It seems to become a tradition: Always when I´m in LA, Claudia and I meet up and we go on a journey of chasing new pictures. When we meet the first time at Cow´s End, our favorite Coffee place in Venice Beach in 2013, we immediately connect and I get to hear Claudia´s intense story of her life, being an actress, going through a break up, having daughters that live in Montreal and shooting in LA. We decide to work on her personal story in images. It feels like we talk for days, laying in the sand, that turns cold each time when the sun disappears. I have my sketchbook and make scribbles, transferring her memory into my imagery. That´s how it started. After this first meet-up, we will meet many many times and continue the adventure melting up her story with mine, with going on a ride, spending nights in hotels together, to get the morning sun, and finally becoming real friends. Thank you Claudia for your trust, your fearlessness and believe in me.
All pictures are based on real situations , characters and emotions of my my LA-muse Claudia.
Claudia cactus
2014 Dear America,
by Claudia Ferri
“Originally from Montreal, Qc., Canada, I was born in a very multicultural family where the holiday seasons felt more like a celebration at the United Nations. Taking up residency in L.A. has brought back echoes of scenes reminiscent to family gatherings, when people from many cultures amalgamate and blossom through interrelation and interdependency. This is, in a nutshell, like the story of how I met Esra Rottoff, Photographer from Berlin, and she in turn met me, Claudia Ferri, Mother of three and Actress exporting her craft to better provide for her children and fulfill herself. Once every so often, life offers jewels in the most peculiar circumstances and sends you off in a direction you had secretly wished for, at speed of light. December 12th 2012, a few hours into homelessness, with my heart in tow from a breakup 3 hours young but definite, I absentmindedly sauntered to the natural place I knew could encompass anger, pain and sorrow; the Ocean. After the her Majesty the Sea and her waves made it clear that there was something bigger than myself and my delusion, I returned to my senses and headed back to my favorite coffee place, just a few hundred feet away from the pier, The Cow’s End, in Venice, CA.
There, I had noticed this intriguing blond seemingly right out of the 30’s, interestingly Avant-garde and edgy, sitting on the Café’s outdoor bench. I remembered her. I had seen her and her magnetic friend, Marcello, twice before, but had kept to myself. I simply felt at the time that someone of such great presence as these two exuded deserved to be accosted without artifice, without forcing.
I love people and enjoy connecting with them. So with everything to gain in satisfying my curiosity, I sat next to Esra and broke the ice equipped with my openness & my appreciation for the world and what it holds. Time warped and my heart shifted from soaking into vinegar to being uplifted and expanding, as we both fell in friendship-and-artistic-love-affair which lasted 3 consecutive days.
I saw first hand that negative energy CAN be altered into positive frequencies when channeled through the creative process.
Esra’s eye and artistic touch are compelling. Her portraits breathe surrealism of life and each snapshot is testimony of this. – A voice for the eyes, she coveys the essence of her subjects as though projecting it to us straight from the source; the person in the picture. This is how I see Ms. Rotthoff’s works of art. When I heard she was doing her DEAR AMERICA tour, I could not resist another collaboration alongside her amazing imaginary drive. In fact, in a utopian world, I would be au “rendez-vous” with Esra’s brilliance, like Montreal is to the Spring. For with every collaboration, I am given the opportunity to re-emerge, open up and explore the art and state of being, in the most “in the now” context. I am grateful for her predisposition to spontaneity and for the fruits of our encounter.
Yours truly, Claudia Ferri
