Welcome to the WORKING WOMEN SERIES. I created this interview and photo series to share my vision and mission through the stories of various women wearing SIRENA while working their respective craft and giving voice to the inner-working of their soul purpose and essence.

Sitting down with Tintype Artist Vanessa Maestri of Armadillo Tintype felt like a long time coming. Vanessa and I have many shared acquaintances and friends. Without all the 6 degrees of separation, it was instant connection upon entering her Asbury Park studio on Bangs Ave.

Vanessa and I got right down to business, the conversation flowed effortlessly. The kind that goes off on so many tangents and swings off in a multitude of detours and directions your head could spin off and you could short circuit. BUT, you don’t because you’re connected to it deep within your soul. We covered everything from; past lives, to previous lives in these lives, to obstaining from meat, but finding it impossible to give up cheese because well — a place called Rosie’s Pizza. We intimately shared our similar views on motherhood, which might I add was impossibly refreshing. It is few and far between to come across a woman who feels the things I do, even in our modern world. Needless to say, I am a woman who craves depth and loves digging deep deep down into the crevices far below the surface. Spending time with Vanessa was truly soul serving in a way every woman needs every so often. I was honored to sit for Vanessa for four portraits during our interview. Vanessa is intelligent, informed, talented, gorgeous, incredibly honest, and has my favorite trait of all — a fantastic sense of humor. It is my humble opinion that Vanessa doesn’t quite realize how gorgeous and absolutely wonderful she is. A characteristic that makes her even more impossibly endearing. Also, her hair is just the best thing ever. I have a strong affinity for natural wild hair. Did you not know?

So, here goes. The first look into our very first Working Woman — Vanessa Maestri of Armadillo Tintype.

Discover more or book a session with Vanessa at:

www.armadillotintype.com

What makes you feel the most liberated?

DISCLAIMER: The below Santa Claus metaphor is not to exclude anyone who is not partial to the old fat guy with the beard. It is strictly in the name of fun and lightheartedness. I respect and honor everyone’s right to their choices and traditions.

’Tis the season and Mrs. Sirena is here with all things Sirena + the Sea. Keep your eye out for Mr. Sirena landing on your roof in a flying commercial fishing vessel soon with a one year old Cane Corso named Sabina. He might not have a white beard but he will have a mustache and he loves chocolate chip cookies and milk. Don’t forget to leave him some herbal refreshments for the road. You know the kind he likes...

Let’s get to the joint, I mean point. So, besides offering a product that transcends style, time, age, race, and ethnicity. Besides supporting a small business vs. the corporation AND, besides having hopped on the train headed to the station of aesthetics, ethics, and sustainability (all being great reasons, but truth be told there is more below the surface). I wholeheartedly believe you should gift sirena + the sea this year and not just because my livelihood depends on it. Here is why...

I feel my purpose here on earth is to bridge the gap between the best of our past and the best of our future. With each move I make, with each product I make I believe I am assisting to create an energetic pathway to a new earth.

My work is my medicine to women. It is my form of healing where I can bless and charge my work with the intention of; empowerment, love, self-acceptance, divinity, sensuality, sexuality, adventure, charisma, trust, intelligence, creativity, mysticism, motherhood and on and on and on. If I can create a product infused with these messages and energy, and that in turn reaches other women and ignites these traits within them — then I am doing the best thing I can possibly do for earth and its people. If I can bring women back to themselves, then they can be that for someone else and for the remainder of humanity and so on and so on. I believe that self-acceptance actualized and realized in one single human can effect the rest of the 7.2 billion of us. As Hermann Hesse states, “What we can and should change is ourselves. I regard every other attempt to change the world, even if it springs from the best intentions, as futile.” If I can be in the business of self-worth and raising consciousness without judgement, expectation, and needing to know what happens tomorrow then I am doing what I have come to do. Sirena + the Sea just so happens to be the platform I have chosen to do my life’s work, and that my friends is to bridge people back to our infinite source.

What better gift can you give to the ladies you love than that?

x Mrs. Sirena.

As you know, I started sirena + the sea in 2014 over 3 years ago when I was living on the North Shore of Oahu and running the visual merchandising for the Tiffany and Co. stores in Hawaii and Guam. I was on the Big Island in February 2014 for the moment of inception when the seed was planted. Shortly after in March I manifested getting fired from Tiffany and Co. and the rest is history. My boyfriend asks me if I manifested it or was late one too many times. My response, "What's the difference I still co-conspired in my own demise so I could rise." And, a week before said firing I told my neighbor that I was DYING. I said to him, "I need to be designing, writing, reading yoga-ing, meditating, dreaming, creating, surfing, and traveling everyday. His response, "Aren't you being a little dramatic?" One week later I was canned and I have been doing that everyday since. You can read a little more about that part of the story here: https://sirenaandthesea.com/pages/the-story.

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Join the resistance, damn the man, and revolt until you rule. Sirena + the sea is not just here to be another brand clogging your feed with material consumerism or the same shit different handle. We are a vision, a message, and a revolution from the ground up. As we like to say grassroots is the new black. There is no major funding, no fancy office space, we are bootstrapped and that is how we like it. We believe the only way to change the world order is to take down the corporation and greed. And when I say "we", I am not referring to my team of employees -- it is just me, my dog, my man, and a few studio fairies and good friends that help me get the job done.

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#freespirit got me thinking. To declare oneself a “true free spirit” is a grandiose gesture. It’s to align with surface, tangible, and superficial things. In truth, the meaning and depth of being a free spirit holds with it so much more than most of us will know in this life, or in lives to come. A majority of souls will take longer for a plethora of reasons, but notably, because of a lack of forgiveness paired with appropriate boundaries and self security. A free spirit is the most rare form of existence you can find or achieve. “Who and what are free spirits?” you may ask. Certainly not I.

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It's all a mystery. Day by day. You are born, again and again, on this Earth. Smoke and Mirrors, perhaps? It was lifetimes ago. It only feels like the beginning of it all. You wonder though, really, “How long have you been running?”

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I sit on my rock one last time. The sea is flat, and winter is on its way. I imagine the sounds of the waves like a freight train hitting the outer reefs as I peacefully sleep through the night, and later waking up to the intoxicating smell of thick ocean mist and blossoming plumeria.

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I stood there at the show, The Head and the Heart─July 30, 2014, in the middle of the crowd. I wanted no part of anyone. No spoken words, only sounds and vibrations. Only lyrics. The feelings: mine and those of the music. With no resistance to what was flooding toward me and no time to process that it was the moment I had been waiting for....the universe spoke. My next move was revealed. The path unfolds...do I dare?

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0 to 60 in 3.5// Driving down, back to the country, in my speedy, little bug, up and down the winding plantation road taking me home. TV on the Radio blares through my blown out speakers. 8pm. With headlights in the distance, I’m intoxicated by the dewy smell of pineapple and the buzz of my fiery dreams.

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