We had the good fortune of connecting with Didi Beck and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Didi, what led you to pursuing a creative path professionally?
I couldn’t not! Art is the love of my life. I was born an artist and creating is a basic need for me. I have a wonderfully supportive family and my parents always encouraged my love, exploration and pursuit of creativity. My father is a musician and my mother is an artist herself.

I wanted to become a professional ballerina. A bad hip injury at 15 erased that option and redirected my life. There was a span of time during my adult life when I felt an obligation to pursue a more traditional career – I’m Jamaican and have been living in the US as a student, so the immigrant mindset of “do something ‘useful,’ you’re lucky to have this opportunity” loomed large.

I tried to work corporate jobs and I literally got full-body rashes when I had to be in office full-time. Eventually I allowed myself to return to my true, “impractical” loves: fine art and film.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
Art has been my way of processing my unusual life experience. I’m psychic, like almost every woman in my maternal line. Before I knew this I just thought I had “thin skin” and was “too sensitive,” since I felt everything around me so deeply. I also saw things that others didn’t: ghosts, spirits, energy. I kept this mostly hidden since I didn’t exactly know what any of it meant. I finally opened Pandora’s box during my journalism graduate studies, when I began intentionally exploring and reporting on this part of my identity in both myself and other artists. That gave me a sort of permission to make art more overtly about this hidden part of myself: the occult, the taboo, the unseen, and the power that lies within it all.

My artistic expression has taken many forms over the years: photography, drawing, dance, ceramics, swimwear, writing, film. When I was younger, I thought that my many interests were a curse – it was hard to choose just one thing to focus on. Now, it’s a joy! I’ve amassed a skillset that’s both broad and deep through studying and sheer curiosity.

Today, I apply it all to my filmmaking. I think that’s why film is my favourite art form – it lets me combine so many of my loves.

This is most apparent in my upcoming film, “In Foreign.” The story is set in California on August 6, 1962 and follows a pregnant Jamaican psychic as she realizes she’s being committed to a psychiatric ward on the day of her home country’s independence. It was a cathartic experience to make a film that’s both personal and universal to so many Jamaicans. I’m excited for the world to see it!

Even though my creativity was encouraged and celebrated by those closest to me throughout my life, I often ran into the same obstacle that many artists face: the intense, prolonged, and repeated heartbreak of creating and sharing my work to seemingly no avail then interpreting it as failure. I still experience this, but I’m lucky to feel it. It helps me appreciate the wins and successes I do have – big and small – as they come. This is a big reason why I started documenting my practice as a filmmaker on YouTube. I always want to remember where I’m coming from, where I started, how beautifully I’ve evolved, how much fun I’ve had along the way.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I love history, art, film, ghost stories and food – so that’s what I’d base our itinerary on:

– Hiking in the Hollywood Hills
– Driving tour of Laurel Canyon
– The Academy Museum, LACMA, the Getty
– For lunch: Caribbean Gourmet in San Gabriel
– For a movie: Vista Theater or the Los Feliz Theater
– For dinner: La Pergoletta
– For coffee: Kumquat and/or Loquat
– Driving tour of historic and haunted LA: mansions, restaurants, underground tunnels, the old Pueblo de Los Angeles… complete with full commentary by me and my decade-plus of curiosity-based research
– To catch the sunset: the Pacific Palisades bluffs
– For an after-hours second dinner: Fred 62

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I’d love to dedicate this shout out to my family and my best friend, Ashley Rose – I would have never been able to pursue this life without you all as the wind beneath my wings.

Website: https://www.didibeck.com

Instagram: @didi_beck

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@DidiBeck22

Other: TikTok: @didibeck

Image Credits
Photos by Sika Stanton, 2024.

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