Check Out Nelson Zepequeno’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Nelson Zepequeno.

Hi Nelson, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
My family immigrated to America from Ghana when I was five years old. Separated from our mother, my father raised my three sisters and I on his own. Supporting four kids on minimum wage in the early 90’s didn’t leave us with much of an arts & crafts budget and necessitated our need to get creative with the limited supplies we had.

Lack of access and the innovation needed to transcend our limitations is ultimately where my love for and style of mixed media art was born and adversely also the reason I started growing cannabis and developing a love for plants.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Bumpy road would be an understatement. My biggest struggles have been escaping the road beset for someone like myself to create a path of my own but that’s pretty abstract so let me elaborate. Image if you can, the prospects for a Black male, high school drop out, criminal record, living in a car, barely making minimum wage in one of the cities with the highest cost of living. Can you envision success in their future? I did. But socio-economic struggle is just one part of it, the inner struggle is where the majority of my work has to be done.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Creatively: I’ve been developing an artform of infusing living elements with discarded relics from a consumerist society, acting as a nod to nature’s eventual reclamation of our lives. Professionally: For the past five years, I’ve worked in tv/film/event production. Starting from the ground floor, I joined a production company which provided the majority of film/LED equipment to major studios. I hated my job but began to see the inner framework of how some of our favorite productions were created which made me optimistic about the future as I returned every night to sleep in my car. That was in 2015/2016.

At the beginning of 2020, I was proud that after five years and without any degree or formal education, I had studied, learned and worked my way up to the Scenic Lead position for major Experiential Marketing & Production companies, working on creative teams, traveling around the country building activations for clients like Apple, The Grammy’s, IHeartMusic, Revolve and huge movie premiers like Irishman & Joker. That all ended with covid19 and I was thrown back into the abyss of an uncertain future and turmoil same as everyone else this year. Yet from my past experiences, I’ve found that amazing things tend to happen when you reach rock bottom and left with nothing but yourself and time. With a surplus of time and anxiety floating around this year, I had exactly what I needed to dive back into my creative practice and now have a few major projects coming to your screen in 2021/2022.

Who else deserves credit in your story?
Jasmine from Black Girls With Gardens (http://www.blackgirlswithgardens.com/) Instagram: @blackgirlswithgardens. It goes back to what I said about imagine a Black man. Each of us will have a different image of who and what a Black man is or can be. Black women are the ones that truly see us for and allow us to be exactly who we are and I appreciate Jasmine for seeing me at a time when I was broken down and felt invisible, simply by allowing space for me and others. Because of her, I learned to do the same and now provide a platform for others to be seen and heard. Joe Lewis owner of Joe Lewis Company (https://joelewiscompany.com/) Instagram: @joelewiscompany I’m a firm believer that a person can build their own door to opportunity by putting in hard work and on the other side of that door, there will be someone like Joe Lewis that sees what you’ve created and wants to help you open it.

Contact Info:

• Email: nelson@plantsandanime.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zznelsonzz/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/blackmenwithgardens
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/zznels0nzz
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCt-2nzB2NKNSEJLundE2CFA