About

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The future I want, a story of transformation.

This story starts in the winter of 2010, the year I chose to leave my dream design job in New York City with Condé Nast. Three years into a beloved job, I was inspired to reimagine the urban community arts center in a city where exhibition space is a rare commodity. In our sunny 5,750 square foot, top floor loft with roof access on the corner of 27th and Broadway, artists presented their life’s work and performed their craft; change-makers and creatives shared and debated groundbreaking ideas.

Our first curated exhibit brought in crowds large enough to break the building elevator (which happened often.) I worked with Brooklyn’s BMX legend turned photographer Karston ‘Skinny’ Tannis to curate a group exhibition for the African American Arts Collective during Black History Month. Skinny had vision and relationships, I provided insight and direction. Our line of eager attendees wrapped a city block during the frigid February winter. The cumulative exhibit was incredible, confirming my intuition that there was a broad community of artists that needed this type of platform for personal and artistic expression.

Over the next 16 months we hosted events that included partnering with DJ Spooky, aka Paul Miller, to host a (controversial) debut screening of Jean-Michel Basqiat: The Radiant Child by Tamra Davis; lectures by Simon Sinek, Scott Belsky, Dr. Kyra Gaunt and Viktoria Harrison to name a few; poetry slams with Anis Mojgani, Buddy Wakefield, Mike McGee, and others; the first exhibition of artwork created by inmates of the Alabama Federal Penitentiary; the NYC premier exhibition from artist Jamey Grimes; and multiple musical performances in partnership with acclaimed critics, independent record labels, and organizations including the Jazz Gallery. The time that I spent supporting this vision alongside a team of motivated volunteers was monumental in my career— equal parts salt and sugar. I began to understand the joy in clearing the path for others to tell their story.

2015 provided an opportunity to tells stories in a different way. This time I set out on an adventure with my partner to capture a narrative that explored the question, “What is the future of the creative economy?” We spent seven months, driving across the United States, working in our car and in coffee houses, interviewing creative professionals and writing a series of articles that would appear in HOW magazine’s digital and print editions. Our articles highlighted common experiences, concerns and pathways among the people we interviewed and knit together a framework for what the future of work and life can look like.

During this time on the road I examined my past and analyzed my own future. It came to me—perhaps as I was rappelling into a slot canyon in Utah for the first time on a ‘canyoneering’ trip which I didn’t realize meant dangling from a tiny rope—that my future as a creator must have a better long-term impact. Looking back, much of my design career supported marketing and advertising campaigns for consumer brands. To paraphrase the socially and ecologically responsible designer and educator Victor Papanek, I have persuaded people to buy cheap goods they do not need nor can afford; this will simply not be my future.

Sustainability secures the future for generations to come — environmental justice, sharing economies, circular economies, socially responsible investing, climate solutions—these things are spinning the planet toward a positive outcome. And so, I took off my rappelling harness and shifted my trajectory. I became a mom, moved to Arizona, went to grad school, studied sustainability, became a mom a second time while in grad school and finally graduated in the middle of the desert in the midst of a global pandemic. This was not quite the path I had envisioned, but it is the future I want.