Allowing someone to see your art can be a vulnerable and emotional experience, but you can surprise yourself by what you paint on a canvas or draw onto a piece of paper. It can offer reflection and even therapy. Karla Murthy’s Love, Jamie is a love letter to friendship, color, and one artist giving herself permission to finally declare who she is.
While Jamie Diaz’s art is one of the focuses of Murthy’s film, we are first introduced to Gabriel Joffe, a former volunteer for Black & Pink, an organization whose mission is to better the lives of queer and trans people in prison. Through the organization’s pen-pal program Joffe discovers Diaz’s art written on the margins on a letter, and they had to keep writing back. Joffe began corresponding with Diaz regularly, and even though we never see them occupy the frame together in Murthy’s film, we feel the love they have for one another.
Diaz’s art is almost indescribable. It’s unapologetically queer and celebrates femininity, but we can almost feel the pictures moving as if Diaz yanked the colorful frames from a daydream in her mind. Joffe begins to compile their friend’s art in hopes of curating an art show, and the prison walls cannot contain or repress Diaz’s creativity.
Love, Jamie is about the importance of lifelines. Joffe has faced discrimination because of their gender identity journey, and Diaz is no stranger to that either. They talk on the phone a lot, and their voices carry so much weight with each other. They need one another–it’s beautiful. “I want them to know that we are good people,” Diaz says on one phone call.
As transgender people face innumerable attacks and legislation drawn against them, Love, Jamie is a reminder of the importance of creation. Art provokes a response from our hearts and our minds in a sneaky way–after viewing Murthy’s film, I cannot get Diaz’s work out of my head. Imagine what the full-figured women in her drawings might make people talk about. Diaz’s work is not shy, and Murthy captures that with a careful and watchful eye. It feels so alive.
Love, Jamie plays as part of Outfest’s ‘Is This The Real Life, Is This Just Fantasy?’ shorts program on July 16.
