Art by, and an article on, the trippy, colourful world of Bridget Intessimone . . . .
Failure has never been an option for Bridget Intessimone. From the time she was quite young, the founder of
Cabin 7 Originals knew – despite a general lack of support from her peers – that she was going to be a successful illustrator.
“When I was growing up, I was made fun of for [my love of drawing,” recounts Bridget. “Everyone said: ‘You’re kind of a nerd. You’re lame. You just want to sit at home and draw all the time. You don’t want to do anything else,’ and I was, like: ‘I can’t help it if this is where I get my dopamine release from. I’m just gonna do it anyway.”
The theme continued into adolescence.
“So many people kept telling me that it’s not a real job. As I started to get older – into middle school and high school – they would say things like, ‘you need to actually think about what you want to do,’ and I just said, ‘I am thinking about what I want to do. I want to draw. I want to make art. I’m gonna invest enough time into it to the point where failure isn’t an option at all.’
“I’ve never even considered failure,” she continues, “it’s never even been like, ‘what if it doesn’t happen,’ I’ve never thought that. Only other people have.”
It’s this deep-seated, vocal defiance in the face of adversity which has aided Bridget Intessimone in her pursuit of taking an idea which came to her while still in elementary school, and building a successful brand (
Cabin 7 Originals) around it.
In fourth grade, while in summer camp, the now twenty-two year old Las Vegas, Nevada resident penned a short story, titled “The Curse of Cabin 7,” which sparked illustration ideas, characters built around the identities of her friends, a comic book, and a colourful palette that carry over into the work which Intessimone is releasing to this very day.
“Camp was a totally different space outside of how I normally was. It was this Wonderland for me. Every summer I would look forward to an escape,” she remembers. “That’s what inspired my drawing back then. I started drawing a lot of camp themed pictures…and writing. I got to do a lot of writing.”
And that was when inspiration truly struck.
“I wrote this fictional story about a character who lived in a cabin at summer camp, and the cabin was haunted. All of my art for the next six or seven years was all about that story. I made comic books, and all my friends had a character in the story…and the cabin was ‘
Cabin 7’.”
It was within this framework that Bridget’s mother – one of her few fervent supporters – saw a lot of potential for growth.
“My mom really encouraged it. She found it really cool that I had created this entire fantasy world,” says Bridget. “She was the one who said, ‘you should start branding yourself as
Cabin 7’, and I thought that was cool. As I got more serious, I realized she was right.
“When it comes to my art, if you look closely at my pictures, you’ll see certain characters showing up over and over. Those are the original characters from ‘
Cabin 7’.”
To look at the Cabin 7 Instagram account is an invitation to witness a lot of incredibly vibrant colours, racy subject matter, fantastical landscapes, and a whole lotta weed!
Characters are consuming ganja in all of its many forms, the iconography is everywhere, and it’s as if the entire account just happened to live atop a dreamscape built of beautiful, billowy clouds of the finest smoke.
When Bridget initially launched the Instagram account in November 2017, she was hesitant about including cannabis content at all. Her family wasn’t exactly “pot-positive,” and while this simple fact dictated the subject matter of the first few postings, it didn’t take long for her defiant – and truthful – demeanour to shine through.
“I had [the account] for a couple of years, but the only people that really followed me were people that personally knew me…so it was a few hundred followers,” says Bridget about her Instagram profile.
“Last summer,” she continues, “I basically got to the point where I was tired of hiding my cannabis art…because that’s the best art that I make.
“I come from a family that doesn’t approve of that. That’s why I never really made my brand about cannabis, and about the psychedelic scene, and the culture behind that. I just felt like, ‘you know what? I’m doing it. I’m just gonna do it. I don’t care anymore. I’m a grown adult and no one can tell me what to do now. I’m just going to turn Cabin 7 into what I actually want it to be’.
“Once I started doing that, that’s when all the followers came. They were really, really interested in the brand I was creating. The bright colours and the cannabis. Some people have called my art provocative, with the sexy look to it. That’s what I’ve always wanted Cabin 7 to be, and I finally created it as that…so it feels pretty good.” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .