Daily Inspiration: Meet Jamie Lammers

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jamie Lammers

Hi Jamie, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.

Well… you told me in the questionnaire that I could include as much detail as possible in my answers. In my desire to write as many details as possible, I was not brief. At all. I wrote as much as I could think of in what became a 17-page Google Doc, and I don’t think anyone wants to read that much about that many details of my life. To summarize what I wrote in a few sentences: I’ve been singing for my entire life. It’s always been a source of comfort for me, but the arts weren’t my primary interest in my early childhood. Near the end of my elementary school years, my almost exclusive focus on animals expanded into other interests in science (especially space) and history. Once I completely embraced the arts, though, I never looked back. I became interested in acting halfway through middle school, analyzing movies in late middle school, and writing in late high school. I’ve performed solo and in choirs; acted in plays and short films; directed and written short plays; written various journalistic articles, short fiction, and nonfiction essays; written, composed, and arranged songs; and even edited videos and podcast episodes over the last decade of my time embracing the arts. It’s been a rocky few years, though, with the isolation I experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic cementing my anxiety completely. Over the last year or two, I haven’t felt as motivated to pursue the arts as I had been during my middle and high school years. However, I’m in a much better place now, and I’m ready to put my art and myself out there once again, even if I don’t get a massive audience to join me on the journey. Hopefully, if you’re interested in seeing where I go and what I’ve already done in the artistic world, you’ll keep up with my social media! That way, you’ll see updates about where, when, and what I will be performing, as well as the frequent creative endeavors I post!

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?

To quickly summarize my journey, I was evaluated for Asperger’s at a very young age, and I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at 11 years old. Over most of that time, though, I felt proud about keeping an optimistic attitude about my life and the world at large. Unfortunately, my anxiety has worsened since high school and especially since COVID, resulting in a near-burnout just before I graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder on May 10, 2024, with a Bachelor of Arts in English on the creative writing track, a minor in Music, a minor in Cinema Studies, and a certificate in Native and Indigenous Studies. Despite all of that, though, art has kept me going, whether it’s continuing to act in as many shows at my college as possible (including the mainstage event ShakesFear and many pieces debuted as part of the New Play Festival) or finding my singing outlet in the student-led choir Renova. Now that I’ve found ways to steady myself again, I hope that from now on, I’ll create and embrace the arts for my enjoyment and not for worldwide validation.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I have been working for The Mountain-Ear, a newspaper centered in the Peak-to-Peak area of Colorado, as a media specialist, journalist, and podcast editor since April 2019. Since mid-2021, I have been the primary writer of Music of the Mountains, a column promoting upcoming live performances in the area, and I have contributed many segments and interviews to The Mountain-Ear Podcast. Since June of 2024, I have been completely in charge of the podcast, creating many of the segments and editing every episode myself. I am incredibly proud of the segments and full episodes of the podcast I have edited myself since I started contributing to the podcast three and a half years ago. I am also currently an associate interviews producer and co-host for the incredible podcast The Creative Process, which I took a long hiatus from but have since returned in full force. I feel that what sets me apart from others is my interest in a wide variety of artistic pursuits — culture, history, and cultural history — and my desire to be as thorough as possible in whatever I cover. I love researching popular and obscure events and figures to get as many details correct as I possibly can, as I feel that when it comes to history and the arts, as the saying goes, “God is in the details.”

Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.

For me, I’ve never been much of a risk-taker except in the artistic world. I think the major risks I’ve taken involve my artistic endeavors, whether it’s my successful submission of footage for the crowd-sourced documentary Life in a Day 2020 (my high school principal, Rick Elertson, is featured in the documentary about 27 minutes in, where he opens his speech for the graduating class of 2020 by saying “Welcome to the most important moment of every teenager’s life), or my ultimately unsuccessful auditions for Dear Evan Hansen (after submitting an audition to achieve my dream of playing the title role, I heard back from casting, submitted additional materials, and heard nothing back after my audition was accepted). My perspective on risk, especially recently, has been this: take the risks you feel comfortable taking. Stepping outside your comfort zone is a great thing if you’re ready to do so. If you think that perhaps you want to do something one day but you’re not completely ready, keep it in the back of your mind and see how you feel when more time passes. In my case, when I saw a recent contest hosted by Kodak to propose a short film inspired by Sean Baker’s Anora surrounding the theme of love, it hit me almost immediately that nothing was stopping me from at least trying to propose this project to dip my toes in the water with a new medium and see where it went. I had already edited and filmed myself in a short film during COVID-19 before, so starting a smaller project would be a great way for me to try making a short film for the first time. Ultimately, my proposal was not one of the ten finalists selected for the contest, but my proposal is fleshed out enough that there’s no reason I can’t still make it someday. On top of that, for years, I was confident that I was not good at writing songs. Right before my high school shut down due to COVID, I became so stressed that my mom told me to just write a song. I didn’t know where the suggestion came from, as I had not told her how much I had been considering writing songs. When she said that, though, it hit me that there was nothing stopping me from trying. Ultimately, I won Best Contemporary Performance in the 2020 Boulder Stars of Tomorrow event for the song I wrote, “Call it a Day,” and I have felt confident writing songs ever since. If you’re interested in trying something at some point, always keep it in the back of your mind as a possibility, and if you see an opportunity to take it and you feel ready… go for it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/animaldoctor
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/animaldoctor181/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/animaldoctor181/
• Twitter: https://x.com/animaldoctor18
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MegaAnimaldoctor
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/james-lammers-736433196
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@jamielammers542

Image Credits
Large group photo includes and was taken for Renova New Music Ensemble
Solo photos taken by my parents
Duo photo taken by my father, features Townes Bakke
Photo of four people features, from left to right, Noah Turner, Rowan Harper, myself, and Townes Bakke, taken by a parent