dont ever allow ANYTHING to steal your excitement for the future, there are surprises waiting just around the bend.

She wanted something to happen. something, anything.
She did not know what.

The most asked question in radio & magazine interviews that i do is "How did you get started in modeling?" I get messages often from aspiring models asking the same thing. To be honest, I never wonder that about other models… but maybe the reason I'm asked is because it's just odd that I get modeling work at all. i'm 5'3 (ahem, travel sized) with a gap in my teeth and a bunch of other traits people like to make fun of in their blogs. 

but the story of how i got started often boggles my mind about how life works and how one person can change everything forever, so here it is:

Collect moments, not things.

In October of 2009 i posted a Facebook status saying something like: "Hey, I'm going to backpack & couch surf the bottom tip of California to the top tip of California, I'm going to stop at Treasure Island Music Festival along the way. Any and all can join me, I'm leaving in 2 weeks." 

Quaintrelle - (n.) a woman who emphasizes a life of passion, expressed
through personal style, leisurely pastimes, charm, and cultivation
of life's pleasures.

I lived in Austin at the time, and if you know anything about my town its that the people are down for anything. Their tuned in for adventure and living life like a story. That's my home & i miss it incredibly. 2 people confirmed that they would  and could join. The night before leaving I met a long haired young musician (those are just so hard to find in Austin haha) that seemed crazy fun so i told him to come along.

The 4 of us left the next day, picked up a waitress along the way that wanted to see San Francisco, and sang our hearts out to paramore and meiko as we filled up on pringles and twizzlers. i was the only one in the car that didn't sing professionally, but they didn't mind that i chimed in. Every part of the trip was amazing. But it was in Ocean Beach San Diego that my path changed.

You get a strange feeling when youre in the midst of an adventure.
like you'll not only miss this moment and these people, but you'll
miss the person you are now at this time & this place, because you'll
never be this way ever again.

I was sitting on the sidewalk outside a coffee shop making jewelry with a beautiful gypsy girl that I had met, and a man came up to me and asked if he could photograph me. He introduced the woman with him as his girlfriend and told me that he had been looking for a model with a gap in her teeth for years but hadnt found the one. I thanked him for the compliment but told him that there was no way i could shoot with him. i wasn't a model and didn't feel like i could be one. he showed me his portfolio and told me "let me just show you what i can do with your look, if you don't

"I hate being so emotionally slutty. i need to stop loving everyone
i have a long conversation with." (in Ocean Beach)

like it…we'll toss the images." his photos were amazing and raw. even tho i felt like i could ruin his portfolio, i told him i'd try it out the next day before heading out of town. 

man in a van down by the river :P

The next day I met him on sunset cliffs in ocean beach and we shot for a few hours. I found out that day that he and his girlfriend lived in a van there in OB with their dog, and were very aware of peoples energies. When they had to go to the bathroom, one of them would hold a bag for the other one to go to the bathroom in. That's pretty close, haha. She had a gentle spirit and he loved to tell stories. We exchanged emails and i continued on my adventure across California.

Stayed in Hollywood a bit and one of the guys booked
a gig at the Roxy....

Slept under the dome in the San Francisco Palace
of fine arts 

I was the shyest human ever invented. but i had a lion inside me
that wouldn't shut up.

The others continued to explore SF and i headed
to Treasure Island music festival for the weekend

i kind of forgot about the shoot, and took off to Uganda, Africa a month and half later. i spent 6 weeks living in Kitoola Village with children I'll never forget. their freedom is what's behind my smile. 

When i got home it took me a while to recoup fro
m all that i had seen there, and I'm still aching to help. I found out that the photographer had made me a page on a modeling site, and when i logged into it i not only saw the photos we had made together but also had a quite a few booking requests. i thought that it was cool that he captured my emotions in the photos. that they even seemed to tell a bit of a story. it made me want to create more. i decided that if i was getting booked, id go with it… why not give it a year and see where it goes? if it doesn't go anywhere, id see it as an adventure and since id always hoped to act, thought maybe it could get my foot in the door somehow….

that year that i gave it a go i was published in italian maxim and FIGHT! magazine… while backpacking Barcelona the photographer for maxim shot me for the issue, and in the
interview they asked what my favorite sport was, i said MMA. the photographer for FIGHT! magazine, paul thatcher saw that spread and decided to shoot me for their issue.

i almost didn't shoot with FIGHT! because they don't cover costs and they were in vegas, but I'm glad that i did because Bellator saw that issue and contacted me to be their "bellators blonde bombshell". 

it's funny how one person can change everything. how one YES can change everything. 

i decided to take a road trip across the country, shoot with a man who lived in his van

Robert F. Donahue and i on sunset cliffs

So wherever you are, thank you thank you:)

with his girlfriend, and it changed everything. 

if it weren't for him, i wouldn't have moved to LA & know my wonderful room mates, i wouldn't have my job with bellator, i wouldn't be in memphis right now with my best friend Tom (had i not moved to LA me and Tom would not have gotten close), i wouldn't have dated the guy that i dated last year, and i wouldn't even be writing this blog. that man in his van by the beach changed so much for me. and i almost said no. 

i think some of my best decisions were made with out thinking.

1st shoot ever, he of course made me show my
gap in every image...

this week i have really been questioning where my life is headed. i think we all tend to feel a little "pointless" sometimes. i just want to be used. a vessel. i want others to live because i lived. i want young girls to believe in themselves because of my book that I'm writing, and be able to continue on. i have big dreams. but i kind of thought by now i would be closer to having a family, and i dont even have a boyfriend. i thought id be closer to having an acting career and i don't even have an agent. but all i know is that I'm on the right path. how do i know? because I'm on it. and when you're on the right path, you just have to keep walking. view it as an adventure. if i never do have those 2 things, i trust that thats what was supposed to happen. because i will have what I'm meant to have. i was meant to go on that trip, & meet that man. and I'm meant to be writing this right now. you're meant to be reading it. and as long as were being used, thats all that matters. 

she always felt that her outsides were too dull for her insides.
that  deep within her was something better than what everyone
else could see on the surface. (shot by Rob)

everyday, re-write peoples definition of love. don't just live a beautiful story… involve others in it, making their story more beautiful too. that guy may have no idea what meeting him changed for me. and it's the same for you with others. we dont always see our effect on others lives. but its there.
the other day i was telling my best friend Tom about how i had been feeling pointless. He asked me, "what if tomorrow you met God, and He said to you - Jade, you came into Tom's life at a time that he really needed a friend. had you not been there and been the light he needed, he wouldn't have made it thru that time - how would you feel about life if He said that to you?" He used himself as an example because he knows that i want to live a life as giving and transforming to others as his. he constantly spreads love and frees slaves. whether in life or in spirit. there are times i wouldnt have made it thru with out him as well. knowing that ive been of any ease to him in the midst of this, it means my life mattered.
you dont realize how many people are effected by your light in this dark world.

you being alive changes things. every.day.