The Start of “Creative Spaces of LA Musicians”…stay tuned!
After many months of silence, I am excited to finally introduce the second volume of the Creative Spaces photo series! Volume II will be focused on Los Angeles musicians!
I’ve had such an incredible time documenting the intimate spaces and homes of NYC musicians that I thought, "why not expand and make this project bi-coastal, even global?" LA, similar to NYC, has an incredibly rich music scene with artists moving to this city everyday to pursue music. It is, after all, the quintessential “dream-space”, Morrison's "City of Lights", where artists arrive with hopes of building a career in music.
As I embark on this second leg of the series, I am curious what sort of insights I will find. How will LA be different from NYC? Does an artist’s location affect their creative space and influence their inspiration (I imagine that it must)? Will there be similarities between the two cities? Will there be similarities between the artists?
When I set out to shoot the series in NYC, I wanted to do just that, limit it to artists of one city because anything more seemed too intimidating and scattered. Now, my hope is to turn this series global. To document the Creative Spaces of musicians around the world because I think pulling the curtain back and showing off how artists live and work is inspiring, at least it is to me. It both demystifies the artists and highlights how integral creativity and art to human beings.
These days, we are consumed by stories of struggle and disappointment, in all spheres: political, social, and personal. It's so difficult to know how to wade through the upset, much less combat these forces. At times you feel both paralyzed by anger and tempted by apathy. I hope that by telling stories of inspiration that I can offer something positive not just for other artists but anyone who feels inspired. Because don’t we all feel inspired to do something, to create something, to experience something? And yet, many of us don’t act on it because we are afraid, or the weight of it feels too great, or the struggles of day to day life take over.
I personally have felt all of those things, and even restarting this series was something of an internal challenge for me because I felt the commitment of it to be so great. But here we are. And even though I am sure only 5 people will read this post, I putting it out there to hold myself to account. What brings me back is that inspiration begets inspiration. I LOVE hearing how artists write new songs, where their ideas come from, and seeing the private spaces that contain and foster that creativity. It makes me WANT to pick up my camera. So for purely selfish reasons (and maybe for not so selfish ones too), here goes the Creative Spaces of Los Angeles Musicians!
Sincerely,
Anna
PS. If you are reading this and are an artist in the world somewhere, don’t hesitate to drop me a line. I’d love to hear from you! And hopefully, if I end up in your city sometime, we can incorporate your story into the Creative Spaces series!
PPS. I created a new IG account for the series so that I can have a place to focus and share more from the project, you can follow it at https://www.instagram.com/creativespacesofmusicians/
