Sunday, December 29, 2013

All That Glitters...


    My favorite time of year: when the air gets cold, and the skies are clear, and our streets are filled with lights. The year end celebrations have always been my favorite, and they never fail to fill me with childish joy. I'm one of those silly people that loves the hustle and bustle that goes hand in hand with the Christmas season. Living in Texas, I don't often expect a typical "white Christmas" (however we pretty much had one this year). Instead of waiting in anticipation for snow flurries, I impatiently await Christmas lights! Those are my winter wonderland, and nothing can quite compare, in my eyes, to the glittering lights display of Dallas's Highland Park Village. It has become one of my favorite destinations when I want to really get in the holiday spirit!
   So this year, I decided to have a fun Christmas adventure with Thomas Garza to shoot in the midst of my favorite holiday decor. :D  We had such fun and so many laughs during this shoot. I hope you will enjoy the pictures as much as we did the experience, and I wish you all the most wonderful New Year!!






Monday, December 16, 2013

Staving off the Creative Slumber

                                          "Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties."
                                                                               Erich Fromm

   "Starving Artist." This trite title is true in so many more ways than its original meaning. While there are plenty of artists -- artists and creatives of all forms -- thriving and living the high life, there are also those of us who may not be physically starving or living in poverty but starving in the sense of lacking creativity. When you are an artist, there is almost no struggle as disconcerting as the times of creative slumber. For some it may only be for a few days; for others it can be years of detachment from their creative side. As for me, it was a separation lasting a year or more.
   Art is something that has been in my heart from the moment I was old enough to wield a crayon. Lack of creativity was something I didn't often experience in my childhood and early teen years. There was rarely a moment you could find me without a pencil and paper or a paint brush and canvas; if neither of those, I was daydreaming or making mood boards of the ideas spinning in my head. "Escaping" my creativity just wasn't possible, and a creative starvation was something that never even crossed my mind. Creativity became something that I took for granted.
  The older I got and the more realities I had to face, the less my creativity showed up. It was often put on the back burner for the "important" things of the day--- until one day. Around 17 years old, it vanished completely. It vanished at least in the form of creating art as in paintings and drawings. I just didn't have that drive or focus anymore, and I entered my creative slumber truly for the first time. I began to follow my passion for styling and I left my art behind. While there was nothing wrong with finding a different outlet for my creativity ( Fashion is something a large part of me had always wanted to do) the mistake I made was pushing my other forms of art away from me.
  Although I didn't realize it then, I was mentally locking away my artistic side. I didn't think I needed that part of me and felt very fulfilled in what I was doing with fashion.  So, I took a year sabbatical from creating anything in the form of paintings and drawings. Toward the end of that year, I started to realize that there was really something missing in me, my creativity didn't flow like it used to. I fought so hard to find inspiration in any way that I could, and I just never got it. I was looking in all the wrong places for creativity instead of really seeing what was around me. I was searching for what it was that inspired other people, not what it was that inspired me! And it was starting to affect all aspects of my life.
  Long story short, I stopped searching, and creativity found me again! In the oddest sort of way. With the announcement of my sister's pregnancy, I decided to start illustrating again for the baby's room. I began with the easiest sort of rudimentary things -- little animals dressed up suits and bows. Slowly, it all came back to me. When Pantone announced its color of the year, it hit me that I should start creating weekly illustrations inspired by that color. That way I didn't have the chance to let go of it again. I was forced to keep up working on it, and it really didn't seem forced at all any more; it flowed from me freely just the way it used to, and I've seen a huge change in the way I view everything, even and especially in my styling.
   So, I hope for all of you out there that are suffering a creative slumber in one way or another, I hope you find this as a help -- a help to stop looking, stop searching, and stop waiting...let inspiration find you, and you will truly find your place back in it again.


That's All folks!
~Mary

Monday, December 2, 2013

Wanderlust


                                                                                                  wan·der·lust
                                                                                       noun \ˈwän-dər-ˌləst\
                                                                                     : a strong desire to travel

 Wanderlust. This word has been in my vocabulary for as long as I can remember.  Even at times when I may not have known the term itself, I knew the feeling. There has never been a time when my heart inside me has not longed for travel to some earthy place where I can get lost. I hold my intimate knowledge of this desire for adventure responsible for my love of bohemian style and photography. There is something enchanting and distant about this genre of style that is related to the mystery and quiet excitement that comes with thoughts of travel. The similarity between these two feelings, to me, has definitely been the driving force and inspiration for every outdoorsy-adventurous-ethereal photoshoot I have ever worked on.
  Recently I have been blessed enough to work with two teams of fantastic people on two different bohemian editorials. I hope that my true love for the exploration and travel of unknown places shows through in my work and inspires you to embrace travel, even if it just comes by imagination.

Photo credit to my wonderful friends at Matthew Hogan Photography (Matthew Hogan and Daniel Poe


 To view all images from this photoshoot, visit Matthew Hogan Photography! 


That's all for now, folks!

~Mary