Never underestimate the impact you're capable of.

Often times it may seem that the efforts we exert from a day to day basis are fruitless and have no effect. But, this world works in mysterious ways.

New Orleans, July, the year is 1991 and artist Michael Deas is exhausted. Months prior, Michael was contacted by The Mednick Group -a Los-Angeles based design firm- who was working on behalf of Columbia Pictures to revamp their iconic 'Torch lady'.

Michael being a meticulous artist, commenced his slow process of creating his matte painting. Starting with a wooden panel, that was carefully primed and sanded, to drawing an initial outline using a lead pencil, followed by the application of multiple thin layers of colour paint. His process and method was so detail oriented that he even spent several weeks alone searching for the right formation of clouds via reference photographs to start the final painting. But, all throughout that time, there was one crucial missing aspect. The right model. During those weeks, he had been interviewing various models on an ongoing basis, but none of them seemed right. One day however when he was with one of his close friends, photographer Kathy Anderson, he couldn't help but notice her friend that was on her lunch break, Jenny Joseph, a graphics artist for The Times-Picayune. He was inspired at first sight. She was the one.

Next morning, Kathy's apartment was hastily transformed into a makeshift studio. Michael arrived with a box of croissants and for the next four hours, the trio worked away at trying to capture the iconic essence of the Columbia Pictures Torch Lady. The shoot was casual, fun and was wrapped up in a couple hours.

Michael would then use the photos of Jenny to paint his iconic masterpiece over the course of the next two months. The fascinating aspect of that story to me is Jenny Joseph had never modelled before that shoot, nor did she since. It was her first and last time. Yet 25 years after that hot July morning in New Orleans, and her iconic pose and image is seen by millions of people across the globe every single time they watch one of the thousands of films produced by Columbia Pictures.

My takeaway is simple, It's important to believe in ourselves and never underestimate what we're capable of. To keep being present and the best version of ourselves day after day, because one truly never knows when the stars align.

#ColumbiaPictures #Inspiration