you, you in just by being who you are, French and Senegalese, didn't follow the rules.

Yeah, like really, like from the beginning. Yeah, because nobody really could figure out who I was anyway. So if they see my white blonde mom with blue eyes coming, they would dismiss that was my mom. They're like, that's not your mom. When your kids— that kids are me. Yeah. How did you feel when that happened? Oh, I feel even more lucky. I was like, oh, like, oh, they can't even imagine that I have a blonde mom. So I was like 5 or 6 and I really was like, I knew I was so special because my mom was blonde and my dad was black.

Oh, so you felt very special.

Oh yeah, always.

So did you ever get angry though? No, I got both.

What do you want, guys? What do you want to criticize? That's amazing. I got both in me.

I was just listening to How I Built This with Guy Raz. It's about entrepreneurs and he was interviewing the founder of Le Fleur, which is a women's clothing company, and she's half Japanese and half white, grew up in Japan where people, you know, were very prejudiced against her. And her mom would say to her, "No, you're not half and half, you're double.

You're double." That's how I always felt like, I always felt like very special. Like no one told me, you know? That's awesome. From the beginning, because my mom was like so gorgeous and my dad was so gorgeous, My two parents were like— That's why you're so gorgeous! Like, my two parents were gorgeous, so I was like so happy. I'm like, mm-hmm, you know what I mean? So you're in the gorgeous bubble. Yeah, my dad had amazing taste. Sharp. Sharp, always suits, suits every day, 365 days a year. Even today, it suits every day. I don't know who he's doing, but I think it's because of his condition. He needs to prove himself that. And then after it becomes an habit, it's like he won't go as a black man outside without the suits.

So you have to be extra. Yes, you have to have extra confidence.

But I understand now completely. I don't, I don't feel like it's, it's like just funny. It's like that was his, that was his weapon of acknowledging your, your worth, your power. Yeah. So I always felt like when I'm gonna have a little bit more money, I'm gonna have my three-piece suits as well, like my dad. Yeah, I like this.

I love suits. It's a good way to just like clean up. Anyway, going back to your guide, so we know your mom is this amazing guide. Oh yeah. And what about mentors? I heard you speak.

So my mom, yeah, my mom is my guide, but she had not— she didn't have the strength to teach me, right? That was— she was missing the, the— what do you mean strength? Like activation? Like courage? Yeah, activation of like courage. Force and, and no fear. Okay, so I feel like you're fearless. Yeah, but I didn't get this from my mom, right? Okay, I get this from— I mean, my dad is kind of like this too, a little bit crazy. So I got this, I got the strength from my dad for sure. The strength? Yeah, for my dad. Um, I mean, they're two opposites.

Well, they're so courageous. I think that having that kind of interracial marriage in the '70s was pretty courageous.

Yeah, and I didn't— I just realized later Oh, okay. Because they never told me about it, and I was like, guys, you're the only one walking like this in the '70s on the street. Yeah, like almost physically. Yeah, because I didn't meet kids like me when I was growing up, you know. Yeah, yeah. I think I had, we like only one in the school, and the school of like 300 kids, we only two. Two mixed kids? Yeah, like mixed kids, and I was friends with them. Yeah, like French and Igalis as well. Yeah, we become friends. People are multiculturally like Algerian, Arabic, African. White, Spanish, Portuguese. Okay, there's already a lot of mix in France, but when it comes to culture coming, but a mixed race, not really.

I see.

Okay, that generation today in 2020, there's only mixed kids. There's just kind of kids now everywhere. Now that's the result.

That's the result because of all the— okay. Yeah. So you had other mentors though?

Yeah, they all contribute because I think mentor, it's by steps, you know, by, by decade or by 5 years. So let's say like in terms of like sports and athletes, being an athlete for young kids or young person is very important for me. Like if I have to teach to any kids, like they're bored or whatever, it's like stop your computer, like go and train, train, like practice, practice, repetition. So the repetition process of practicing with the body, the first One was probably jiu-jitsu, right? And I got an amazing woman teacher, a French woman. Okay. And she was badass, and she was my first teacher for 3 years. But then my really good one, and I think she taught me a lot and she was really tough on her— on the— on us, was my volleyball teacher. Okay. Like from like 11 years old to, uh, 15. She was not joking. With her, that was life. You see, you're very attracted to people who are so passionate about what they're doing. Yeah, so she was like, she was like, her name was Madame Claire. I mean, we have to call her Madame, right? She was short, and again, she was a woman who was teaching to change us. She don't transform. Yeah, like, like, like, okay, we're gonna win this year. We gotta train, we gotta do this, we got competition. You know, like, you've been— like, we've been serious with her training.

So, but she was teaching you more than just playing?

Yeah, but she was really tough, so the training was tough. She was screaming all the time. Oh, screaming, screaming all the time. Do you think that was effective? Yeah, because she makes us realize how lazy we are. And then when your kids are from 11 to 15, you actually have the best potential and force within you to actually go over limitation because this is where the body is growing.

Yeah, you know, and your brain is, and your brain as well.

So, so I think she, she knew about it. The reason why she chose to train kids from 12 years old to 15 is because she probably know that's the push moment, the push button. It's here, it's the moment then you don't have to be nice because the parents were nice and it's over.

Okay, they need to listen now. Okay, but did she give you any like positive Yes, we won everything.

I mean, we won a lot. We lost, and when we lost, we're like devastated, but because we won so much. Yeah, that was one of the best time of my life. Oh wow, the first one, like freedom, like after your parents or whatever, your parents let you go free because you have competition and you go with your girls. So we are a girl team. That's why I love volleyball. After jiu-jitsu, it was like too much, like single. And then when I moved from jiu-jitsu to volleyball, I'm like, we're a team, we're gonna win! We got like how many teams? Sometimes we had like 10 women team to win. That's it, that's a, that's a competition. 10 teams, huge competition, were like 2 days of like fighting one team, another team coming, another one's coming from another city.

That was— how did she train mentally though to win like that? Just showing up physically?

We used to have her in school, so there was the training after school. So we used to train 3 or 4 times a week after school, like at 5 PM, literally after school. And she'd just scream at you the whole time? Yeah, yeah, that's how all of us— and then we all love her.

Wow, she must have done something that made you feel—

and all of the women who trained with her Screaming like, you stink, kind of screaming. Yeah, but all the women that, uh, she trained, they're like, uh, friends of mine that we catch up sometimes. They kind of like all badass. You see, they're all badass. Yes, still today.

Okay, so she picked her team, maybe?

Not just picked, like she trained. Some of them were like very weak and she decided as well to train them. And even today, the weak one, they remember her. Because if they think about it—

Did she do it with love in some way? I can't imagine that she just did like yell at you and then you guys didn't love her.

Because when we're winning, she was the most lovable person ever. So we want to see her happy all the time, you know? She was the yin and the yang.

We love that.

But if she didn't win, then she would be so angry. Like, you don't train, you just do mistakes. "You just don't push yourself. That was so lazy. You don't talk to your partner. You have a team. You are a team. You don't believe you're a team. You're a team and you need to be connected." She really got the team spirit. The team spirit. You have to be a team to win.

You have to be accountable to the other people.

Yeah. Okay, so she taught you teamwork. Yeah, it was addictive.

And is she— was she white French? Yeah. Okay, and what about your teammates?

Just because we were talking about the race. No, like, but the race in Paris was like New York, it was very multi-mixed. I got one Arabic woman.

So on your team you had Arabic?

Yeah, we were a mixed team, yeah. French? Algerian and French. High school we stopped because my parents, and it was devastating for me, my dad just forbid me to play volleyball because I was bad in school. So he tell me like if you—

So you were doing badly in school so you had to quit volleyball?

Yeah, because I was doing too much volleyball. I stopped, you know, like training anything for like from 16 to 23. Like, it was kind of like sad, you know. You stopped because your school was suffering? No, I got to stop because my parents say you need to work, like stop like doing sports, you know. And in France, it's not like in America. They don't believe in you in sports. And I wanted to be an athlete, and nobody's supporting you when you want to be an athlete. In France, especially when you're a woman.

Okay. Yeah. So your parents did not support you becoming an athlete?

No. Like, it was like over. And I'm like, I was devastated for a year. I start to smoke cigarettes at 16. Oh. But I stopped because that was not me, you know? I was trying to be like everyone else. And then I just realized, it's like, this smells bad. It's like— and I stopped from a day, another day, because it's like, it was not me. Uh-huh.

15 to like 18. 18. Yeah. So you had to study so you could go on to higher levels. Schooling.

Yeah, but I didn't. I didn't. I didn't because I failed the bachelor. I failed. Oh, the bachelor's.

Because they have a different system.

Yeah, super tough, super tough, because I have a coefficient of German. I was doing German for 9 years, and this coefficient was so high that it just makes me like fail.

So you were studying German? Yeah. So you speak German too?

No, I understand words, but because I didn't like the way they teach me, nothing's actually memorizing So I don't know nothing about German language. Wow. Yeah, that's why school was bad to me.

So I wonder if you'd get—

Imagine all those hours. It's really kind of— language is very tricky, you know? Like, I don't learn sitting listening so much.

You failed the bachelor's, so that means you'd have to go to the trade school?

Is that— No, it means this is where my mom saved me again. I— because in— it's not like in America, okay? You have university in France, but they're free. Yeah, like, we don't pay for it. By the way, we don't pay for school in France. That's amazing. So my mom was like, I was like, my mom was like, Mom, I was like, I don't, I don't want to do it again. Like, and I was crying. I remember one day I cried. And the good thing with me, when I cry, it's only one day. Like, I'm like this, right? I'm done sad, and it's like 20, uh, 24 hours, and then what's going on. But it's intense. It's intense, it's intense, but it's actually, it's out. So it's a good outlet. And my mom tell me, save me again, and she said, listen, you're not made for university anyway because you don't want to be in class anymore and be told all those classes that isn't really kind of like, kind of like interesting you. What about School of Visual Arts? And I'm like, but it's private school, right? It's like —And I'm like, no, but I didn't even know about it. My mom was able to check, to bring me to a school, and to tell me that I have to— to ask me to bring all my work of drawings that I did for years. And guess what happened? What? I jumped one class.

You got advanced to the next level? Of course.

Wow. And my mom was like, Delphine, I'm paying the first year, and you figure out to pay the second year. So I work in a restaurant on the weekends while I was doing— I was entering the School of Visual Arts.

Wow, so you paid for yourself too? Yeah. Amazing, amazing.

So it was the best choice that she did for me because I really love School of Visual Arts. It was really good. I like— for the first time I was like focusing.

So you knew that this was for you? Yeah, definitely. Okay, so I'm coming back to art now, you made a big leap from having a great job by all intents and purposes, right? You were meeting cool people, you were getting a paycheck, I mean, and you were traveling, right? But then you decide, this is not for me, this is— I need to be an artist. How did that happen?

Uh, broken heart. 16 to 31 is actually not healthy.

That's a really— yeah, from your teen years.

Yeah, yeah, growing up Was he your same age? Like, wait, 2 years difference. Oh, so similar. Yeah, you know, we kind of grew up together, you know. So the separation was like the hardest things that I ever had in my life, you know. Yeah, I can imagine. So then I had no other choice to question everything.

So I— so you were suffering, and then it came—

suffering big time. Yeah, big time. And then I didn't understand, like, the first time, and I, I experienced this because even me, I was like, what happened? To me why I can't eat. Like, literally, like, I was— it was not me. I can't eat, I can't think, I can't sleep. It was, you know what I mean? It's weird.

It's like, it's not me. You've never had that?

Yeah, no, it's not my nature. Yeah.

So when I processed that, and you had stability for so long, I mean, with your parents. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then with this guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right.

So it was brand new to you. I was protected for a long time, that's what I mean. You were protected? Yeah, like I was like, "Oh, I got lucky," until like 29, and then suddenly my world was just like shivering because I become an adult and I have to become a woman. And at 29, I was like, "Oh my God, this is frightening right now." And was that in New York at that point?

No.

That was, yeah, in New York. In New York. Because I moved with him and we end up here at Troy.

Uh-huh. Who got you through that time?

Myself. Awesome. So I just realized it's like, it was the first time in my life that I have to be accountable for myself. And I talked to my mom and I went, "Mom, I'm sorry, but I have to disconnect and isolate myself a little bit from every connection from the past. I'm not gonna talk to anyone for a bit, for probably a year right now." Wow. Yeah, and I had some guidance. I don't know what happened to me. Even your mom? Yeah, my mom, I was calling her like, once every 2 weeks, but the communication was not like before. Okay. I needed distance, and I hope, and I think she understood. Okay. Because I didn't want anyone anymore tell me what to do. I see. And to be able to process the arts journey and the path of the artist, I need to be not having any judgment or any thinking of anyone else. So I had to go to Senegal, Stay 2 months. My family in Senegal doesn't know me so well because they didn't see me growing up, so they don't judge me. They're just happy to see me now, and it was very recent for them to see me now. I see. So they don't judge me. I feel like home. And then because they met me recently, now I have a new platform to change who I am.

And then it's kind of like shedding an identity.

Oh yeah, completely. You know, this is, this is gone.

But it was so conscious what you're saying.

I had no choice because I was dying from it. It was, it was literally death. Like, uh, uh, like I could feel my, my mental death because you were so depressed. That was, I mean, against me, whatever it is. It's like that. I mean, if you process that you can't sleep for, for weeks, that you can't eat, that you, you, you in void, uh-huh, and you stay in dark wherever you in the light or in the day, this is depression, obviously. And I never experienced depression, right? So it's like, I guess it's depression, you know.

How long did this go on for?

Um, so from January to now, very short, like probably like, but it was very intense. So the, I mean, the long, the, the long process to come back is longer, but the depression itself was a month.

And did you get any help, or you just— you relied on yourself? How did you know to do that? How did you say, like, I need to not talk to anybody?

Something very beautiful. After all my cry, after whatever, after all this pain, right? After all this cry, there is a beautiful thing in me came. And this beautiful thing is— I call him my guide. There is this voice within me who tell me always what to do when I'm in a bad situation. I didn't— do you understand what I mean? There is a voice, like each time that I'm falling, right, boom, and I have a challenge or I have a bad experience, there is this voice. And what did it say? It said, the voice said, you have to leave New York because you're not strong long enough. You sell, you put your stuff on Craigslist, you tell your boyfriend that it's over and he can go on his journey. And now it's time for you to open your, your new adventure. But it's gonna take you a month to 3 months to be ready to do it because you're too weak. So you have to buy a ticket, go to Senegal, stay with your family, have your family healing you from the roots, and then you can come back to New York.

It's a very detailed voice.

I know, I was amazed. Tells you exactly what to do. Juna, the voice always there and tell me what to do, by the way.

But is it like an inner voice? I have this conversation with a lot of people who are very artistic and creative. Is it an inner voice or is it an actual voice you hear?

It's inner, it's inner. It's like, it's like there's no sound.

It's sort of a thought that—

there's no sound.

There was this— but it says addresses you by you.

You need to— yeah, like, oh, like some people believe I'm crazy because sometimes I'm talking about— I talk about me at the third person.

So you have another point of view.

I am the condition. I am the conditioning. Like, like what happened when I, I get depressed, I realized that my subconscious, like the guidance of the inner voice, took over me and I let him do it. I was not scared of the dark. And I was not scared of going to the dark. And because I was not scared to go to the dark, I was not sad anymore. I kind of knew that the pain was there and I recognized the pain and the pain needs to become recognizable and not be anymore my enemy because this pain is something that actually I have to face is through my life, and I can't lie and hide anything anymore from my dark side, which I never discovered before because I was protected. It's like, hey darkness, show up. It's like, no, I don't want to see you, I'm depressed.

So you spend your months in Senegal. Yeah. And then you come back. What happens then? Do you quit your job?

It's so funny, like the voice was very— actually the first year, and I would love to One day I transformed that to a movie because the intensity of the force was very clear. I got a lot of clarity. So when I came back from Senegal, I immersed myself in Senegal and the life of Senegalese people, right? So when I moved back to New York a month after, just after the winter, when I arrived to New York, New York was for me the most fantastic fantastic city in the world because New York gave me the opportunity to be completely brand new because nobody knew me. And the new was really talking to me. Like, I was broke, I didn't have money, so I called one of my friends and I was like— I was not even scared with no money. I called my friend and I'm like, hey, I have a favor. And I was already like changing my art. Like, I said, can I stay with you at your house for 3 months? And I can cook for you, clear, clean your stuff, and I need 3 months to gain weight because I was very skinny, you know, I was not healthy. I could not find a job, like, it was not working this way. So I need to get back to my shape and be strong enough to start a new, a new life. —Uh-huh. —So she said yes. So I stayed 3 months to her house, and for those 3 months, I processed an amazing and fantastic change of my subconscious and change of my belief and worth and wisdom or futuristic vision of like, oh, I have to project myself. So I had 3 months. I give myself 3 months to project.

And what were you doing day to day?

Exactly right. I was on my own and I was— I didn't have money to pay for MetroCard and I was asking my mom to only send me $100 a week for food. That's what she was doing and that trained me to actually do and create, I mean, and experience I will spend in the creative walking. So the creative walking becomes an habit for me for 3 months where each time I will walk somewhere into the city, it can be 25 blocks, 20 blocks, wherever I go to the city in Manhattan, I will stay in Manhattan, but I will own the city. The city will become my city. So the fact that you're walking in so many different place, Upper East Side, Upper West Side, So you just started walking?

Yeah. Like Forrest Gump?

Yeah. I mean, kind of, like for days. I mean, I was coming back. Were you just observing? Yes. So I was in a meditation state and an observing state. 3 to 4 hours a day. This is the only thing I can do, walk.

What were you observing? People, things, places? Just visually?

That was so vivid, that was so beautiful. People were beautiful, life was beautiful, New Yorker actually kind of amazing species.

So you have this sort of curiosity about people. Yeah. Is it about only people? Because you're a portrait artist now. Yeah, yeah. Is it mostly about people or everything in the city?

I mean, of course, like, the expansion of my work as a portraitist is expanding to nature itself, you know. So the portrait, what portraits, it's such an obsession is because through history and through portraiture, we can read emotions, we can read energy, we can scan and value the worth and the craft of an artist, and understanding the way that society was working and functioning because of the way that the artist witnessing society. That's why artists is so important for societies because it gives another understanding who's actually not made by anyone else.

It's like an interpretation.

Yeah, but an interpretation with more spirituality into it, you know, like when Michelangelo and all this commissioned painter. I mean, those painters were amazing and they were commissioned by the church. —uh-huh— this society will commission artists for showing spirituality into public space. We don't do that anymore.

So when you were walking around, what was your purpose? Did you have one? I had to find my purpose.

That's what you said.

So, well, so that's what it was telling you to do, just keep walking. Yes. So what happened after days and days of walking for hours? What happened then?

The voice— I mean, this year was amazing because the voice was very amazing. Every single thing that The Voice told me was functioning. Okay, so after those work and stuff, I said, okay, now you, you, you gain way too good. Now it's time for you to find a job to be able to start to be an artist. And you can find a job in a company, in a production company, because they are vampires. And most of this company, they will like steal your energy. Again, your energy, it's your money. You're a millionaire right now, but you can't see it because you don't have the money average. But your energy right now doesn't worth you to waste time anymore into prediction company. So find a way that your body is gonna serve you to give you that tips and that money cash. Then you can have 3 to 4 days free and do exactly what you need to do and what exactly what I'm gonna tell you to do.

So your consciousness was telling you that you shouldn't go back into into like the 9-to-5 sucked your energy.

It's an amazing, uh, courage. Yeah, for, for me, or not just for me, that voice is like, excuse me, you are not going back. Can go back to the career anytime, by the way.

Just like the, the safe life, kind of like the routine life, right? Okay, I got it all.

I got the boyfriend, I got the car, yeah, I got the scooter.

Okay, so now your voice is telling you to become an artist, spend your energy Yeah. Did it say what you were gonna create, or you always knew you're a visual artist?

No, I didn't know. So my life at this point became magic.

You've worked with major people—

Shepard Fairey, Chris Rock, Swiss Miss, I worked with— yeah, pictures of her.

Like, Chris Rock was— that portrait you took of him, yeah, it was extraordinary. Thank you. I have to say, because I mean, I've obviously seen a lot of pictures of of him, but I've never seen that particular image.

And I did the creative direction, which means he let me do it. Beautiful. Because I was like, can I suggest you something? And I just took my, the smoke was actually the incense. It was incense, it wasn't him smoking. Exactly, exactly. You won't believe it, because it's healing process. He was screaming, ashe, or whatever, to save the world, and that was incense. And people believe he was smoking weed and it was hot. That's what vision does. So in the training, in the guidance training, was like, well, the only way you can be a good photographer is to know people. And so that's why I think restaurant will be the best place for you to know people, to study them. So we're gonna play a role, and I did play the role.

What was the role?

I was Delphine the waitress. Hi! That's funny. The best waitress. No, that was the worst waitress when it comes to just serve the right food because I never learned about the food it is.

I was the worst waitress. I used to always think, what do they want from me? They want me to serve them? Like, oh yeah, wait, yeah, I'm a waitress. Yeah, yeah, me too. Terrible.

Like, what's up? Terrible. Really? And they're like, haha.

I heard in the other interview you were saying like you had to wait on hungry people and they're like the most interesting.

Yeah, they're horrible people. Horrible when hungry. They're like, even like this, they look at you like, you turning left, you turning right, they're like—

So did you enjoy the waitressing?

I mean, that was enough. Like, the process was very important for me to grow as a photographer today, for sure.

Yeah?

What part of it would you say? The part of it— the observing, like, and then I had so much fun. I had so much fun. Fun. Like, the girls that I was working with, the— that was a free time in my life. Like, I didn't really— I was not putting pressure on me. I didn't want to get married. I want to have kids. I just— I was like, I was like, this is my free year. If I want to be waitress because I want to become an artist, let's have fun. The let go of this year was amazing because even if I have to go back today, and I think the restaurant, and I think whatever happened to me, to this life, it brought me back to life itself. No more office job, only people, conversations, social life, social living, going out, having fun, uh, not judging anyone. You know, I had new rules, and those new rules were setting, you know, setting up to my new being as a Delphine. Like, I didn't know who I was, so what I'm gonna get to be so hard on myself. I just started. I'm a baby. So the, the birth of a new era or the new being was very— it was an amazing emotion. But you felt good though? Yeah.

Did you ever have any self-doubt? Did you ever have any negative voices like, what are you doing?

You should get a job? No, which is kind of amazing actually. No, even if it was tough and stuff.

Well, that's why you didn't talk to your mom as much, right? Oh, get it.

Nobody ever trusts the of someone, by the way.

Well, that's what I'm saying. Like, your parents would probably worry and say they need a real job, they need a real paycheck.

Yeah, I didn't want to have anybody worry in my life anymore.

So you said also in the other interview, like, a beginning like that is always sacrifice. Yeah. So what did you mean by that?

I mean, sacrifice means material. I need to give up on buying stuff. Uh-huh. I didn't want to— I had to train myself to not want it. So you know what I used to do? What? Because I knew how I was conditioned to want things, that I would go to the store myself, check the clothes that I like, and will push myself to go out of the store with nothing. I would choose them. Oh, you would choose them? Or I would touch them, whatever. Sometimes I would try them, but the goal of this training was actually for me to leave with nothing. Interesting. So I will leave the store with nothing each time. You play a lot of games with yourself.

I love it. Yeah, it's like you're training your brain all the time. Yeah. So this discipline comes from like your beginning with jiu-jitsu and then your training as a volleyball athlete, and then now— yeah, it's a play.

I mean, it's a play, right? It's like when you're training, it's like you trying to find a new training and you realize like, well, but I can apply the training for myself. I never did I always go to school, I always listen to people, I listen to teachers. I'm like, what about me? I'm smart enough to just put my own rules. It's time.

And you study on your own a lot. Yeah, you read all the time. Yeah, right. What is, what is your most favorite thing right now that you're reading? I know you were into Neil deGrasse.

Yeah, the grass is like— I like to watch him. You like to watch him? Yeah, yeah. I'm not, I'm not reading his book as much as Joseph Campbell, but for example I got this morning, Mike Joseph Campbell, uh, The Inner Reaches of Outer Space, and I'm going to the city, pick up stuff. So Mike Joseph Campbell is my, um, audio man. I go with him anywhere. And you study on your own? Yeah, all the time. Because I realized it's like, it's so crazy that we've been— we've not been taught that we have the tools and the energy and the potential to study exactly what we love to study. And then the study is not a bad thing, in which I believe it was a bad thing because I didn't like that what people teach me. Oh, you know, in school, like school, quote unquote. So yeah, so I, at 29 or 30, when I realized I was dumb because there's so many things that I didn't know, I was like, okay, so if I'm dumb and I want to learn, I don't want to go back to school. I don't like this energy.

Who called you dumb though?

No, myself. Yourself? Like, that's guidance, like, uh-huh, whatever. Like, I had a lot of— like, you need to learn more. Yeah, so the guidance was telling me is that, okay, so you go to the— I'm not going to give you the answer completely, but here's the training. You go to the store, you stay at the store, the Book Nanny, uh, McNanny Bookstore, and you find what you like, what you would like to read. And I end up in the mythology section. And I remember when I was a kid, I loved mythology, see, and I forget about it. So it's like, let's start from the beginning. So I used to love Star Wars, and I used to love Greek mythology. And then I saw all these other mythologies of Campbell's, like, and I'm picking up the book of Joseph Campbell, right? And I just realized that the book of Joseph Campbell that I'm reading is the same book that inspired George Lucas' Star Wars. And it's the same book that inspired Bruce Lee.

Bruce Lee? It's weird. Joseph Campbell?

Yes!

Did you know Joseph Campbell when you were younger? No! Or you just found it in the section of Macmillan bookstore?

Yes! And then I just realized after that Bruce Lee changed his entire— a lot of things in him because he studied him, and same for George Lucas. Wow! And I was like, wait!

And you're just wandering about in the bookstore basically? Yeah. Because your mind said go look for something interesting.

Yes, go look for something. And the title was amazing, it was the Hero with a Thousand Faces.

The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

I was like, oh. And then after I studied Bruce Lee, so what I did is like I get back to my childhood and then I just realized it's like, okay, what I like from 6 to 10, and I make a list. I was like Star Wars, Bruce Lee. I was a fan of Bruce Lee, and I just realized like all those people that I really love, they all have something very common. They have the vital force.

Joseph Campbell influenced both these people. And how did you learn about Bruce Lee from all your martial arts?

Martial arts called me because it's like, hey, if you want to be an artist, there is no other way, my friend. You have to go back to martial arts. You need to go back because of the Yes, I don't fit the New York non-discipline aspect.

You mean the partying?

Yeah, I don't need, I don't need all of that. The materialism? Yeah, I'm okay. Like, I'm French, like, I'm not born like as an American, like, needing, like, needing stuff all the time. Like, I cook, you know, like, yes, read books, simple things, you know. Nice. But the nightlife and the and the wanted and the greed of people always wanna being seen.

So let's go, so Joseph Campbell, you start reading him.

Yeah. This is crazy what happened because this is how I learned English. Literally his words were like so good to me that I was drinking his words and that's why I learned English faster is because I love reading Joseph Campbell books. I think Joseph Campbell words and writing is actually really good writing for someone who wants to learn English. The flow, he's using words. He wrote books for the world.

I love the story. So, okay, what are the 3 things that you have to ground yourself? Like, what are your daily disciplines that you have to do?

Like, so the problem with an artist's life, I can't have a regular schedule. You can't? No, because if I have regular schedule I'm not motivated anymore. That's why I'm an artist. I see. Because I can change my reality and I can change the way that I'm dealing with daily life.

But when you talk about the discipline part, what are the 3 disciplines? Like, what are the— I have more than 3.

I have many.

Let's say if you had to pick 3 top ones.

Oh, like recently, right now, like I'm very disciplined with meditation. Meditation? Yeah. What kind of meditation do you do? So I'm doing, uh, like this application helped me. I'm doing Synctuition.

Sync?

Synctuition. So Synctuition is an application. How do you spell it?

Sync, like syncing. Yeah, S-Y-N-C-Tuition. Tuition. Yeah. Okay, so— oh, you told me about that meditation app. It's very like, uh, spiritually 3D, 3-dimensional sounds. Yeah.

Okay, so you're using that app because what is excited me is they're changing soundscape every day. Okay, the fact that I wake up and I have to go to another sandscape pushed me— no, that's 25 minutes.

So do you do 25 minutes first thing in the morning?

Yeah, as soon as I wake up. As soon as you wake up? As soon as I wake up, because I'm not awake. I like it. Oh, because you're kind of half awake. Yes, I think it's the best way for me to meditate. Nice.

Okay, and you don't— but you don't wake up at any regular time? Yes, 7:30. 7:30? Yeah. And then what do you do? What is something else you do?

And then after, let's say that I'm aware of my space, I'm aware of— but did you like kung fu?

No, no, no.

Oh, I do wushu. Yeah, okay. So I'm doing it now, I'm trying to do it every day. And you have— so I have a personal trainer who does the wushu.

Yeah, he's a wushu master. Master? Yeah. Okay, so is that something you would say you do physically every day to ground you and kind of as a discipline for you?

So it's like, it's amazing because, uh, wushu really kind of, you know, difference of yoga because you got, you get the mat and you get the dog pose and you got all this pose, but I get kind of annoyed with the pose because they're very stiff. Uh-huh. And I'm not a stiff person, so I like qigong and I like those stuff because it really allow me to, to also, you know, if I close my, if I close my, you know, my, my, my hands and I can, I can feel that, like, right now I'm connecting with the Tan Tien, right, right there. And I'm like breathing, I can feel the energy is flowing in. And when I'm opening my arms again, I can feel the energy is coming back. And I, I think it's more magic, and I like magic more. Yoga for me, it's not magic. Okay, there is a—

which is very flowy.

There is the result in yoga, but I felt it's less magic than Qigong.

Okay, but you feel that flow, that's sort of like, uh, mind-body connection.

I felt more flow within my body after Qigong than yoga. I see. Okay, like the flow, it just pushed me to flow even more.

Okay, let's talk about discipline around money. Yeah, I love talking to women about money and even especially artists and like people who are entrepreneurs or just are in charge of themselves, because as you mentioned, you started out with zero. Did you have to have a different attitude towards money to start making money and to start having a discipline around that?

This is a very hard question because, I mean, it relates on your relationship with money and how much you're going to believe in yourself. If you don't know— I never know when I'm making money. I never know when I make money or how much I can make money. Like, I never know. Like, through the years, you tell me, like, did you expect this kind of money? I'm like, not really. Like, this is coming to me, but it's, it's like the magic of, like, the art. It's like the production brought you opportunities. So instead of, like, thinking as a strategy marketing and business person only, you, you have to be creative. So the creative, creative have always a space where unexpected things can happen, and you have to let an unexpected event come to you. And to be able to do that, you have to be very flexible. So through the years, I can create backup, I can create a flow of energy. So the only way I'm not stressed anymore, it's when I feel like— if I have— I give you an example which I had before, because I was scared of not, not having for a while. So I was— but it was kind of anxious stress about money. So it didn't make me feel good during the day. So now what I do, I'm taking more risk to make the money flows. I receive money, right? And then I'm gonna put money on the side here, here, here, here, and then I'm going to spend the 10%. And each time that money is coming, I have an agreement with myself that this money is going to be placed or spent, and 50% is going to be kept. And before, I was never doing this. So now you have a system, and now the system, actually, I realize it works way better than when I was not doing it because I make more money. Mm-hmm. Because I am now in my manifestation energy. Manifestation. Manifestation. The manifestation, like, I'm thinking about money completely differently, like a friend. Like a friend, not like an enemy, or like something that is like, it's not going to come to me. You're selling art.

—so that's so different from putting a price on like a meal, like everybody has, you know, this could be $10 for a sandwich.

—Yeah, a price tag. Yeah, yeah, a price tag. But artists, it's so different. The rules is like you need to find people who their job is to sell your work.

Okay, so you have an agent?

I have an agent and I have a gallery and they're selling my work, they're going to exhibition, they're going to fair, they're showing the work in the public art. This is what is my business strategy this year. I got more outlets. You gave up that control now to people who do that for a living. Because they know what— yeah, because they know that they can make money from it. Okay, so you're having help? Yes, it's very recent. Awesome. And I have way more help than before.

Congratulations. Yeah, that's amazing. I want to ask you really quickly about that Shepherd Fairey piece you did, and now you're mentoring This kid in the piece. Tell me a little bit about him.

I mean, mentoring young kids. Menelik, on this picture, he was 13 years old. And I'm also mentoring the twins, his sisters, who are like 3 years younger than him. They're your nieces and nephews? Yeah, I mean, they're my, you know, I'm a big— Blood? No.

Oh, they're not your blood? No, they're not my blood. I always called them your nieces, so I thought they were your nieces.

Because they call me aunties. I'm officially their aunties because I'm helping the kids, so they call me aunties now.

Wow, so you're a mentor now? Yes. To these young children.

And for them, I am the inspirational, but as well the person who give them access to money, you know, like the fact that I photograph them, they were able to be in agency, they were able to hire by agency. After this, uh, Chipperd Ferry, um, Menelik was able to fly to China for doing a campaign for Nike. It was in campaign and stuff, so he was able to see the potential of a visualization. I see. So today, like, he's 15, he's getting older, so he knows that he has a power, but he doesn't know what it is.

So that's why I love kids. I know you do.

Yeah, because I'm, I'm as well, it's like, I'm studying qigong, specifically a certain qigong called Falun Dafa. It's a very specific Qigong and it's been forbidden by China for many years. Oh yes, yes, I've heard of it. But there is one aspect that this person's talk is very interesting is he's talking about the primordial infant in you. So when you're awakening, when you start to wake up, when you start to be awake to consciousness and be, you know, your third eye is open and then the world that Now he's completely changing perspective because he's starting to wake up. This is actually the state of a child. So you're back again to a child mind where everything is possible.

A beginner's mind.

Yes, so that's why I love kids is because I am there, and by the way, they can see I'm there with them. I have the same brain. When I see a kid, it's like I know his potential. It's like, oh my God, that's amazing.

Potential. You mentioned that, that was so eloquent and beautiful when you said that about mentors in that other interview that I listened to. You said a mentor is somebody who sees your potential. Yes.

And, and yes, and then push and then see. And then the fact that even you don't— you can see it, he recognize it. So it means he already saw you in the future. It's kind of amazing. He saw you in the future. He projects, let's say, Peter Beer, like the mentor, my mentor photographer, your mentor Peter Beard, who was a famous photographer.

Yeah, and he saw your potential.

He saw it, like, and at the time I realized, I thought it was crazy. I was like, why he told me all that? Wow. Cuz I— how old were you?

I was, I was 29. That's another day, another story, how you met Peter Beard. Oh my gosh.

I mean, this, those things, this shift happened at the same time. The breakup, the breakup of my ex and meeting Peter Beard happened exactly the same year. That's why he had to break through potential, and he saw my potential, and he just asked me questions like, what are you doing? Wow.

So I get so many chills in this interview. Um, the work that you've done that you're most proud of to this day—

I know that's hard because they're all probably like your babies, but no, no, I mean, the, the work that I'm most proud is the work that inspire inspiring most people. So that, that might be a collaboration with Shepard Fairey because I saw the force of my image and the force that it gives to a society to change. So of course, that I'm— my most proud project, it's when I, I can touch as many people I can for inspiring them to change. So if a picture is representing a change. I mean, and, and by the way, this picture gives me a lot of, uh, because at the time I, you know, I experienced a really hard time. Uh, that was 2016, right? 2016. Yeah. And then I, I processed the death of one of my, um, you know, love the same month.

So that was really— you lost a loved one that same month?

At 37 years old, he had— and I lost a person the same month that these things came out. So it was actually a really good gift, like, thank you, because I could be at the Women March. And after I was in the funeral in Dubai, I think it was like a week difference, I was in the middle of this Women March. And that gave me so much strength to keep doing my work, because I didn't have any more strength anymore, you know. The problem when you're an artist, sometimes you don't, you don't have backup. Like, backup means if anything happened to me, like, physically or mentally, I have to have backup, and I don't. So that's very dangerous space sometimes to be, you know, like, mentally or physically. Like, I don't have an extra, you know, cushion to just, like, stop to do anything that I'm doing for a month or two. I don't have— I can't stop to do what I do for 3 months. You know, it's like, it's like, I'm gonna always process, but now also money-wise, I can't. I need to, I need to keep producing because this is how the work's coming.

You know, keep producing. And so what is your legacy that you want to leave, that people remember you by?

You know, whatever I experience as a woman and my shift and my change of consciousness and I experience into my lifetime in space, like, it's the expansion and the growth and the potential of the woman vision that I, I want to inspire the most people to see that they've been conditioned by society very deep and it's very strong. And we need an entire army of women right now to start to be awake, you know. I'm one of them. I feel like I'm one of the awake one, but I'm one of the probably the first one of my generation who's awake, right? But the generation from the '30s and '20s right now are way more awake and faster. Mélodie proved me, the twins proved me, your daughter proved me. Like, I was not like this. So my legacy, it's based on vision. I'm a visioner. I can visualize oneness, togetherness, collective consciousness. That's why I can visualize. And through my work, hopefully in books and publishing in the next 10 or 15 years, people will buy the book for the legacy of someone finally as a photographer who are seeing the inner beauty of a human being. And that's what I want my work to be remembered, not just I'm a great photographer, you know, like this is a tool, this is a tool, this because it's like, hey, I wanna talk to the shaman, or I wanna talk to people who have the spirituality and the gift of vision, that people hide them and treat them bad because they're like fake people, right? So actually they're the real people. They're people like for centuries that had visions and helped the kids and helped the parents, and they didn't need therapy. Therapist was the visioner, was a shaman. And then this society completely destroyed the vision of every single human being. It doesn't matter the color, by the way. So they don't want us to talk about this issue. They want— they now, they just want to talk about gender, race, and color. But I am talking about something after that. That's the big topic. And the big topic, it's like, we need to realize we lost a vision because society is really trying to direct us in one vision. Of a capitalist world who work and function this way in terms of consuming, economy, exchanging, and giving, and this is completely wrong, you know. So in my work, the Visioner, I will give this understanding into the divine feminine energy. So my work is a representation of the divine feminine form of just humanness. Of humanness, yeah, of the oneness, the vision of the divine.

And you just did this amazing work, Women of New York. Yeah, right.

So I did this project because I feel frustrated after with the people, the dimension, and it could reach, uh, stop pretty quickly because it was just a moment in history and it just, it just did that, right? It's like open the flower and the flower did that. And then nothing happened after. And what I just realized is like, oh, because my expansion has to be different, and there's something that I didn't understand. So I just realized is that what in my work is not enough and what I have to change in my work to be a better photographer or better visioner, it's to allow women to come to me and not anymore choosing women like a man, like I'm choosing you because I like your face. I'm choosing you because you like the industry of modeling.

So you didn't want to choose the women, you wanted them to come to you.

So did you put out an ad? Yes, I mean Instagram works like— I got like 140 answers.

So they just like came to your door? Yeah. You had no requirements? No. And so they approached you and you didn't refuse anyone? No. You just took everybody in and took photos of them?

I was obsessed. Amazing. I was obsessed. Amazing. Because the process of allowing people to serve them. I was at the service of women, so I was giving my service to women. I was bringing them here, there was food, there was like— I was broke. I was— I spent all my money on this project, and I still didn't find a book publishing for it. But the book, it's different because I have to be patient, right? But the project itself is finished. And I remember I was like, I had this amazing energy that I can listen so many women. I was listening, listening, processing the shoot. Another woman's coming, listening, listening, processing the shoot. 15 women a day. Wow. So, and then suddenly I wake up and the guide, or the voice, say, you have to stop.

It's not too much, it's enough.

And then what happened is what I processed was amazing is because when I put the pictures together. Uh-huh. There was as black as white women together, which is kind of amazing. The numbers was kind of like 50/50. What about Asians? Yeah, a few Asians, but the Asians are minority. Like, let's say, like in my surrounding, I know one Japanese, one mixed woman who's Eurasian. I mean, few, like 4, let's say. I have 4 or 5 beautiful Asian in my work only, and the rest was white and black. Okay. And Latino, you know, And when you put the number, you realize what I create. What I create, it's like when you turn— if the book is being produced, it's like when you turn the book, you can see the commonality. So I was obsessed because I didn't know how to express commonality, not through colors of skin, but through the eyes, you know. So we turn the page, whatever the color of the woman, and suddenly with turning the page, you realize the commonality of a New Yorker. I see. And boom, it hit my face, and I'm like, I was like awake. I was like, oh my God, like, I now create oneness. And my work, it's too advanced because people always want to ask me for only my pictures of black women. Oh. It's kind of annoying, of course, because everybody's talking about race. It's like I'm talking with the front each time. Okay, another thing, Juna, you have to, you have to understand the output. The world today is talking about race. My work wants to go transcending race. That's my goal in my work. But I have to do the work through the eyes of a Black woman because I am a Black woman. Do you know what I mean? I'm not talking just about race. So you're Black and French? Yeah, but the construct, the way that society sees me is Black. I see. Do you understand? I mean, it doesn't matter. I'm not seeing myself like this. No. But this is what I have in front of me. So the treat, the vision point, the vision that I'm taking is like, you see me as a Black woman, I'm showing you my other sisters and Black women on like vision and form, which I am, and then from that black form, I'm gonna take a transcendental, subliminal, formless form. That's my work. Beautiful. Do you know? But it's, I mean, it's not finished right now. Thank you. Too much work. I say it, I'm like, oh, that's too much work.

It's never finished. Yeah, right? Yeah. Thank you, you're amazing. Thank you. That's Delphine. And of course, we talked longer than we meant to, and I'm so grateful for your time.

You're welcome. I'm so glad you listen, because I don't have this conversation a lot, you know.

Okay, love you. Love you too.

In the show notes below, you can find links to Delphine's work, or you can go to her website delphinediallo.com where you can find limited prints for sale. Get in touch with her for private commission work and purchase her work through her agents. Thank you for listening. Please subscribe, download episodes, and share with anyone who could use extra resilience right now. If you found this episode helpful to you, please leave a review. Go to mindbodyspace.com where you'll find online courses, all of these interviews, and meditations organized into separate pages. If you have questions or interview suggestions, email us at info@mindbodyspace.com. Info@mindbodyspace.com. Stay well, stay strong, and wishing all of you and your loved ones health, happiness, and hope.