Perdita Gudrun Andrea Acevedo is a writer, gardener, refurbisher and photographer who moved from Germany to the United States when she was 21. She eventually moved to Bremerton with her son, who landed a job at the naval shipyard. Although the move was happy, Acevedo’s old home made living in Bremerton a struggle.
“It’s an old, old, tired 1942 home, and when I looked at it, I wasn’t very pleased with it,” she says.
But Acevedo believes that one can make something beautiful out of something ugly or turn “something little into something better.” So she began traversing Bremerton and photographing it.
“I’ve learned so much about Bremerton. With each picture that you take, it’s called framing. One frame at a time, I fell in love with Bremerton,” she says. “I thought, ‘OK, that’s not enough. I need to do more for my community.”
This idea led her to launch One Frame at a Time, a photography group that’s “not uptight” or strict. “It is open to anybody and everybody. If you have a cell phone, you use your cell phone,” Acevedo says. “I want to spark a passion and plant a seed, and hopefully it will grow.”
Acevedo’s background includes human relations and event directing for hotels and such. She also worked as a control room officer and coordinated activities for a nursing home. “What you do doesn’t matter, as long as you do it with pride and joy, because it’s honestly earned money,” she says.
Acevedo doesn’t think she needs a lot of money in life. “Certainly, it’s nice to have money, and I would like to have more, as well,” she says. “But I think it doesn’t matter where you live. You can make things happen if you have a vision and you have a little bit of an ‘oomph’ that you want to do things and better yourself.”
One way she betters herself is by following many interests. As one example, Acevedo loves to refinish old furniture. “My parents used to have a huge music business in Germany with 200 music students and he (my father) would finish old pianos, so I learned how to use tools,” she explains.
She also loves working in her garden. “I belong to a group that gives away plants for free, and then if I have an abundance, I certainly will give back for somebody else to have plants,” she says. “And so, I made out of nothing, a jungle at home.”
Another one of her interests is writing. Acevedo mostly writes short stories from her dog’s perspective, a Great Dane named Odin.
“He’s my world. He’s my security system. He protects me. He comforts me. He goes on all my photography excursions with me,” she says.
Acevedo also wrote a piece about her dwelling, titled “My Four Walls, My Home!” “For me, a home is a soft place to land, to prepare us to tackle the world outside our door,” she says. “It means a place of our own, a nest, a refuge — a space where we can live, feel safe, relax, cook, have fun, share with friends and relatives and make wonderful memories. It is a powerful place that has a profound effect on us all and a place to take pride in, nurture ourselves, traditions and cultures.”
The home, she believes, should also reflect the person. “When you step over the first swell, the first step into the home, it should rise to your occasion to who you are, which should reach you,” Acevedo says.
Acevedo’s life has come a long way since she moved to Bremerton. And she’s happy with her dog, her son and her photography.
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