Mela Guerrero

hehe tanto amor 🤩

DJ cues @hermanosgutierrez for cocktail hour

Some fabrics still come from somewhere real. @la.melaaa drove up from one part of Maryland. @theregoesleah drove from another. We met in Middleburg, Virginia, on one of the coldest mornings of the year — and watched Franny’s Merino sheep get shorn. Somewhere in the 1950s, America traded wool for polyester and called it progress. Now we’re on an “anti-synthetic” kick — but I wonder if we’re doing the same thing we did with organic food. Buying the label. Skipping the research. Not asking the harder question: where does it actually come from, and who made it? @frannykansteiner started with three sheep. She wanted mittens for her children. Thirty years later, she has three hundred Merino on a hillside and every yard of wool gets washed up the East Coast — not overseas. “I wanted to honor the sheep with beautiful products. I wanted to be a shepherd first and a designer second.” Two or three new designs a year. A coat she’s been sitting with. The shop is on the farm — so you can walk outside and see the animal that made what you just tried on. “The sheep come first. Always.” You might not find your style here. That’s not the point. The point is to start asking: what am I wearing? Because brands that actually care what they’re putting on your body — they’re rare. And they’re worth finding. 📍 @gumtreefarm , Middleburg Virginia . . . . #farmlife #sheepfarm #visitvirginia #agritourism #regenerativeagriculture

There was a moment in college when a professor told me I’d have to get over my fear of ending up in a cubicle, because it would probably happen. It hasn’t. And to this day, I know it won’t. My vision for my future has always been hazy, streaked with uncertainty but one thing I knew for sure: I wasn’t going to end up doing something just because it was expected of me. I wasn’t going to sit in a cubicle working a job that didn’t grow what I was trying to seed. My life has always been filled with eager, passionate people and I am so blessed to be evolving alongside them in this lifetime. I’ve started working with Aguita Flowers to help support their fields and systems. A stunning 60 acre property in VA. Do you have an event company looking for locally grown flowers in the DMV? Are you a photographer dreaming of a full-bloom flower farm as the backdrop for your next campaign? Let’s chat. @theregoesleah and I have been brainstorming. We’re both deeply rooted in the agriculture and creative space, figuring out how to support local farmers and agriculture-adjacent companies in building out their brands and presence. We have more in store but my connection with Leah feels nothing short of kismet. And nothing has been more special than becoming a part of the @ward8well team. This farm and community wellness space has been the launchpad where all my dreams began to take root. Program and partner development are a big part of my role here so if you’re an organizer or a potential programming partner, give us a follow and we’ll be in touch. Con mucho amor, Mela 🥭

Promised to take these out of the drafts. More of Paraguay on film. 🍊

The art of sitting. My favorite moments while being home were just sitting. Surrounded by the storytellers in my family. The childless uncles expressing their frustrations about who will take care of their land in el campo. The aunts sharing embarrassing memories of when they overextended their hearts to lovers who didn’t deserve it. Sitting with my prima, Arami, sharing that restless feeling of wanting change but not knowing where to begin. I think Paraguayos have a talent for being present. For sitting. Passing around tereré to everyone listening to the stories, skipping the storyteller so their thought process isn’t interrupted. While I was home, I kept having flashbacks to where both my paternal and maternal abuelos used to sit. The corners where memories live. Where I used to hear my Lelo yelling at Luque for not winning, again. Paraguayos sometimes say our culture does too much sitting. Too much waiting. But I think I could use more of that. #canonae1 #35mmfilm #porta400

Everyone keeps saying it’s the Year of the Horse. We’re claiming the Year of the Farm. Farms are closing. Farming generations are shrinking. Some soil is still recovering from methods that exhausted it. And at the same time, people living in cities are realizing convenience isn’t the same thing as connection…and nothing about sitting in traffic feels healing. There’s another story happening if you look for it. Agritourism is expanding. Regenerative farming and regenerative agriculture are reshaping how working farms survive. Farm stays and farm hotels are becoming the new home destination experience. Agrihoods are the new hot topic among real estate developers and architects. Sustainable agriculture is becoming less of a buzzword and more of a necessity. People are booking farm travel, shopping farmer’s markets, and asking harder questions about where their food comes from. They’re choosing sauna and cold plunges located on wellness farms over weekend brunch in the city. So this year, we’re getting in the truck. Every month: Agritourism properties. Regenerative farms. Farm stays. Farm hotels. Working farms building creative, sustainable models to keep local farms alive. @la.melaaa grew up in Montgomery County, Maryland, tracing her roots to Paraguay and studying how land shapes identity. She believes farms are healing spaces, where food is medicine and the soil is the main character. @theregoesleah from Panama, living on 60 acres in Maryland, documenting brands and people who are fighting to keep farming relevant and important. Two Latinas. One commitment to capturing stories of how farming is influencing the people beyond the internet. 📍 Drop a comment below if certain places should be on our radar! Or just cheer us on 😛 . . . . #agritourism #regenerativefarming #wellnessfarm #regenerativeag #farmtravel

The parts of home that’ll never go unnoticed for me. 📍Asunción, Coronel Oviedo & San Bernardino

Entering the last year I’ll be Melanie Guerrero. 🤍

A love letter to the girl that inspires me the most

Lately, I’ve been practicing digital photography and honestly, it’s been frustrating. The vision I had in my mind wasn’t translating into my photos. Every time I checked in with my mentor, @theregoesleah , she’d remind me, “Mel, send me whatever you have. You have to send me something to review.” I didn’t feel like I was storytelling. I felt like such a newbie. I wasn’t giving myself any room to be new at something. But I kept trying, trying to bridge that gap between my lack of technical knowledge and the story I wanted to tell through my camera. Some of my favorite moments while taking photos have been at @ward8well , especially when I get to spend one-on-one time with our regular visitors. One day, I asked Ms. Lana if I could join her during her harvest to take some photos. She smiled and said, “Of course,” in her warm Trinidadian accent. The greenhouse tomatoes are some of the visitors’ favorites, and she moved with purpose, heading straight there. As we walked, she told me about home, about the plants she used to grow, even the ones that sprouted in the greenhouse unintentionally but were familiar to her. She hasn’t been back home in a while, and it feels different now, she said. While she spoke, I followed her rhythm letting our conversation guide where I framed my next shot. Somewhere in that space of slowing down and letting her lead, I found my favorite photos. On the surface, the images are simple. Ms. Lana harvesting tomatoes. But behind them, there’s the story of two women getting to know each other. I never told her my name. I forgot to but she’s chosen to call me Angela. That’s the name my mother grew up being called. I don’t think I’ll ever ask Ms. Lana to call me anything else.

Every year on my birthday, I think of my mother and where she was in life. By 29, she had all her seeds, plus a bonus daughter in Paraguay, and her own young sister at her side. By 29, she had started a business with my father, then another in a whole other country. She lived in a packed house in Langley Park, with multiple generations under one roof. She was caring for little ones, pushing my father forward, managing birthday parties, cooking, working long hours. Always fighting for better. Always doing more. At 29, I don’t have a business. I don’t have children of my own to protect. I don’t live in a multigenerational home. I haven’t been brave enough to leave the country and start over. Sometimes I mourn that I haven’t done enough for my own mother. But today, I took myself out to lunch. I sat alone with an overpriced coffee, writing, simply existing in my own company. And I wondered if my mom ever had the chance to do this. To sit in solitude. To write. To simply be. So on my birthday, I wish this for her too, that she might have the chance to pause, to breathe, and to just be.