24 | 24

[twentyfourtwentyfour]

It feels pretty strange to finally be writing this, the last 2424 post! This project has really become a part of my life - I have been thinking about it and working on it for more than a full year. I had planned to include myself as the final interview of the project, and after much back and forth about actually going through with that idea, here it is. I asked some of my friends to send me questions they wanted me to answer for my post and the results of that exercise are below. I'll admit that some of the questions I did not have an answer to and some I didn't want to answer publicly. It was kind of hard to do this, but having to stop, sit and think was in the end (as other interviewees told me) a truly cathartic experience of reflecting on the past 12 months. Doing this myself has given me an even greater respect and appreciation for everyone who participated in this project than I already had, so thank you, you are all truly wonderful! I also want to thank Amardeep for helping me get this site up and running and looking good, Caroline for helping me with the name, and Brooke for hosting a beautiful dinner for the NYC participants a few weeks ago to celebrate the project. And of course, thank you for reading. It's a beautiful thing to support and know your peers at this time in our life and everyone who read even part of just one interview played a hand in the community we created here. Cheers to 25!

How has this year measured up to your expectations?

I didn’t have super clear expectations of what would happen this year, but I did have a general feeling that it would be an important year and a good one. Though I knew I wanted change, I did not expect things to change and work out the way they have over the past 12 months, and in two huge areas of my life, this year has exceeded my expectations by far. I knew I would find a better job, but I didn’t realize how completely taken I would find myself with the new job I found. I feel really lucky to have found something that I really enjoy doing. Before my current job, I was struggling to find a career would make me happy so it feels pretty incredible to have some clarity in that aspect of my life - it actually feels like I'm on a "path"!

I also didn’t expect to fall in love! I didn’t even necessarily expect to be dating anyone let alone someone that I am bursting at the seems with greater adoration for every single day (hi H.S.!). This sounds totally crazy, but a psychic told me that I would find love at 26 so I honestly was in a phase where I was like, “Cool, don’t have to worry about that for a while,” in my head. So, the psychic was wrong (surprised?) and I couldn’t be happier about that.

I recently found a note of 25 things I wanted to accomplish before turning 25 and I realized that the things I have accomplished from that list were the ones I thought were the loftiest when writing them down and the items I thought would be surefire are the ones that I didn't make happen or lost interest in altogether. So in a lot of ways, this year was a big surprise.

How has this project helped you understand yourself more?

I've definitely learned more about my work ethic in sticking this project out. When I started 2424, I was unfulfilled at my job and had a lot of downtime to work on side projects like this. Within months of starting the project, my time became really really sparse as my professional and personal life changed and finding time to work on the project in my own schedule became an obstacle. There were definitely days when I wanted to throw in the towel, but I really believed in doing this and I try to never leave something unfinished, so I took the hurdles and I found ways over them. Looking back, I can see how I learned to create content and work collaboratively with others to produce work on a tight schedule that I feel proud of.

With 2424, my emphasis hasn't been on numbers or clicks, but rather on bringing genuine voices and thoughts from my peers together for others to read. It's been really incredible to get feedback that I am accomplishing that from people I know as well as from people I have never even met who write to tell me how moved they are by the posts they have read. During the interviews, it was always really exciting for me to hear a line or read a paragraph that was such a real, raw response that I knew others would appreciate and that the interviewee really felt to their core.

In your interview experiences, what have you found most inspiring about your interviewees?

I found a lot of myself in other people during this project and it was exciting to see people hold the same beliefs, passions and values that I do. I was warmed by everyone's love for their family - I think every single person expressed that in some way or another whether it made it into their final post or not. I was perhaps most inspired by the openness and willingness of so many people who I didn't necessarily know well or at all who sat down and talked to me about their lives. A lot of people told me that doing their interview was a cathartic experience and I am so glad that I was able to facilitate that for people at this time in our lives where everything is pretty up in the air and we are thinking so tirelessly about what the hell we are doing on this planet and are constantly in search of some kind of relief and reassurance from that pressure.

Have you found your "thing"? If no, do you think you will? Do you think that that's necessarily something people always find?

I think I did, yeah. I think I found my thing or my thing found me super early on in high school when I was the editor of our yearbook. Sounds so silly, I know, but honestly, having the creative control over how that book looked from cover to cover, deciding what content would fill the pages and in what order, reimagining the standards of that format, working with a team of diverse talents to pull it all off was all a complete thrill for me. For some reason I lost sight of how directly that experience could translate into a path of study and eventually a career in creating content and I went some roundabout way to get where I am now. I'm back to creating the strategy and content for the new realm of publications - web and social. A year ago I was telling people I wanted to end up working on the next kind of publication - not a magazine or paper and not necessarily a website - and I ended up working on a culture and entertainment site and its social platforms and it still kind of shocks me when I think about how full circle it all is.

I realize that I am lucky to even have the problem of wanting to find "my thing" and that that experience is not the reality of the majority of the population of the world. Therefore, I realize how lucky I am to feel like right now, I am in the right place, doing the right thing.

At 24, to what extent do you find that your identity is linked to your profession? In my experience, people our age tend to move through companies and roles more frequently than our parents or Gen X. If you agree with that assertion, do you think that this fluidity has any affect on your own or your peers' sense of identity?

For me, I do find my identity to be linked to my profession. I know that is a cringe-inducing statement to some people in my age group, but I view it as such - I know who I am (my identity), and my profession has to fit into it or else I will keep changing my job until I find the one that works. I think for some people it’s the reverse - you end up in an industry and assume the identity of a person in that industry or role to some extent and maybe you try out a bunch of industries until something clicks and you feel right. For me, I feel right and am looking with great care and intention for all of the parts of the world that fit me best. 

For now, I have found something great, but had I not, you bet I'd be changing my LinkedIn again within a year. I have come up against criticism and caution against my job hopping but that is such a small concern in my book when I am considering that my whole well-being is off track when I am unhappy with what I do with the majority of time. If I am going to have to spend 40-60 hours a week doing something for the rest of my life, that thing has to be something I want to do, am proud to do, am excited by and can learn from.

Do you have any role models right now?

My mom and dad are my biggest role models. Being of an age where I am largely taking care of myself (sorry for frantic calls when I am sick, mom!), paying my own bills, and making my own decisions, I realize now more than ever how hard it is to get by. I realize how much it takes to be responsible for yourself, and I can hardly imagine how much more is demanded of you to be responsible for kids and a family. As I figure out how to make it by myself, not a day escapes me that I do not think about how my parents figured all of this adult stuff out and created such a great life for me and my brother at the same time and I deeply respect them for giving everything in their lives their absolute all and pulling it all off. Nothing makes me happier than knowing that I am standing on my own two feet, my brother is a scarily smart and successful sibling and future doctor, and my parents are kicking back a bit and having what seems like a whole lot of fun at this stage in their lives! As I continue to navigate my future and strive for happiness, I am always looking to them for what worked and what didn’t and how to handle the bumps with grace and celebrate the successes with love.

What do you think is one of the most important things you've learned about yourself this year?

I have never been very outspoken or extraverted and something that I wanted to work on in my 24th year was finding the courage to add my voice to conversations more frequently. Often, I'd find myself in groups of people discussing anything - culture, politics, a song - and I would find myself thinking that I was never enough of an expert to really have an opinion on the topic or that the opinion I had wasn't anything special. Whether it was a conversation in a tiny Brooklyn apartment, in a loud bar or at a meeting at work, I'd hesitate and miss opportunities to add my two cents and feel silly for it later.

I think my new role on the editorial team at Tribeca has been simultaneously freeing and reinforcing for me as I have truly been able to exercise my voice on every decision from how to cover current social issues to the look of our web site, in fact, it’s really been demanded of me to put in my two cents on almost everything. I quickly got into the habit of speaking up and have been pleased to see my thoughts received openly and critically. Another big help in getting me to overcome that hesitation has been being in an incredibly open, honest and understanding relationship.

I don't often find myself feeling afraid of not having enough information to chime in anymore and I have gotten maybe too good at admitting when I don't know about something and asking others to give me their take so that I can begin to understand and formulate my own response.

What is your idea of success? How do you hope to get there?

It all boils down to happiness for me. And knowing what makes you happy is unique to everyone and is a moving target. For me, success is a concept for my life as a whole - personally, professionally, and everywhere in between.

Success as it relates to my career is measured by how happy I am to be there, doing the work I signed up to do, and whether I am challenged and stimulated to continue to learn. For me, the compensation side of it is really a non-issue beyond being a means to sustain my happiness. If I were not making enough to continue living in New York which is a place that makes me happy and is where my job that makes me happy is located, I would likely feel unsuccessful, or unhappy. Sure I would love to make more money so I could buy more fancy shoes if I am being totally honest, but I am definitely not under the guise that more shoes are going to make me happy or feel more successful, maybe prettier though.

In the same sense regarding my relationships - having more friends won't make me happier, having better relationships with my friends will. I guess what I am trying to say is that for me, success is never expressed as a number. 

So to be successful is just a question of whether am I happy by my own definition of happiness - how I spend my time each day and who I spend it with. And if not, what is the area in my life that is lacking and how can I improve it? It's an ever evolving conversation and a practice of listening to my body, my mind, my heart and figuring out what needs to be done to feel good about all of the different areas of my life.

You danced intensively and competitively as child and teen. In what way, if any, do you see the affects of that experience in your life now?

On the most basic level, it has made me very aware of and appreciative of my body. I can move through the thickest rush hour commute sardine slammed subway crowd at a speed that scares people. I can sit in a chair pose and sweat and burn forever in yoga because I have worked my body really hard for years on end and savored the soreness and strength that comes after. I really value being in tune with my body.

On a deeper level, I think dance instilled a degree of daring and a knowledge that I am resilient in me as well. I'm not too afraid to try something new because I have been told while wearing pointe shoes and a skin tight pink pleather dress to free fall to the floor following turns and jumps and not catch myself, to spin on my head and to wear my pointe shoes to bed to break them in. And I’ve done it. Through it all - sore muscles, bruises, exhaustion and bleeding feet - I only ever learned that I was stronger than I thought I was and that’s really empowering. I am always glad I danced because I find evidence of the abundance of strengths it gave me in myself every day.

What has 24 been like for you compared to how you imagined it would be 10 years ago?

I don’t remember what I pictured my life to be like in the future back when I was 14 but, I do know that I was starting to picture myself in college and beyond when I was about 17. I'd have to admit that my 17 year old self was pretty spot on as to who my 24 year old self would be. I had an attitude not of wanting to move to New York, but knowing I would, and that I would love living there, which I do. I remember thinking I would work in magazines, which I did for a brief moment and now I am working in pretty much the same manner but for digital instead of print. I took some detours to get here, but the irony of how full-circle I have come and how happy that has made me is not lost on me. I bet I pictured having a cute boyfriend at 24 too but I never could have dreamt up someone so great as the one I have been so lucky to find.

What are your biggest goals or plans for your 25th year?

I haven't thought too much about that yet to be honest. I just want to excel professionally, chill out personally, hang with my friends, save money, travel, survive winter. I hope to cook more, draw, take pictures, make the lamp I've been saying I'd make for a year now. I want to have less of an agenda all of the time. I want my calendar to not have a dot on every single day of the month. I want to run farther and finally take a dance class. I want to spend another rainy day watching an entire season of a TV show in one go. I want to do things that give back to my community and to help friends on their projects. I am really excited for some of the projects and companies being created by my peers and am always down to lend my support in any way possible! So my biggest plan is to try to not plan so much but to continue to do a lot of the things that I love.  

What would you still like to learn?  

Another language, then another one. How to cook without freaking out that it’s all underdone. How to better handle feeling upset or stressed. How to shoot and edit video and how to work in After Effects. How to save money. How to find a cheap flight across the world. There’s an endless list of things I want to learn, try and experience and I hope I never reach the bottom of it.

Do you feel old or young?

I think I feel young overall but maybe I feel old for my age. With my birthday coming up, I have been wondering what my life will be like in the future - like in 5 years - but I can never really get past the fact that I will only be 30 and everything could be 100% different by then. I could have short hair and own a restaurant (secret desires)! So it’s not lost on me that I have a lot ahead of me yet, but I do find that for a 24 year old, I’m a bit of an old soul who likes to watch movies and drink wine and eat fun food over going "out”.

The backbone of this interview series is that 24 is a secretly really important year. What's the next secretly important year & why?

I have always said that I can't wait to be 28. I'm not totally sure why, but it just seems like the perfect age to me, so my sights are set there next.

[twentyfourtwentyfour]

It's hard to figure out what to say here about Martha, my closest friend with whom I have an incredibly open and genuine relationship that continues to be so much fun and is also a grounding source of comfort for me. Our friendship has grown, changed and deepened over more than 15+ years of knowing each other and is one of the things I would list under my recurring question to 2424 interviewees - What is most important to you right now? - if I were asked that question. Martha is quite simply, an incredible person, someone you find yourself in awe of after meeting just once. She is openminded and independent, gentle and intelligent, silly and thoughtful, all at once. I won't talk to nearly anyone on the phone for more than a few minutes, but I chat with Martha about everything and nothing in easy 3 hour spurts. She's someone you want to be close to, and I am really, profoundly lucky to call her my friend. Having just turned 24 with a new page laid out in front of her, Martha is diving deeper into what she feels is most important to her. 

You just turned 24, how are you feeling?

To be honest, I hadn’t thought much about turning 24 until recently. Maybe I wasn’t quite ready for it. 23 was memorable. I moved to San Francisco, traveled in Asia for a month and had a couple of jobs that helped me figure out what I really wanted and what I didn’t want in a career. Now here’s 24, this age that snuck up on me, and I really want to make the most of this year. Last year, I did a lot of thinking and learning about what I want in life: in my relationships, in the workplace, and most importantly, outside of the workplace. I want 24 to be about consciously taking the steps to get there.

How do you feel about living in San Francisco?

San Francisco is wild! I moved out here on a whim, wanting to get away from the predictability of Washington, D.C., and boy, is San Francisco unpredictable. The first couple of weeks after I moved here, I walked everywhere to get a feel for the city’s layout. After those couple of weeks, I’d learned that there were way more hills here than I’d thought there would be, that mental illness (sadly) surrounds the city, and that I’d spent a big chunk of change on coffee (this was worth it). I learn something new all the time in San Francisco. Whether I stumble into a great bakery, find a grocery store with the cheapest, freshest, produce, find my dream house (again), or walk down a block I never had before, I’m always surprised by what SF has to offer. I’ve been here over a year now, but I still always make a comment out loud when I see the fog rolling in, because it really is dreamy seeing the fog take over Golden Gate bridge slowly. All these things being said, sometimes I’d like a proper backyard, to save some more money instead of spending it on rent, or to grab a decent bagel on my way to work… I guess those are things you give up for living in dynamic, ever-changing SF. I’m considering making a move to the East Bay sometime in the next year, a whole different ball game. Part of me is afraid to leave now, while I’m still finding things in the city though, because once I leave, will I ever come back?

How do you feel about your independence and/or dependence at this stage in your life?

I feel quite independent at this stage in life. I still call my parents every day, but I don’t think that has to do with a lack of independence, more so with the fact that I enjoy chatting with them! I don’t really have trouble with moving someplace new, because I know not to expect anything. There will always be surprises in a new setting, which is half the fun in making a move. I don’t know how much this has to do with independence, but I do enjoy doing things by myself. It’s hard to think sometimes when I’m not alone. Of course, too much time spent with others around can’t be a bad thing, but a wander in the city with my thoughts can be refreshing.

What do you enjoy most?

I love walking around, drinking coffee, baking and traveling. I don’t bake quite as much as I’d like to, though I’m hoping to change that this year. I also really love working out. I never really was into it until I moved to San Francisco. Another thing I could say about SF is that it’s a city of fit people! I’ve done everything from aerial silks, to barre, to spin, and have found exercising to be a way to relieve stress from the workday. One of my favorite things is getting in a workout at lunch, and getting back to work feeling okay about sitting in a desk for too many hours in a day.

Everything about going somewhere new intrigues me. I like meeting people from other cultures and gaining a better understanding of the way they live, eat, work,and vacation. I’ve been really fortunate, having gotten to travel abroad growing up. I think of my travel experiences in two phases: one being traveling while I was a kid, maybe younger than 14, and one being traveling when I really had the capability to take in my experiences and analyze them. I hope to travel all the time, even if only just beyond SF’s borders.

Listening to Spanish is something I love. I don’t do it enough. Having grown up spending time in Honduras, my mother’s home country, and traveling in Central and South America, Spanish has and will always be one of my favorite languages. When I’m on the bus with Spanish-speakers, I find myself turning off my music to listen to conversations in Spanish. It’s music in itself. It reminds me of many things, namely my family in Honduras and my time studying abroad in Argentina, though I really just like the way it sounds.

What do you get out of traveling?

Traveling is the best kind of enrichment. In one specific place, I can learn so much. I was in Bali last year, and I spent so much time figuring out how and why the people there are so happy. It might take living there to really find out, but I felt like the people were so grateful for what they had in their lives, whether that was family, work or religion. The Balinese people really inspired me to be grateful for each and everything I have in my life. I was fascinated by Balinese offerings - small baskets filled with flowers, rice and other gifts. That’s their way of giving back what has been given to them by the gods. These offerings brought prosperity to families through their gratitude for what they already had. It was special to see them covering each sidewalk, step, and entryway in Ubud.

So it’s that kind of inspiration that I seek out in travel, the kind that will hopefully help shape me into a better person. I also rarely read about history when I’m not traveling and I enjoy learning about a culture while I’m traveling. It’s so much more interesting and exciting to read about an ancient Indonesian temple while you’re climbing its hundreds of steps than while you’re sitting in your SF apartment dreaming about being far away!

What is important to you in your work?

I just left my job, and I have to say I’m excited to move on. I’ve been thinking more and more about what I want in a workplace. Number one on that list is genuinely good people. My last job wasn’t perfect, but one thing I can say about it is that my office was filled with kind, well-meaning people. I sometimes wondered if that was part of the hiring criteria at my company. Mean people weren’t allowed! I think that almost more important than the job itself are the people who surround you. I’d like to be friends with my coworkers, not just… coworkers. I just want to be happy, and work with good people who care about what they're doing but more importantly about each other!

I’ve also been compiling photos with the hope of starting a blog, and feel like this may be the perfect time to dedicate my efforts to a project outside of work. I want to be able to keep track of my travels, more for myself, but if anyone wanted to follow along, that would be pretty cool!

Do or did you have any expectations or goals for your 24th year?

I can’t believe it’s already been a couple of months since I turned 24! This year, I want to take advantage of every opportunity I have to travel. And from there, I really want to document those travels. I’m going to hold myself to writing while traveling, which I always set out to do, but end up putting it off. Not this year!

When you sort of mentally evaluate where you are in your life, what do you see and how do you feel about it?

I’ve been thinking recently about a conversation I had with you a while back. We chatted about how some people are relationship-oriented, while others are more career-oriented. I think that a person can be both of those, but I definitely see myself falling into the first category. When I look at my life, I first see my relationships. My relationships with my family, my boyfriend, my friends and my coworkers really ‘rule’ my world. It’s funny to think about it, but I think of all those people in my life as my true friends. I think I have a good idea of who will be around for a long time to come and of course, who I want to stick around. I’m lucky to have the friends I have and I try not to let time and distance get in the way of my friendships.

I’ve always been super close with my parents. I talk to my mom and dad everyday and I often find myself wishing I could drive over to say ‘hi’ and hang out with them. They’ve been supportive of every decision I’ve made, regardless of how crazy they may seem. Before I moved here, I had never really thought about how far California really was to most of my family and friends, to what I knew best. Finding the time to fly back to the East Coast is hard, not to mention the struggle of finding a reasonably priced flight! So many important people in my life are 6 hours away by plane. It seems crazy to be so far away sometimes.

What is the hardest thing about being 24? The easiest?

The hardest thing about being 24 is feeling like I don’t have it all figured out. Though that’s what makes life exciting, I’d say. The easiest thing about being 24 is the same thing: having the freedom to figure out what’s next and not feel rushed in life. It’s nice to be able to make mistakes and figure things out that way, and move on, knowing that’s what our 20s are for.

[twentyfourtwentyfour]

I met Sam in the earliest days of our freshman year at NYU. Both eager-to-be-city-dwellers with a creative pulse, we banded together over photo projects and I quickly learned of Sam's dream to work at Vogue. Fast forward 4 years later and Sam lands her first real job.... at Vogue.com. I remember remarking out loud something along the lines of "No shit!" It didn't surprise me that Sam could land that job, not at all. It is more of a sense of awe at her driven nature and ability to set herself up to reach a goal and then not only get to it but surpass it. I mean, to be 24 and a photo editor at Vogue.com is pretty huge right? Sam and I caught up to talk shop about our content careers, the need to see the world, what has changed in our personal lives and what has stayed the same.

You just turned 24, how were you feeling going into this year?

I came back to Vogue.com six-ish months ago because I realized it’s where I'm supposed to be right now. I had taken another position at a different publication that didn’t turn out to be quite right, and I was lucky to have the opportunity to come back a few months later. When you leave something then go back to it, you’re saying “I'm really choosing this.” I also just resigned my lease, so I’m realizing that my current combination of major life things – my city, my job, my apartment – is working for me. I really like change, but not when it hits close to home. I was losing my mind at the beginning of the year when my parents moved to Florida. I grew up in New York and they have never been more than a 30 minute train ride away. I didn’t go home all the time, but I could have. I have seen them more times since they moved than I did in a whole year when they lived close, so in a weird way it’s working out.

You said you can be resistant to change, do you ever entertain the thought of making a big change in your life?

I think big changes happen whether you want them to or not. I am very much tied to New York for the foreseeable future – because of my chosen career path and because this is where I want to be, but I definitely want to move to London at some point. And LA (maybe). So much of where I am now has been consistent for a long time – I have lived in the same neighborhood since my freshman year of college at NYU, and I’ve been working for the same boss since I was 19.

I see myself ending up in New York, but hope to live many different lives between now and when I’m the 80 year old woman pushing one of those carts around the streets. I think change is good. I like change. You need it to move forward and it’s actually a really huge, important part of my job, it’s just that some things are harder than others.

What is your role at Vogue.com?

I am one of the photo editors for the site. I work on the shoots and videos we commission–all for web-only–as well as the research for the daily posts. Right now it’s couture week, so I’m working on the daily backstage and street style edits. My favorite thing is looking for new photographers and directors to shoot our stories, plus I’m constantly checking Instagram for the best beauty and fashion Instagrams, and to see if I spot any new trends or talent. Our department is really growing so it’s a lot of fun and kind of crazy. The best part is that everyone on the team can make things. We are all jacks-of-all-trades.

What is your current thoughts on your own photography?

I knew pretty early on that, even though I was a photo major in school, I didn’t want to be a photographer. I don’t actually shoot anymore, even though sometimes I do miss it. For now, my iPhone is great to have as a constant companion – it always keeps me looking, even in an extremely informal way.

Outside of your work, what do you enjoy most?

Traveling. Every time I have a little bit of extra money I book a plane ticket. It’s not exactly fiscally responsible, but that's what being 24 is for. When you have friends that are enablers, you're going to get on a plane and go. I always tell myself this is the last trip I am going to take before I start saving, but it never is.

I like that attitude. You are always traveling, how do you fit it into your life?

I've done 22 hours of traveling and gone straight into the office before. I take as many days off as I reasonably can. I love my job but at the end of the day you’re working to afford a life outside of work. I spent all of my time in college thinking, “I have to work, I have to work.” So now that I’ve some made progress on that front, I feel like I have so much catching up to do. I want to be everywhere at once.

What do you get out of traveling?

There are several parts. There’s something about doing what I do, where you’re watching things happen all over the world, that it makes you a little bit better at your job to have been to these places and to have even just scratched the surface fundamentals of a place. For example, when you’re producing a shoot in Paris, it helps if you know what the city is like and have the basic lay of the land.

I also think that my friends and I are at our best when we are traveling to new places and seeing new things. Traveling gives you a different perspective, whether it’s of a new place and its people, or if it’s a new understanding about the place you are from and the people you know.

Also, all of the art I want to see isn’t here [in New York]. Museums are my first priority anywhere I go, and sometimes I’ll go somewhere because of the art that is there. When I go to Greece later this summer, I am staying in Crete for their amazing pottery and museums. One time I orchestrated a six-hour stop over in Madrid before to see The Garden of Earthly Delights at the Prado before getting back onto a flight because it has been my desktop background since high school and I couldn’t go another year without seeing it in real life.

What inspires you?

I go to museums a lot. The Met is one of my favorite places in the world. I like revisiting things multiple times because you see them differently and you can come at them different ways over time. It gives you something to track your progress against. I’m also a huge internet troll.

What have you learned about yourself this year?

The value of teamwork. If everyone comes into a project all hands on deck, you’re going to make something amazing. But if everyone just phones it in, you’re not going to make content that people want to read or share or talk about. I have really come to believe that if what you’re doing–your job, your side project, your recreation–is not feeding you, you can’t do it.

Did you have any goals for this year?

I made some goals for 2015 like make time for a relationship, make more time for friends, work out, redecorate my apartment, etc. So far the only things that are really working out are me (at the gym) and the dating.

I am not usually dating anyone because while I like the idea of dating, I need a lot of time alone. I also like a really wide range of things and I've never actually found someone with similar interests who can challenge me and keep me entertained. I’m at the beginning of something new right now though, and it feels really promising.

I also need to make a budget and stick to it. I'm trying to grow and become an adult in so many ways, and money is a huge part of it. I think 50 year old Sam will want to have as much fun as I am having right now, and I need to start like, saving for a future – whatever that future may bring.

[twentyfourtwentyfour]

Sarah is my oldest friend! Our families knew each other before we knew each other and I couldn't be happier about the fact that each time I see Sarah, we quickly recognize that familiarity - we're old friends. I caught Sarah at an interesting time when she was just wrapping up a hugely important stage of her life - being a student - while juggling the possibility of some other life changes like moving and finding a job. Among tons of "big life questions" Sarah remains, as always, genuinely positive which I find inspiring. That outlook makes her a lot of fun to be around and is something I really cherish about her. Sarah's second half of 24 has yet to be decided, here's where she's at now.

How did this year start for you?

When I turned 24 I was in a really stressful position actually. I was wrapping up the end of my grad school career with the exception of this last externship - so all of my big papers, big projects, comprehensive oral exams that covered everything we learned over the past 2 years which was all clinical application were coming to a head. It was all hard to prepare for.

After I had the comps exams, I had to take a test to get my licence to practice and then I went to the ASHA conference for speech pathologists. That was a really great last hurrah to that whole period of time and it was so much fun because nobody really knows what we do unless you’ve been a patient of a speech pathologist or are one. So I’m not usually around people who know what I do and so it was great to be around so many people who knew what I did and also cared about it.

And since then you have moved to New York City from Florida, how has that change affected you?

It was honestly an identity change in a lot of ways as much as a move. I went from being a student and that's how I got validation and felt successful - through my school work. I identified myself as a student for so many years and suddenly I just had to switch to a stage where I did not really having a career but I had this externship role where I’m not really getting graded and I’m not getting paid. I was really independent I was doing all of the work, no one was ever in the room with me during client visits.  My supervisor filled out an evaluation of my performance at the end of the externship, but I just haven't had a real way to immediately feel successful which is a big change. I also haven’t been working full-time because of the nature of the externship and have had a lot of free time which I don’t like. So getting fulfillment has been an interesting challenge. It’s all been a lot to juggle at once.

What do you think would it take for you to feel successful?

Getting a job and seeing improvement with my clients. There have been little blips here and there of noticeable improvements I have made with the kids I work with. Some of the parents have been upset that I was leaving and have given me positive feedback which was really rewarding.

What’s your next step towards that?

Well, I graduated with my masters in communication sciences and disorders, but I’m not a speech pathologist that is licensed in any state until I finish a 9 month clinical fellowship. So that’s my next step. Finding a fellowship.

As a speech pathologist, you work more or less on your own. How do you feel about that work environment?

I was talking recently about how some jobs are set up to be a group of coworkers who are peers, but my job is not like that. There are a lot of young girls who are doing speech pathology but it’s not a team environment. I don’t spend my time with my peers really, I spend my time with the clients.

I’m friendly with some of the girls at my clinic which has been really nice and helpful because we can pop in on each other and be like, “Hey, do you know about this thing,? I don’t really know what to do?” which has been great as a learning experience in my first year.

Coincidentally, a girl that I went to undergrad with went to grad school in NYC for speech pathology and we ended up being placed at the same clinic for our final externships. I cried when I found out because I was so apprehensive about taking the position because to me this was just a random clinic in deep-ass Brooklyn. But to know that she was going to be there meant the clinic was real and that I would have someone to figure things out with.

I am pretty jealous of your Brooklyn-centric lifestyle here! What are your thoughts on NYC now that you have been living here for half a year.

Don’t be jealous of the hour it takes me to stay in Brooklyn!

I like New York, it’s interesting and I’m having a good time. As cheesy as it is, the skyline is one of my favorite things about the city. I’m always like, “That’s so cool!” when I see it walking down Metropolitan towards my house. I can see the Freedom Tower and the Empire State Building and a bit of the bridge too and I still can’t believe I’m actually here. I can get caught up on my street and kind of forget where I am, but when I take the Q over the bridge to work every day and see the skyline, it hits me. I pick my seat so that I can see the bridge and the skyline.

At the same time, I don’t think I will be here forever so that’s giving me an incentive to take it all in while I am here and appreciate it. I went to UF for undergrad which was a comfortable choice to make, then I stayed there for grad school because it was the best choice choice, so I had a good reason to get out of my comfort zone in coming here. If I didn’t take the opportunity to do my externship here, I never would have come to NYC. My externship was a great way to be non-committal but to try living in the city out. And my externship was also in the dead of winter so I figured if I could get through living in NYC during the winter, I could definitely make it the rest of the time.

And being a fellow Floridian and experiencing NYC winter for the first time, what are your thoughts on it?

Cold is cold to me. This was my first winter ever, so I didn’t know how cold it really was. I just knew I would be really cold and I was. I think I got through it on the thrill of being here for the first time.

And when you moved here you moved in with your boyfriend. What’s it like to be in a 7 year relationship?

It’s cool! And Weird.

It’s been a unique experience because my relationship started in high school. We literally preface conversations with “Remember when we were little...” because we were! We were 17! So that’s the cool part in that I watched someone grow up and have seen where we both have changed and where our interests have taken us and where we have excelled. And it's weird at the same time because we’ve been dating since high school and that’s just strange. It’s also cool because I am close with Thomas’ family, like his sister is one of my best friends. It makes it okay for me to be here in the city a lot of times because his family is here and that’s comforting to know. Another thing that’s cool about it, is that I am SO comfortable. It’s really nice to have conversations about nothing because that’s when your real conversations get to happen.

Do you have any goals for the rest of your 24th year?

Maybe I will try to explore more of the city. I’ve walked around and explored Williamsburg where I am living a lot, I feel like I know it pretty well. But I haven’t spent that much time in Manhattan. I just got new sneakers so maybe I will start walking my way up Manhattan.

[twentyfourtwentyfour]

Sarah’s sister Elizabeth recommended that I interview Sarah, telling me she had just made a big life change and moved from NYC to Texas to pursue a artist residency. In chatting with Sarah, I was moved by her thoughtfulness about her current circumstance in life. It's exciting to find someone so open and realistic about who they are, what they do, and where they are trying to get to without ever having actually met them in real life! As our interview wrapped up, Sarah just found out that she will be returning to New York to attend another residency to round out her 24th year.

Where are you from?

That is always a bit of a tough question. I change up my answer a lot. I was born in Seattle, both my parents are from there and all of my extended family lives there. I have always felt a strong connection to the Pacific Northwest as "home."  But I have lived most of my life in Chicago.  I grew up in Chicago, my parents now live in Chicago, and I went to college there.  From Chicago I moved to New York (where my sister lives), but now I live in Texas.  Chicago is definitely my most frequent answer to the "where are you from?" question, and certainly the most accurate.  But I connect the Idea of "home" to a few places.  I think for me to call somewhere home I have to have family there. 

Tell me about your recent switch in location from NYC to Houston.

Houston is pretty good. I got a lot of negative feedback when I would tell people in NYC that I was moving to Houston. While it is very, very different from the city, it is not at all a bad place to live. Houston is the most ethnically diverse metropolitan area in the United States (it really is!) and you can tell. Having lived in Chicago and New York that are also extremely diverse, but seriously segregated, I don't really feel that same separation in Houston which is cool. 

A few other things of note about my new life in Houston: - I drive everywhere - I don't like that.  Houston is not pedestrian friendly at all. - Being vegetarian/vegan is difficult. - I live next to a bayou (this feels really southern to me) - Houston has amazing museums, art collections, and a great artist community. - I went to the Rodeo.  Aside from beautiful animals and incredible people watching I learned that you can deep fry pretty much anything and put it on a stick.

I also took a really amazing road trip through the deep south to get here. I went in the Mason Temple where Martin Luther King gave his last speech. I saw Elvis Presley's home. I walked in a studio where Sam Cooke and Aretha Franklin sang together. I went to Little Rock Central high school. I saw William Faulkner's home. All really sacred and special places. 

What do you do?

I am an Artist, illustrator and a maker of stories. I am currently an Artist in Residence at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft which is why I moved here. I work with cut paper. I like to make characters, people that have stories to tell.  I like to make books. I am inspired by sound, motion, emotion and how many pieces create a whole. Aesthetically I love big color, and lots of texture. 

Moving to a place you have never been is so brave! What was your mindset going into that change? Would you do it again? 

Did I want to leave Brooklyn? Nope. Would I regret not participating in this program in Houston? Absolutely. This thought process made the decision pretty easy. The choice to move was obvious.  The actual moving and adjusting was hard. There are things I don't like here, and lots of people I miss. Going in I was pretty positive that my life in Houston would be temporary, and I would move again after my residency ended - which has ended up being correct - I am moving back to Brooklyn in a month. I think this "temporary mind set" has made my experience much different.  I am not trying to build a new life in Houston, I am here to work and learn. 

Would I do it again? Yes. but not right away. I think a lot of artists jump from residency to residency and don't really participate in "the real world" - professionally, personally or both.  Participation in an intensive program has been awesome, and there will be a time in my career when entering back into a format like this will likely be necessary.  Moving to Houston was definitely the best thing to do for my career at this time. But I think it's important to switch it up and make sure I am a successful artist and person in more than just one kind of environment.  

How would you introduce yourself? How would you define yourself? Are they different? 

Introductions and definitions are so contextual. Here are some that I use often:

Sarah Resident Artist at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft Artist Illustrator Teacher Aspiring Author Elizabeth's Sister Kevin and Julie's Daughter Rohan's Girlfriend

Without context - I feel most comfortable with "I'm Sarah, I am an artist".

Do you have any heroes?

Yes.  I read a lot so I think my immediate answer would be a list of artists and authors whose work I admire. I spend a lot of time thinking in magical-real terms and about fantastic stories with archetypal heroes, so my list is a mix of people on earth and characters in other worlds. In no particular order, heroes 1-3 are: my mother for her wisdom and her patience, my father for his work ethic and competitive spirit, and my sister for being such a good friend to me and others. I am the youngest and I have spent my whole life learning from and looking up to these three people. 

4.) Haroun Khalifa, and Salmon Rushdie for creating him and the world he lives in. 5.) Ray Bradbury for his description of God on Mars in the Martian Chronicles. 6.)  Úrsula Iguarán, and Gabriel Garcìa Màrquez for creating her and her family. 7.) Migratory aquatic birds. They live on the land, in the water and in the sky. They have figured out the earth.  They travel as a family.  They are beautiful. As far as i am concerned, they’ve got the hero's journey cycle down  and their movement and patterning are inspiring. 8.) Maurice Sendak.  He creates artwork and stories for everyone. 9.) Judith Jameson for the way she moves and communicates without ever saying a word. 

What is most important to you this year?

Forward motion. It is important to me to not be in the same place I was last year.  Last year was great, no questions about that. I need to keep learning, experiencing, and growing. I think I am already doing a pretty good job with this. Since graduating college I feel like my brain is back to being a 10 year old in the sense that I am constantly absorbing, learning and evolving. I feel like every week I figure out something new about my art making practice, make new goals for my personal life and inch closer and closer to something that feels like what my life may be.  I am not sure how everything plays out - which I don't like. But i do truly feel like i am getting there, or close to there.

How do you prioritize what you spend time learning? 

Right now, I am the boss. What I make is up to me. Certainly I am making with specific intentions, but ultimately If something feels like the right thing to explore I'll definitely give it a few hours of research and then decide if I should move forward or not. The foundation of my education at SAIC is concept and research based rather than skill and craft based. As someone that is happy calling themselves an illustrator and a story-teller, I often was criticized for making artwork that was "too pretty" or not "serious" or "complex" enough.  I spent a lot of time defending my choices for simple and attractive subject matter. I like to make artwork that anyone can access, and I like to make artwork that looks good. If it's something I connect to, and something I think other people will connect to as well, then I go for it.  I am really trying to stay present with the idea of pursuing what feels good and interesting to me, rather than making what I feel like I should be creating.

What have you learned about your art making practice this year? 

One thing I am currently learning about is color. I spent all of last year working in grey scale. The layered style I work with was new to me, and figuring out technique, subject matter AND aesthetic was too much. I took about 11 months and worked with no color and pretty exclusively explored patterns and textures found in the natural world - plants, landscapes, creatures, and eventually peoples faces. Once I started making people in October last year, I started telling stories again. People and faces were huge for me. Since I have been in Houston I have started working in color again. Figuring out how I use color has been so fun and important. Immediately when I introduced colors, I started to approach cutting the paper different, more playfully. I think this instinctive response is something I need to really listen to. I don't have it completely locked down yet but colors have been making me happy. 

The characters you are interested in making, what are they like? 

I think more important to me than creating specific characters is the kinds of stories they tell. I like the people I create to be accessible. I want the viewer or reader to allow themselves to feel what the artwork is feeling. I don't give my characters names or specific locations. When I am making books, they often do not have words or a language attached to them. Accessibility for readers/viewers of all ages is so important to me.   

As an artist, do you feel any sort of drive to make work that makes a social or political statement or that interacts with current issues? 

I made an artist book last summer for an activism focused exhibition.The piece was a 365 page accordion book: one page for each day in 2013. Each page had a varying number of cut out doves reflective of the number of minors that died as a result of gun violence on that day. 

I am proud of this book, but I really did not want to put my name on it. I ultimately had to for the exhibition, so my name is very small on the second title page only. I was reluctant to call this book mine because I felt as though I was just the hands for making this piece and the designer for documenting these statistics. It wasn't mine to claim. I am happy the piece is out there, I think it's an important issue, and I would be more than willing to continue to show the book, but I think of the piece more as a personal venture than something that I want to use to further my career.

What is your residency like? How does a typical day go?

My residency at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft includes a work space, funding, a culminating exhibition with the other resident artists and a weekly hours requirement for time in my studio. The Craft Center is an exhibition space in Houston's museum district, so part of the format of this particular residency is that we (myself and the four other resident artists) have our studios open to the public during Museum hours. Mostly this is for educational purposes. We get a lot of field trips coming through. But it's also a networking and sales structure, that provides resident artists with exposure to the community.

I moved to Houston to work, and really give all my energy to this program. So, my typical day is mostly studio time. I love it.  I find that I rarely take days off.  In the studio my days are a mixed composition of research, making, and testing.  But mostly making.  I think I learn best by doing and seeing. If I have an idea that I think might work, I will usually start by making a few small pieces - tests. research is usually looking through images, writing down thoughts, and listening to sounds.  I do spend a good amount of time with my sketchbook, but the pages are filled mostly with words.  I keep visuals for things in my head and write down what I think they look and feel like. sometimes I sketch shapes or diagrams for things.

What are your goals for this residency?

Since graduating from SAIC in 2013, I have really been focusing on figuring out this layered cut paper style I have been working in. Really taking my time investigating how it functions, what I like and don't like and very specifically what my artwork looks like.  Now that I am comfortable with the way I make artwork, I have moved on to figure out what kind of artwork I want to make.

Right now I am interested in three things.  Making books, making paintings and making illustrations. Each of these things is a slightly different mode of making, and all with very different audiences and venues for viewing.  My biggest goal currently is to figure out which direction to go, or which to pursue first.  Or, if I can simultaneously do all of these... how does that work? And is that best for me? This is a longer term goal. It's exhausting, I hope I figure it out soon. I think i'm getting close.   

My shorter term goal is  just to make as much artwork as possible.  The space and funding for my program are amazing, and I am trying to build my portfolio as much as I can while I am here. 

You just accepted another residency to follow this one. What does it entail, are you excited, nervous, etc? 

The Trestle Gallery residency is much much different then my HCCC residency. The intentions of the new program are to create a community for you and your practice.  We meet once maybe two times a month for critique and feedback.  I will be with a peer group of other artists, and we will have an advisor. There are exhibition opportunities as well as gallery programming like artists talks and openings to attend.  Here in Houston I am pretty isolated in my program.  I have space, and I have funding, but I have had to really seek out my own connection with the art community here, and coordinate my own feedback. This is not necessarily a bad thing, I have just approached my time here differently than I suspect I will there. The Trestle program I think is exactly what I need right now, and will be a super good next step from Houston. 

How do you feel about coming back to Brooklyn?

I am really excited to be back in Brooklyn.  I love Brooklyn. I have quite the love affair with Prospect Park, and not driving everywhere will be nice; plus being back closer to my sister and friends is of course awesome.  Right now I am thinking of my life in 6 month increments only. Houston was the first 6 months of 2015 (and the first 6 months of being 24) and now Brooklyn will be the second 6 months of 2015.  What the first 6 months of 2016 will be... currently to be determined. But yeah, Brooklyn for at least 6 months sounds great. I do think it will be different than the life I moved away from though. It has to be. I have learned so much in Texas; professionally and personally. My art is moving in a new direction. I will be in a new residency program. So, while lots of things will be the same, I don't see moving back as a return so much as another step forward. 

How has 24 been different from other ages if at all?

24 has been challenging.  Certainly a time for learning, experimenting, evaluating and re-evaluating. 23 was a really important year for me.  I moved to New York, it was my first year out of college, I tried making a lot of different kinds of artwork, I met lots of different kinds of people, I had like 5 different jobs... it was just an avalanche of new experiences.  I think 24 for me is still about continuing that exploration, but also looking back on what I have done, learned and tried, and moving forward with intentions and opinions on what I like, dislike and what to do more of.

[twentyfourtwentyfour]

The legend of Palmer Huff precedes the tiny, blonde Southern Bell that she is with her standard poodle in tow. I bet that I am not alone in the group of Freshman year friends who had their world lit on fire upon meeting Palmer in telling every new friend I make a slew of hysterical stories of the fun we all got into with Palmer as our leader. I often find myself laughing before I even speak a word of most of these memories. Since Palmer moved back to her home state of South Carolina, I'm not shy to admit that there is someone missing in my life in New York. But when I visited her last fall in Charleston, nothing made me happier than watching Palmer make her local barista who she sees probably every day crack up at 7 am without fail. Palmer is just so much fun, full of life and affection, and of course a source of endless surprises. You just have to be one of the lucky ones who know her to experience that magic that is a friendship with Palmer, and I consider myself pretty damn lucky. A lot has changed for her in the past few years, and every time I have spoken with her this year, I've had a sense that even more exciting change is to come as she enters her next year.

Do you have any heroes? My hero is my mom. Although it sounds cliche, I can comfortably say she is the only person I've seen accept a lack of control over her life and future with nothing but grace, bravery, and dignity. It takes a lot to be able to act like that once you realize you're not writing the script to your life anymore.

Did you have any expectations or goals for your 24th year? 

If you had asked me when I was 18, yes. I thought I would be finished with school by the age of 22 and would have a job right now in some bullshit office probably, which to me, at the time, sounded like heaven. 

How do you feel about that now?

I'm probably better off not where I thought I'd be. When I was in high school, I was tolerant and accepting and had a similar core foundation and set of values as I do now, but I hadn't been anywhere really, or seen anything really. Living in NYC was so eye opening to me because it made me feel so small. Like I was a total nobody…1 of 8 million people. I didn't feel that way when i was younger, and I didn't even expect to feel that way one day. Everyone should feel like that! In sensitive periods of development you should absolutely know that you barely matter! It's so exciting to not know who you are or what you'll be, because that just means there is space for new places, people, and experiences.

Why did you change gears and pursue working in medicine?

I used to work in a restaurant and it was the most fun job I've ever had! The people were hilarious, the customers were cool, and I was drunk a lot of the time. I needed a job that didn't make me slack off in school and have sneaky thoughts that creep up after that first beer; for example, "What's the point of a career anyway when you can enjoy life so much more without one?" Now I am currently a student at the College of Charleston and a Patient Care Tech at the Medical University of South Carolina. I realized no one is going to accept a graduate level student who has no work experience in the field in which they go into. It's ended up being a great experience because I've learned so so SO much and my nurses, residents, and (some) of my patients are awesome!

What is your day like at your job?

After women have babies, they are moved to our unit, Postpartum, surprisingly quick. Quick like, I've held and fed a 10 minute old human being. We monitor the mothers' vitals and help her get back on her feet, literally. We also monitor bleeding because the thing about an OB hemorrhage is that you usually don't see it until it's already almost over. A pale, clammy, nauseated postpartum mother could either be a healthy but post-epidural woman, or a woman who has just lost 1/3 of her body's blood. We then spend the next 1-3 days teaching the newborn mother basic infant care and how to breastfeed, if applicable. Another huge part of my job is the outfit - I look really hot and smart in scrubs. They are glorified pajamas and people treat you way better in the outside world when you wear them because you may or may have not been awake for 30 hours and saved a couple lives that day. I mean, I didn't but the people letting me cut in line at the coffee shop don't know that.

Tell me about your daily routine outside of your job.

My day doesn't start until I have had coffee and let my fancy Boo man outside. Then I will either go to school and look at all the hot 18 year old boys I'm forced to sit next to, pretending I'm not a 24 year old senior, or I'll go to work and look at vaginas for about 12 hours. If I have spare time I like to garden which is harder than you'd think, build stuff like my headboard, or just sit down and accept that I'm doing absolutely nothing. It's a dangerous game because my friends and I all have so much fun that we have to peel ourselves away from each other to actually get anything done. Sometimes when I've just had enough of it all, I like to go somewhere where there is pool and get drunk and hustle salty old men. 

How has having Boo affected you?

Boo is my best friend in the universe! I have so much love for him, like the kind of love that makes your lungs feel like they are too big for your chest. Every morning when I see him and his ears are all fluffy and bed-heady and he has been waiting outside of my door for me to wake up, it just feels like listening to my favorite part of my favorite song. If I love an old dirty poodle this much, imagine how much I'll suffocate my children with love. He also has helped me a tiny bit with my phobia of vomit, as he throws up quite often. He has a mental illness where he incessantly eats underpants, socks, pants, etc.

Tell me about Charleston. What is it to you, what does it mean to be there now, how do you feel about Kiawah Island?

I feel very differently about Charleston than I used to. I used to feel bored with it and the people, but living here on your own is way different than it felt to grow up here. Not to mention how different the city is physically than it was. What used to be the ghetto is now Charleston's little version of Brooklyn, in that it's hip in its dilapidation. There are so many new restaurants and new bars, which bring in a new and different population to the town. Right now it's a little tense, you can feel a lot of different energies affecting the city's population. There is tension within the upper class , those who wish to maintain the traditions, some good some bad, here at any cost and those who wish to see change happen in a city whose residents highly value tradition. Racism is very much alive in the South and you don't need signs to tell people where they can and cannot go. You don't have to spend long here to see that people have been self-segregating for years. There's places where white people don't go, there's places where black people don't go. It's very strange when you assess it from an outsider's perspective and it makes you realize how behind we really are in terms of racial tolerance in this part of the country.

I think everyone who knows you would say that you make them laugh so hard they might have wet their pants at some point or another. How do you feel about bringing that level of fun and joy to others lives?

It feels good! I don't feel like an act, traveling from friend to friend making them laugh and getting nothing in return. When I make someone laugh, it's usually us laughing together. No one is funny without other people. I am lucky to be surrounded by funny, witty, and intelligent people without whom I would never laugh ever. I'm also grateful for the not funny, not witty, and unintelligent people i know…for without them, who would we joke about? But having humor be your stigma can be frustrating. Sometimes it just gets to be a lot, to always be expected to be funny and upbeat, and when you are in a bad mood, it kind of starts to make you feel like you don't have anyone to talk to because no one wants the sad version of you. I have to remember that isn't true. Everyone is allowed to be multidimensional and people are more tolerant of your down days than you think. I think those fears, that people won't accept an unfunny version of you, really stem from having a hard time accepting an unfunny version of yourself.  

I know you are kind of debating between routes you could go in your life right no, where are you in the thought process right now? 

Living in NYC was a lot like how I would imagine medical school to be. My ADHD is almost completely eradicated by high stress and high energy situations. The option of medical school is parallel in my mind to NYC because of the stress and that there are those the days everyone faces where you think, "What the fuck am I doing putting myself through all this bullshit when I could go somewhere so much easier…and cheaper?" Those days are usually preceded by the days when you just lost your brand new Unlimited Monthly subway card or you're just so broke that you ate pizza out of the garbage. But then you're shown days so wonderful that it makes up for all the shitty days. That's why medical school might work for me: high energy and stressful situations bring out the best in me. Maybe I can attend MUSC down here, do a residency in Seattle, then maybe an attending in NYC. Then I will have 80% of my expansive dream. I am also torn between getting a masters in clinical counseling and become a Licensed Practicing Counselor. It would leave me a lot more free time to have and spend time with a family, although the lifestyle would certainly be less intense. Sometimes I know what I want to do if you ask me right now, but I'm trying to make decisions that are considerate of what a 45 year old Palmer Huff would want.  

How would you describe 24? Are you looking forward to anything in particular about 25? I look forward to renting a car without absurd insurance tax markups. Ideally at some point this year, I will fly out to San Francisco, drive up the Highway 1, the one that goes right along the coast, and end up in Seattle. I also look forward to whatever this sense of serenity and understanding feels like that people keep promising I will get at 25. My mom's friend told me that when you turn 25, you just feel different and old, but a good different and old, like you finally know what you want and how to get it. Damn. Sounds good to me because I never know what I want. I think I do, then I get it and I'm like, eh, maybe not so much. 

What is most important to you right now? 

Right now the most important thing to me is ME. Is that selfish? I just want to get to where I want to be and do the best I can in school while also doing my best in life. I want to be kind but tough, smart and always looking for new ideas and different perspectives. I want to be someone people come to with their problems while always maintaining that for myself. It's also very important to me that I take advantage of new and even scary opportunities but stay realistic and grounded. For the first time in my life, meeting someone is not high up on my list at all. I have a lot of engaged friends and friends in serious relationships and as happy as I am for them, I'm not ready to give up all the fun and awful stuff that goes along with meeting new people. I still have a few years left in me, filled with butterflies, nervous small talk, first kisses, and eventually wallowing in self pity as I drink all the wine I can handle and power dip pretzels into Nutella.

[twentyfourtwentyfour]

Tina put me in touch with Marta, who started her side project, Hot Girls Eating Pizza earlier this year, as she says, to cope with some of the heartaches she had recently experienced and as a way to feel proud of herself. Both of us having in common the drive to pursue some sort of passion outside of our day jobs, I was eager to talk to Marta about what made her go this route. It was pretty incredible to find in Marta someone so open, honest and warm who shared what consumes her mind, her time and her heart at 24. 

What do you do?

My day job right now is fabric development in the fashion industry. At the time of this interview, I just finished two years at a sleepwear company and I recently started a new job at Express Design Studio as an assistant to the Fabric Research & Development team. It’s great so far and I think it will be my favorite job so far in adulthood and the fashion industry (I’ve had four jobs before this one!). So far, I’m able to balance my side projects and work and I hope it stays like that. Honestly, before working here, I was really considering leaving fabric/fashion and trying to get a job in marketing or social media. Now, after being here, I really think I want to stay in this specialized field in this industry and grow in this company. I never thought I would say that about anywhere “corporate!” We will see though. As I know so well, anything can happen.

I'm excited about this change but also overwhelmed because I also have two side projects: Hot Girls Eating Pizza which is an Instagram / interactive photo project I am still trying to define, and a nail decal line called TRIXXIE. These side projects are like having two extra jobs. They keep me really busy.

What was the genesis for starting Hot Girls Eating Pizza (HGEP)?

I started Hot Girls Eating Pizza in June. I didn’t really have a set vision at the time, I just wanted to take polaroids of my friends eating pizza and turn it into an Instagram account. I’ve always considered myself to be “good" at Instagram, which is why I chose that medium. Silly, I know. By Fall I was having monthly parties, being invited to restaurants, and getting the opportunity to get pizza with girls I seriously look up to.

Has the project changed since you started it?

HGEP has definitely changed from the beginning. I used to have to shoot my friends or myself in different outfits and disguises like glasses or different hairstyles when I was low on material but now I don’t even have time for all of the pizza dates and for all the girls who want to be featured. For a month or two I was scheduling them every single day, which meant sometimes getting pizza 5-6 times a week. I’m really trying to limit myself to 3 or less per week but even now, I have 4 HGEP-related dinners/events this week. It’s a lot and I’m worried I’m going to get burnt out soon, but then the inner-struggle kicks in and I tell myself I’m supposed to be exhausting and over-extending myself at this age, and that “hustling” is the only way to make it something. I’m impulsive by nature so that quality mixed with this year’s resolution of “yes” to everything is both a curse and a blessing.

In the middle of November, my friend and I were taking silly photos at the mall when I got the idea to do a calendar for HGEP. Did I mention I procrastinate, too? Two Boots reached out to me to host a calendar party. We set the date for two weeks and I was still shopping around for a calendar printer and finalizing my logo and design. I printed the calendars three days before the party and thankfully they got here in time! The calendar was such a great move and something different for me and the project. It was stocked by some boutiques in NYC and people from the most random states ordered it. That was a cool feeling.  

What makes HGEP feel successful?

When I get press mentions (Vogue.com literally made me cry tears), interviews, and especially kind words from people I really admire and look up to, all the hard work does feel worth it. And really, it’s not so bad to get the opportunity to eat amazing pizza all the time with cool girls and my friends. I wouldn’t trade it for anything, except I need to figure out a diet plan right now. I work out every single day and I am managing to gain a little weight instead of maintain or lose, so I definitely need to be cutting back on the pizza. Is this what aging is like?

What aspect of the project do you find most fulfilling?  

My favorite part is definitely the people I meet and the relationships I build. It’s really inspiring to meet such cool girls who are killing it right now. I try to feature a broad spectrum, from musicians to entrepreneurs. Most recently, I featured Meika from Sustain, and she is the Co-Founder, and her dad is the other Co-Founder, of a sustainable, vegan, fair-trade condom brand. HGEP really has brought out my “best self." I have never been this happy living in NYC, and I’ve lived here since I was 18. Having a side project (or two!) is seriously so fulfilling. For me, it was totally a coping mechanism turned love affair. HGEP/TRIXXIE have both brought so much happiness into my life, and I know my mom is with me through all of it. I wear her ashes in a poison ring on my finger, so she goes to all of my events and meet-ups.

What do you hope your audience takes away from the project?

I hope HGEP is inspiring to others, and one day I hope to be like the girls that I look up to. I hope the girls I feature find it fun and empowering. I think it’s working so far! That makes me feel like it’s a really positive project.

What's most important to you at this stage in your life?

I am having a really hard time defining this, because I always feel like should be "doing more" or focusing on something different. Sometimes I feel like I should be traveling more, other times saving money. Sometimes I feel like I should be focusing on relationships more but then the other part of me feels like I should continue to focus on myself. I lost my mom about 18 months ago to a long battle with stage IV breast cancer so when it comes down to it, family is the most important thing to me right now. Along with that, it's been a journey of learning to live life without her and find other things to make me happy. HGEP and TRIXXIE do just that, and TRIXXIE is actually named after her. I donate $1 from every pack of nail decals to breast cancer research. It's really important for these projects to do well, not just for my own success but because I really want her to be proud of me. I don't want to look back on my 20s and say "sadness got the best of me" but instead look back and say "wow, how the hell did you accomplish all of that?"

Do you have any goals for yourself for this year?

Most people use the New Year to evaluate and set goals, but I've actually always used my birthday, or at least in my adult life. 23 sucked a lot. I lost my mom, and my long-time on-and-off again boyfriend and I broke up while I was grieving. That affected me a lot. I wasn't really in a good place this time last year. On June 1 of last year, when I turned 24, I vowed to not let this year suck too. I decided I wouldn't let anyone else decide my happiness and I would step out of my comfort zone and say "yes" to much more. Of course I always set smaller goals like "break your bad habits" and to have more patience with myself and in general. I'm so impatient. The main theme of this year, though, was "YES" and it's been working in my favor.

How would you describe your year since turning 24?

Change is constant, inevitable, scary but exciting. I learned a lot about the good and bad parts of life. 24 was a retrospective year for me, and probably the biggest year of my life. I have also really gotten better at living in the moment this year, more than any, and I hope to continue that into the future. I’m trying to enjoy “figuring it out”, and not being so hard on myself. I am trying to understand that every day is different. It’s definitely been a year of self-discovery, and to be honest, I’m quite surprised I had all of this in me to be pursuing so many things at once. I’d like to think it’s from my mom, which affects me more than I’ll ever show.

[twentyfourtwentyfour]

Jenna is one of the most fun people I know. I say this not only because she is funny in the way that you find yourself 3 bottles of wine deep and belly-aching in an Italian social club at midnight on a Monday when she's in town just for a few days. And not just because when I befriend someone new and wind up in that stage of "Let's reminisce about funny things that happened in the past" Jenna is the subject of many of those stories. Instead, it's mostly because she is whip smart. She is intelligent and quick, and she always has the right words on the tip of her tongue. Her thoughts and responses to her experiences come together in milliseconds to make every conversation truly captivating. Her charisma and outlook on the professional and personal path she is on is inspiring and addicting. I love to hear her talk about what she is up to, and right now, she is up to a lot. With huge changes just months away, Jenna just embarked on a whole new phase of her life at the age of 24.

What is your current situation?

I am living in Santiago Atitlán, Sololá, Guatemala. Santiago sits at the base of two volcanoes and directly across from a third on a breathtaking lake. It is one of the largest purely indigenous cities in the the Americas, with close to 60,000 people speaking the Maya language T’zutujil.

I work as the Development Coordinator for a small, non-profit hospital called Hospitalito Atitlán. I knew that I wasn’t ready to go right to medical school out of college, so I bought some time (and a wealth of experiences, I would later learn) by becoming a Princeton in Latin America fellow and choosing to work at the Hospitalito. My job is multifaceted, and on any given day it can be physical and social or sedentary and isolated. I am in charge of donor database management, communications, creation of promotional materials, and many other computer related tasks. I also get to work first hand with all of our medical volunteers by giving them orientations upon arrival and translating for them in the ER, OR, and outpatient clinic. This is hands down the best part of my job.

How are you feeling about moving back to the United States, specifically to a place you have never lived before and starting a new job?

I feel so incredibly ready. And excited. For so many reasons. There are small ones- I am excited to be able to buy certain food again. Cold cuts are really sticking out in my mind right now. I can’t wait to never have to worry about coming home to a spontaneous power/water/internet outage. And then there are big reasons too. I am ready to move forward on my path towards medical school. In a lot of ways, my learning and professional development here have begun to plateau, and I am excited for a new job that will bring me back into the realm of hard science and also one step closer to medicine.

I am also thrilled to be moving to the Midwest. It is a region of the country that I know less than nothing about and absolutely never thought I would be moving to. I love that. It kind of feels as though I’m moving to a foreign country all over again, and that is exciting.

How do you feel about leaving Guatemala?

As ready as I am to move forward, I am only just beginning to process the fact that I am leaving my home in two short months. I generally don’t work through these types of changes until I am already in the next place, but I don’t want to do that with Guatemala. I want to feel the sadness and the joy and the pain and the excitement of my departure while I am still here and can still be a part of this experience. I want to get to Kansas City excited and prepared, not sad and blind-sided, which is what I usually do to myself.

My time spent in Guatemala, all two years of it, was the best thing the could have ever happened to me. It was born out of a sequence of very unexpected and, at the time, undesirable events. It was exactly what I needed. It ripped me mercilessly out of this academic, secure, high-pressure bubble I had been in my entire life and plopped me down in the most beautiful and upsetting place I have ever seen. Guatemala—the people and moments it has brought into my life—has given me the courage to be unequivocally and unapologetically myself and shown me exactly how lucky I am to have the opportunity to do that.

How do you feel about your being able to speak Spanish? 

Speaking Spanish is one of my proudest accomplishments. Even though I learned it at a later age, I speak it with much more fluency and command than I was ever able to speak Hebrew. After so many years of constant practice (12 years, to be exact), the language, every aspect of it, feels second-nature to me. That is a beautiful thing, and when I take a second to think about it, my mind is blown. I love learning the jargon of every different country I visit, deciphering accents, and sometimes getting mistaken for a native speaker. I love the fact that I have this crystal clear window into another culture, another world entirely, and I can learn about the world around me through this portal that is not accessible to everyone.

Learning another language is important to me because I know that it has made me a better human being and will definitely make me a better doctor someday. The logistics of being able to communicate definitely helps, but that’s not the most important aspect of speaking another language. I think that intercultural exchange—the pure and uninhibited kind that occurs without a language barrier—is one of the strongest and most beautiful ways to foster an empathy and open-mindedness that can’t be obtained otherwise.

Living in Santiago Atitlán is the first time I have lived in a place where I am not fluent in the primary language—T’zutujil. It is a spoken language with absolutely no similarities to a romance language. It sounds nothing like Spanish, and is comprised of some crazy sounds. Some of the words are pronounced with a full-blown lateral lisp. There are really no written materials to study grammar, and everyone in Santiago learns by ear from the time they are born. I feel like I could dedicate a lifetime to studying T’zutujil and would never even attain a beginner’s level. For now, I can say the important things: “Thank you”, “See you tomorrow”, “Go away”, “Shut up”, “I have no money”, “No sugar, please”.

I am used to being able to understand everything that is said around me. What strangers are talking about while on public transportation, what my coworkers are talking about at lunch, but here I am in the dark much of the time. I have definitely gotten used to it, but it has given me a much deeper gratitude for the gift of speaking a second language.

Tell me about being a pet owner. How has it changed you?

Lupe, my cat, is one of the best things that has happened to me in Guatemala. She hasn’t changed my lifestyle much now that she’s an adult, but she has absolutely changed my life. I found her on a rainy Sunday when I was walking to the market through a side street that I never take. She was this tiny ball of white fluff with massive blue eyes, a bag of bones just staring at me from the middle of the road. Without even thinking, I picked her up and took her home. She was crawling with fleas, covered in scabs, and her belly was completely distended with parasites. The vet said she would have been dead within a week had she been left to fend for herself. Over the months that followed, I spent countless hours giving her baths, picking off fleas, scrutinizing her poop, taking her on boats to the vet, and wrapping her up like a burrito in a makeshift straight jacket so that I could shoot her up with antibiotics and anti-parasitics. It was not a typical adoption experience with Lupe; it was a stressful, expensive, and scary road to her recovery that I stumbled on by happenstance. But being thrown into this situation taught me a lot about myself, and in many ways has made me a much stronger individual.   

I am grateful for her because she re-awakened within me a love for animals that I had left to die off over the years. I wanted to be a veterinarian until I was 15, and I had forgotten about the deep happiness I found in animals. Lupe was the first of now 9 animals that I have been able to rescue and find homes for, and that has been a such a joyous and rewarding part of my time here.

What is your definition of happiness?

I am the happiest when I am contributing to my surroundings in a way that I love. I love making people laugh, making them feel better, and knowing at the end of the day that I was an active participant in my own life, not a passive one. When I have too much time to think or mull or over-process, I let my mind run away with me and I become a shell of my normal, happy self. I am happiest when I am answering to myself.

How do you make decisions?

In making decisions, I like to employ a very nuanced and age-old tactic called “Beating a Dead Horse”. I need to talk through things with the important people in my life who know me from many different perspectives. And I need to do it over and over. I need to get different opinions and outlooks, and then I need to retreat into my head and put them all together to figure out how I feel. It’s kind of like flipping a coin. I love making decisions that way not because it makes the decision for you, but rather because the outcome invokes this gut reaction that gives you a very good idea of how you truly feel. I get a much clearer concept of how my gut feels when I let it react to others’ opinions rather than try to formulate it from scratch. I trust my instincts. They haven’t failed me yet.

Do you plan your future?

Incessantly. Not a day goes by where I don’t think about medical school and if my soulmate exists. And if he does exist what is he doing right now? And is he over 6’ tall? And are we going to go to the same medical school? It is something that really annoys me about myself and often times depletes me. I am constantly fantasizing about the future, setting up unrealistic expectations, or worried about the next step, or a step that is many many steps from now. I get so engrossed that I check out completely from my present location and retreat into the scary “what-if” recesses of my mind. I get sucked in and end up procrastinating other things that need to get done and it turns into this big snowball of uncertainty and procrastination and sloth and unmet expectations. Guatemala has helped me immeasurably with battling this tendency and trying to keep my feet on the ground and my head in the moment.

Do you believe in fate and / or destiny? 

If you were to have asked me this question two years ago, my answer would have been a resounding and immediate “yes”. After so much time living in a third-world country, however, fate and destiny feel a lot more unsettling to me than they ever have before.

Guatemala has taken all of the beliefs that I held true for so long and crumpled them right in front of my face. If I still choose to believe in fate and destiny, then I must also understand that some people’s fate is absolutely devastating, and no matter how hard they work or fight for something better, they will always be destined for a life of pain or poverty.

It is difficult to resign yourself to the idea that, if there is a governing force that drives our fate, this force can allow some people to be so happy and empowered and others to be so miserable and helpless, or allow some people to live healthily into their 90s and others to die tragically and painfully well before their time. Guatemala has exposed me to the most unethical and heart-wrenching living conditions and personal situations that my sheltered mind had ever seen. It is not easy to digest that some people are just destined for unhappiness. It has all made me wonder if maybe some people are just luckier than others. Maybe the baseline of human existence is not a happy one, and you are just randomly and truly lucky if you have the power to control your own situation.

I think at the end of the day, I do believe in a greater plan. As a practicing Jew, there will always be a strong part of me which innately believes in fate and destiny because I believe in God. I believe in soulmates and things being besheret, or “meant to be”. Within the scope of my own life, I believe in the old adage that everything—even the awful stuff—happens for a reason. I think fate has definitely played a role in my own situation, because I would have never chosen this path for myself had everything worked out the way that I thought it would, yet it turned out to be exactly what I needed and everything I could have ever wanted… and then some.

I can’t give a definitive answer to this issue on the larger scale, because I am afraid of the consequences, afraid of the fact that maybe the world is an inherently shitty place and that some people will never experience travel or love or happiness in the same way that I have. For now all I can say is that I think all of the blessings in my life have been too great to be solely the product of my own doing. There has got to be something else going on behind it all.

[twentyfourtwentyfour]

When I ask Ope to do this interview, she cooks me the most incredible meal of fish, asparagus, and cauliflower rice followed by a homemade apple crumble. On a Monday night, in the middle of winter. If that is not enough to convince you of how lucky anyone who calls her a friend is, I will tell you that almost every conversation I have makes me both laugh and cry and that I never leave without feeling completely in awe of her. Ope is quick, she never misses a beat and comes back to you with intelligence, humor and authenticity that just cannot be rivaled. We met at a job we have since both left, and Ope has been at another job while taking classes and working on making jewelry in a shared studio. With the intention to build up her skill set and start putting the jewelry she makes out into the world, Ope remains a true creative and dives into the things that interest her. We talked about her new project - an advice podcast! - and as always, where we are in life and what it all might mean.

What is 24 about for you?

24 is about trying not to be a passenger in my own life. I am trying to take charge of some smaller things, and my hope is that by taking charge of the little things, I’ll be empowered to take charge of bigger things either this year or later, like my career or my relationships.

Do you feel a pressure to be at a certain stage in your life by 25?

I don’t know. People are always focused on figuring out who they are and what they are by certain ages, but I think you learn that stuff in hindsight, so I’m trying to focus on what I do and what I am interested in. So, if I look back, instead of thinking like, “Wow, 24 was a good year and fuck every other year,” I hope to be able to look back and say “Well, I did something I was interested in, I tried something new.” I want to feel like I’m improving something each year.

That’s a really cool way to look at having a goal or measuring a year’s passage, by what you are learning.

Yeah, the last year of my life has really been the time when I finally felt like I’m not practicing for something, I’m not preparing for any kind of next step in life, I just am. I’m just living my life and figuring things out regardless of time.  

And you are taking a new project really seriously, in addition to your continued jewelry making?

Yep, it’s a podcast called, “The Long Answer.” It’s an advice podcast, but beefed up a little bit. You can ask me about a weird situation with your friend you don’t know how to deal with, a logistical issue in your life, your finances. I would love for someone to ask me a personal finance question. I’m going to incorporate research and interviews and stuff so the answers are a mixture of hard and anecdotal knowledge. I’m also kind of using it as an excuse to look up weird stuff and interview people I think are funny or interesting.

If I can convince 3 people I’ve never met before to ask me questions then I’ll be happy. I’m trying to see an idea through and take it seriously. I’ve realized that I have done a lot of things for other people that I didn’t necessarily care about, but I took those things seriously and did a good job, so what would happen if I actually tried to take my own idea really seriously?

Right, that’s really hard to actually put something out there that you want to do for other people to see.

If you have something you are passionate about, you eventually have to contend with that obstacle of claiming it publicly and putting yourself out into the world as someone who does this thing. It’s unavoidable.

I have really high expectations for myself and I think it’s really easy for me to do something in the comfort of my bedroom and then just never show anybody what I am doing. Because when you show what you do to someone else, you’re opening yourself up to so much more that you have to deal with, but at the same time you close yourself off to a lot if you keep everything to yourself.

From hour to hour in my day I feel differently about my life. I take pride in my sensitivity but at the same time I overthink things like crazy, and I hope to get to a place where I am a little less moveable. I will have an idea and think it through to its every possible end and exhaust the idea before I even start and then I just don’t do anything. Like I’ll think of an idea for a dress to make, and in my head I’ll make the dress, I will put it on, it will fit poorly, someone will spill wine on it at a party, and so I just never even make the dress.

So what about the times when you do make the dress, what gets you to go through with an idea?

Well, it’s much more exciting to me to think about a project as seeking, and if I find something or I don’t find anything during that process, it’s still better than not trying at all. I just don’t want to be all about my thoughts or vague ideas with nothing behind them.

Sometimes, I’ll look back at the archives of people I admire, designers or writers or whoever, and realize that the first things they did were usually pretty basic or haphazard or unrefined. I have to remember that everyone starts out somewhere and gets better from there. I’m so protective of my ego and misconceptions and I need to let that go.

Is your goal to make a career out of your projects and passions?

What I have learned over the past several months of thinking about my career is that I have a lot of trouble going to a place, checking out for 8 hours, and then going home to do what I love on the side. I think whatever types of things I end up doing, I’ll really need to care. I am a pretty transparent person and if I am not passionate about something I am ultimately going to bail on it. That said, I’m pretty flexible about what I do for work, because I have too many things that interest me. I’ll probably always have little things I do on the side, it’s just so nice to have breaks and be able to think about something other than whatever I just did all day.

Do you think living New York affects your lifestyle and mindset?  

Definitely, because there are so many choices here and a culture of people really examining who they are and what they want to do. Maybe it makes me more ambitious or feel more pressure to be good at something. But at the same time, there’s no way to tell how my goals or values would differ if I lived somewhere else. I agonize over every choice I make, but I appreciate the ability to make those choices.

And how do you navigate all of the options available to you?

I seek advice a lot and it’s not even cool how I do it. Like, I’ll be on Gchat at 1PM, or let’s be real, 1AM and chat my older brother and be like, “Dude, what am I doing with my life right now? Help!” I’m pretty young, you know? Sometimes I still crave somebody to just tell me what to do.

Honestly, I also call my mom a lot. She’s a very grounding presence in my life. It’s kind of funny actually, the first time that my mom was ever like “I’d rather you figure these things out without me” was after I turned 24. In her really nice and gentle way, she basically was like “You're a grown ass person, so please find a way to figure this stuff out without always talking to me first. Why are you waiting for the bus in the cold? Because you didn't manage your finances well enough to take a cab home. Like what are you doing with that money your job is paying you?”

Shoes.

Yeah seriously. Such cute shoes.

[twentyfourtwentyfour]

Dakota recently opened his own art gallery in Greenpoint, The Java Projects. In addition to owning a gallery, he is an artist himself working in a variety of mediums. When I asked him what was most important to him at this stage in his life, Dakota told me that he is focused on following what he loves to do and establishing a career within the arts. Knowing of his passion for art since college, I was both impressed and really excited to hear where he has taken his interests and talents several years later, and how he plans to further develop himself and his career.

Tell me about the impetus of opening the gallery.

I was in a sculpture critique at Bruce High Quality Foundation University with Mike Eagon, the owner of Ramekin Crucible Gallery, and at the end of the class he half jokingly said to me that I should open an art gallery because I had something good to say about each work we had discussed.  Even though it was pure sarcasm I realized at that moment, I did enjoy talking about art, curating it, and from then on the pieces fell into place.  It didn’t seem like a radical jump for me but rather something I had always been doing in one way or another. For me making Art, exhibiting art, looking at art, talking about art, and selling art has brought the most community, meaning, and happiness into my life.

The gallery has been a complete labor of love.  I have had many moments of confirmation from simple pleasures of hanging our sign and larger more recent ones like our first show being covered by Vice.  I was very satisfied with the outcome of the inaugural exhibition and I am attempting to capitalize on that for our next opening.  

Have you come up against any adversary because of your age in pursuing your art and opening your gallery?

It’s funny everyone who meets me thinks I am 30. With the gallery I am trying to create culture and language in a time where being 24 seems too young to be taken seriously.  I believe people around our age offer the most insight about our time and are equipped with a unique perspective.  24 is a liminal age and one that should be taken advantage of. I have access to a database of work that is untouched, young, and growing. Some artists I am showing, other galleries wouldn’t consider no matter how good they thought the work was simply because the artist wasn’t old enough. I don’t have to operate upon the contingencies of age but rather on the quality of work  because I am not responding to culture past tense, but creating it present tense.

As the curator of the gallery, what constitutes good and/or interesting art for you? Do you find yourself drawn to any repeating themes or elements in other artists work?

I would say that the question may not be as much about “good art” but more about interesting art.  I think that determination is important because I do not want to prescribe to ego driven art models. Taste is an interesting question which was made very clear to me during our last opening which featured a group of artists with a polar opposite idea of taste from the previous opening. The crowd was different, the work was different, but it was still interesting and successful in it’s own right. I believe in versatility and virtuosity. It is refreshing to create a space in the exact likeness of my own taste.  However, what ever authority or lack of agency that creates negates the goal of the gallery.  This may be the selection of artists that I have curated into the gallery, but their careers are as interesting and growing as the space itself.  We are all in it together in a sense.  I see our opinions formulated into a culture, and that is most rewarding aspect.

Where is your own art practice at now?

I have always felt that no matter what profession I am involved in that I could never stop being an artist.  It’s just a way of seeing the world around you and interacting with it.  The question is more about finding time to make my own work. I have the luxury of having a basement studio in my apartment building so I never have to go to far to be in my studio.  I make works in performance, image, and object making. I am constantly collecting objects, and writing.  Most recently I am working on a commission for Natalie Kates Projects.

Besides getting the gallery going and making your own art, how do you spend your time?

If I am not at the gallery working, in my studio working, I am most likely bartending.  I bartend 5 days a week at two different clubs in the city, which makes for no sleep but is the perfect job to go to when I leave the gallery at 7pm get dinner then go to work at 10pm.  Most nights I usually go to bed at 5:30 am and wake up at 12 pm to do it all over.  

Do or did you have any expectations or goals for your 24th year?

Since The Java Project Gallery just opened I hope that this year I can have the gallery apart of the Art Book Fair New York and also New Art Dealers Association Fair in Basel.  In conjunction with monthly shows and educational programming. We have an amazing outdoor space, in the summer time I plan on putting this project in effect.  We have been reaching out to other organizations and artists to collaborate with us.  It will include film screenings, artists talks, sound sessions, and performance workshops to mention a few.  I am very excited to offer this to the community.

[twentyfourtwentyfour]

I met James in the first week of college, and now, almost a full 6 years later, he is pursuing what was then his chosen discipline of study - photography - as both his medium of art and his profession. Capturing and collecting a mix of moments from the streets of New York and the objects he finds fascinating, James’ photographs are addicting to look at. He has pursued numerous freelance jobs, has been published, and is consistently growing his body of work by setting up a home studio. James filled me in on how he has been navigating a variety of opportunities and interests this year. 

What’s important to you right now?

I have many life goals. Aside from establishing myself further as a photographer, I part-take in many hobbies. I grew up singing in choir, and acted in the school plays, so I’ve always kind of been theatrical. This past year has been pretty incredible in terms of opportunity. My last year at NYU, I was working as the Online Editor for ISO Magazine, and put together my senior show entitled “Collecting Marbles.” Working in publishing has been a huge learning experience from the conception of an issue, to the finishing touches before sending files for print, and coordinating events around snow days. I think working closely with friends and colleagues can be challenging, and finding a middle ground is always important. Weirdly enough, I’ve also been doing some modeling as a way to get my name out there, and have had the opportunity to model for Dis, and the Wild Magazine. I say it’s weird because I don’t necessarily consider myself to be a model, and happened to have friends that work in fashion, so things just kind of started to happen. It would also be cool to do more acting. I think living in New York gives you the chance to do the things you’ve always dreamed of doing, so why not do them? Especially with social media these days, having a community to support your work is always encouraging.

What are you currently working on?

There’s a lot of new things happening especially now, with it being a new year, its really exciting. I am shooting fashion week for the first time, and freelancing my photographic work.

Aside from photo work, I like to cook meals for myself. I’ve been experimenting in my kitchen, and coming up with lots of tasty dishes. Blue is still my favorite color. I enjoy music, and use it as influence to create particular moods or feelings in my photographic work. I wake up to the sound of “fairytale” on my phone, and I daydream a lot.

Did you expect to work in photography after graduating?

It’s been a trial and error period for sure. I graduated 7 months ago and since then, I feel like it’s been such a transitional period where I have moved apartments and started freelancing. I went through the struggle of thinking, like “Shit do I go for a restaurant job so that I can freelance photo during the day? Or do I get a job more in-line with my field that might be full-time and not allow me to shoot my own work?” I wanted my job to be flexible while still providing stability in some sense and it has been hard to find that.

How do you feel about working as a freelancer at this stage in your life?

I think a lot of people our age are going through many changes in their lives, where they are still “figuring things out” and dealing with the “post-grad struggle”. I’ve been freelancing since graduating, and like the idea of being autonomous. Being self-employed entails a lot of e-mailing, scheduling, going to interviews, and always looking for the next project or gig that will pay for rent. I think finding financial stability in consistent work, is something that I’ve been trying to achieve as a freelancer. I have many things coming up for NYFW that I’m looking forward to, working as a photographer, artist assistant, and production assistant. Also, surrounding myself with more positive energy is one of my new years resolutions this year. I feel like it’s easy to lose track of things when you’re constantly working, and staying healthy is always important.

Do you call yourself a photographer?

I am a photographer, and producer. I’ve produced some art shows in the past, founded an art collective, self-published a few zines, contributed to shows, was an editor at ISO Magazine, and like to go on walks with my camera. It would be cool to publish a book of my work, contribute to more shows, shoot for magazines, and to be my own boss.

Do you like editing or taking pictures?

I like editing more I think. When you are shooting you kind of lose yourself, you’re using the camera to capture something so I feel like being able to sit down with the photos and create narratives allows you to reflect on those moments and your work in a deeper way than when you are focused on capturing it.

What’s the difference between the work you create for a client or a job versus the work you create for yourself?

I just started shooting digital recently to move faster for jobs I have taken which is one big difference. Of course with my personal work, I get to choose the content that I am shooting, and for my commercial work I am supplied with content, so my challenge is to frame it in an interesting way. Whereas, my challenge for personal work is just finding what I want to capture, whether that’s someone on the street or a still life in my home studio.

What do you shoot?

I shoot objects mostly. I think it’s rooted in growing up in South America. I was born in Bolivia, my dad traveled a lot and collected miniature elephants, so throughout the years I have built up this collection of elephant figures. It became something for me too, I would collect items while traveling and photograph them. I was photographing rocks that I gathered on nature walks for a while. It’s kind of a weird ritual where I ended up with all of these rocks and my senior thesis show was called ‘Collecting Marbles’. It was mostly still lifes of objects that represent childhood memories.

Tell me about growing up in Bolivia and then in America.

I was born in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, and was raised in the suburbs of Pennsylvania. My parents immigrated from China to Bolivia in the 80s to flee communistic dominance, and to have the freedom and luxury of starting their own business. My grandparents used to own a cereal-making factory, and sold it when we were younger in order to open up a restaurant. My brother and I went to international school growing up because the regular schooling system was and still isn’t up to American learning standards. It’s kind of funny, because my brother and I used to have British accents growing up, which slowly adapted to an American vernacular.  

Do you have any heroes?

My friends and family are important to me. I come from a background of entrepreneurs, where almost every family member owns a restaurant. My uncles have influenced me in many ways. They moved to the United States in their early 20s, and worked for other people’s restaurants long enough until they could to own one. Nothing was ever handed to them, and they had to work hard to achieve their dreams. Now, my uncles own 5 Japanese fine-dining establishments in Pennsylvania, as well as California. Their story compels me to be the best person I can be, in my growing career as a photographer.

[twentyfourtwentyfour]

Kim has an affinity for exploring and an eye for beauty that I admire. Her creative practices, both personal and professional, are thoughtful. When I first met Kim, she was beginning her Project, Hanami, which took her overseas from her home in Glasgow, Scotland to an artist residency in Yamanashi, Japan where she created work for her project and exhibited in her first solo show. Now, she is contemplating how to further pursue her interests, work, and art. 

What are you up to currently?

I work as creative content producer for a creative factory in Glasgow called The Whisky Bond. I create photographic, video and written content for digital and printed material and manage the company’s social media. I have also just started the same role at Roots, Fruits and Flowers which is a 40 year old local business that started as a fruit and vegetable shop and now also includes an organic deli and a flower shop where I also work part time as a florist. When I have time I spend it working on freelance and personal projects, mainly photography based.

How do you keep yourself balanced between your different areas of work?

I’m very lucky to be working for two of my favourite companies in my home town. However, I’m still skint, still very much figuring things out and often wish for more time to focus on my own personal projects. I love my two jobs but creating new work for myself, escaping from town every so often, sitting down for a few of hours and making a mess at my desk, discussing that mess with my friends, trying to turn that mess into something that other people want to look at or be around... that process is what I really love and that is what keeps me sane.

What is Hanami?

Around a year ago I started a project called Hanami literally translated as "flower viewing”. Hanami is the traditional Japanese custom of enjoying the transient beauty of flowers, in most cases the sakura in spring. The work I’ve created for Hanami has been installations, arrangements and objects largely inspired by traditional Japanese crafts, flora, foliage and other objects that can be scavenged for in our natural landscape. I spent 5 weeks in Japan last Spring learning about some of these crafts and creating work for my first solo exhibition. I’ve sort of taken a break from work for this project right now. I’ve been learning a lot about different ways about working with fresh flowers and foliage in my more recent job as a florist, which I hope to feed into my work for the project. I’ve also been thinking a lot about what it is I want to get out of Hanami, whether it’s just something I do because I enjoy it or whether it can also be a way for me to make some money and create a little business here.

If you were to decide to pursue Hanami as  a business, do you think that could work?

If I gave up my other jobs and focused solely on Hanami then yes, I think it could work. However at the moment there are just so many other things I want to try out and work on too, I'm not sure I could commit entirely to one project. It could be that one day all of the things I do in my jobs and in other freelance work will eventually all feed into Hanami and I could continue to practice in all of the areas I’m interested.

What draws you to Japanese art, culture and flora?

Since high school I’ve been fascinated by certain Japanese aesthetic concepts. In particular, Wabi Sabi (侘寂) which is centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection, and describes a beauty that is imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. I am also interested in Yūgen (幽玄) which means a profound grace and subtlety. Yūgen is almost like an extension of awareness and values the power to evoke rather than state something directly.

I’m still not entirely sure why I’m so drawn to these but put it this way: a film photograph with blurs, marks and mistakes will always do more for me than a perfectly taken digital shot and my favourite films are mostly beautiful but quiet ones that show more than tell.

What do you like and find inspiring about plants and flowers?

I love how they are always changing, and how much they can dramatically change a landscape depending on the season. I like working with fresh flowers, there is something special about making a bouquet or arrangement and even when you have finished, there’s no way to stop the flowers from doing their thing. They’re going to open up, drop petals, dry up or change colour and most of the time I prefer them that way.

Do you like living in Glasgow?

Yeah I love it. There is something really special about the creative community in Glasgow and it’s a place where it’s easy to end up at the same place as a bunch of likeminded people without trying very hard. I think it’s a really nice size and such a good base if you like spending time in the countryside. Exploring in the highlands and islands is the best and in a couple hours drive you can easily access some of the most beautiful and remote spots.

What draws you to photography as one of the mediums of your creative practice?

Photography pushes you to visit new places, meet new people and get yourself into all sorts of ridiculous situations.  I constantly have the desire to explore and I enjoy sharing what I find. For me, still photography and video are my favourite ways to do that.

Do you have any expectations or goals for your 24th year?

I’d like to spend more time in the countryside and in the company of my favourite people, create lots of new personal work and have my first solo exhibition in Glasgow, save up for a wee camper van, set up a lovely studio space and become a contributor to at least one of my favourite magazines or websites. On top of that, as always, I hope to visit lots of new places and make new friends.

It sounds like you are in a state of planning and making goals for yourself, do you abide by any schedules for accomplishing your goals or do you just work towards them until they are completed?

My schedules and goals often change so I couldn’t say I stick to them. I’m not in a major rush to be exactly where I want to be, but I know that if I have more than a few days of not doing much and not feeling guilty about it…something’s wrong. It’s usually time for a new project or to revisit an old one. As long as I’m constantly challenging myself and still enjoying the people I’m around and the places I’m spending my time in, I don’t worry about time too much.

[twentyfourtwentyfour]

Alex is a fellow Floridian, but really he is a fellow New Yorker. Having been loosely acquainted for some time, I really didn’t know too much about what Alex was up to in his life before we sat down for this conversation. Nonetheless, our discussion turned out to be exactly what this project is about. I caught up with Alex in Greenpoint over beers and Brazillian food. He told me about the projects - professional and creative - that occupy his time, his home life, friendships, and allowed me to ask perhaps too many seemingly random and personal questions. He answered every one of them totally calmly and candidly. Alex is 24 and in a good place, below are the details of his current situation.

You just got back from Costa Rica. What were you doing there?

We took a family trip there. We went to two different places. The first location was really nice, it was a resort with thermal hot springs that were heated by a volcano. Our few days there were really nice and mellow. Then we flew in a plane that was the size of a minivan, it probably only sat 9 people, to a really off the grid peninsula of Costa Rica that blew me away. It's on the Nicoya Peninsula — there's this long dirt road on the coast that connects all of these beach towns and we had to cross two rivers to get to Santa Teresa where we were staying for the second half of the trip. The whole trip was pretty perfect. Costa Rica is paradise. I kind of had this idea in my head that Costa Rica was a destination for my people my parents age, but I really loved it there. I could have stayed for a while… we were surfing three times a day, the weather was perfect. Being there made me think, “Why am I stressing out, living in New York, paying a fortune to live in a room in Greenpoint?” It's just a totally different speed of life. I kept thinking that maybe one doesn't have to work. Sounds a bit cheesy, but there's more to life than this.

You just started a new job at T Magazine. What are you doing there?

I’m a Contributing Senior Designer - so it's primarily layout and design - for the printed magazine. It’s really different and really nice, it’s a great job to have. I think I'm one of the youngest people there. And it’s an ongoing contract position which is great. I've honestly only wanted to work at The Times in some capacity for as long as I can remember, and now that I'm there it's pretty surreal — just bizarre to realize a dream.

Right, you were previously freelancing.

Yeah, that kind of happened by accident. When I was working a full-time design job at an big Advertising firm, I had an opportunity to take a freelance gig and arranged with my full time job to take a few weeks off and then come back, but when i was ready to go back to that full time job, they said they didn’t need me anymore so I got thrown into the fire. It ended up working out though. I stayed busy most of the year and still got to travel a bunch. I actually had two months off last summer and spent most of it in Scandinavia. That being said, it’s definitely comforting to be in a more stable role now.

Outside of your work as a designer, are you doing any side projects in design or art?

I'm going to Nicaragua in two weeks for a project. I get the feeling that it will be similar to Costa Rica in terms of the climate and the aesthetic, but very different in its population and culture. We are going to be surfing and staying in this villa on the beach for most of the trip and also planning an art show that will take place in NYC some time this summer. There's twelve of us going. There are filmmakers, photographers, painters and other creative-types and the whole idea is to go to Nicaragua, spend nine days there and either create something while we are there or immediately after the trip. We're calling it "Adios" and there will be an accompanying publication to the whole thing when we're done. We have been talking about doing this for a while and we just finally decided to make it happen.

What other creative outlets are you involved with?

I play bass in a band called Shalom — named after the model/actress Shalom Harlow from the 90s. Our sound is hard to describe and changes a lot. Generally speaking, it’s punk, but I kind of hate that word. Initially I was playing in a band called Slavve with two kids from high school and at the same time I had been wanting to do something creatively with the guys who are my bandmates now for a long time. So we got together and started writing and playing and it sounded really good. Usually the one of us will come in with a small idea, which could just be a riff, and we will jam on it for lack of a better word. Other times we are just in studio not talking, drinking beers and someone will start playing something and start shopping it around.

Do you enjoy performing?

Yeah, I don’t get stage fright but I definitely get nervous. I get the shakes, and tingles in my whole body when we perform. It’s a very distinct and hard to describe sensation. You really have to like what you are playing or else you will just feel like it’s a bad show.

What would make a show feel bad to you?

It’s kind of just this sense that it didn’t feel right, the energy wasn’t there. The music can just sound wrong, especially when we haven’t practiced in a while. It’s all a matter of energy I think - there's a relationship between performer and audience, and when the response is good, the performance almost always reciprocates that and hopefully makes for a transcendent experience.

How big of a role does music play in your life?

It’s one of my main interests and something I really enjoy. I really like coming up on new bands, or discovering old bands that I should have listened to a long time ago. As far as playing, I have a long way to go in terms of skill and I'm always wanting to be better. I want to be doing it more, and I want to be wanting to do it more.

I’ve also been reading a lot more. I never really know where to begin when it comes to books, there are so many classics I have never read and I feel like i should but part of me is like, “I don’t even really care.” So I’ve just been reading a lot of books about music. I am reading 'Please Kill Me' now and it is so amazing. It’s like having conversations with all of the greats from the 1970s.

Do you consider yourself a New Yorker?

Yeah, I was born here so I’ve always had that. I feel like when i go to Florida I can’t stay for more than three days. It’s good to visit for a few days, but I always want to get back to New York.

I’ve lived in Greenpoint for a while, since about 2010 or 2009. I've got this love/hate relationship with the place. It definitely has a neighborhood feel but things start to overlap in good and bad ways, it has gotten pretty small.

Tell me about deciding to adopt a dog.

I got a dog in March of 2014, so it’s almost been a year. It feels like it has been ten years. Her name is Lady. I had dogs growing up my whole life and yeah, there was just a hole in my life and I needed to fill it. She is a rescue. She's super loving, and doesn’t want to leave your side, and she’s just really goofy. They told me she was two when I got her, but I think she is much closer to two now. She still has puppy tendencies, she’s very mischievous.

Having a dog has easier than I thought it would be, but it can be a burden, because I have to find somewhere to bring her when I travel. Overall, it has been a really positive thing for me, but I definitely have had to deal with some shit because of her too, like, she ate my roommates glasses the other day. Luckily, they're very forgiving...and patient.

Do you think there is anything unique about this year versus others for you?

On a broad scale, it’s just another year, but I think everyone has a different approach to this time in their lives. I have definitely talked to people who have said that 24 was a year that stuff really happened for them. Last year was a really positive change for me, I was able to travel, I was enjoying work for the first time, and playing a lot more music than ever before, and I can only see those things going further this year. It feels like I have more answers to my questions now and I am just happy where I am.

[twentyfourtwentyfour]

Celso is the co-founder of Nasmo, a group that fosters creativity and innovation through presentations and discussions of projects and ideas of its members. Celso has always been interested in what his friends are doing and thinking about, and created Nasmo as a way to continue discovering the people and ideas that are changing our culture. Beyond his involvement with Nasmo, Celso works on a number of creative and digital projects in addition to his work as a freelance web designer and developer. We had the opportunity to talk about the creative drive we see in our peers, taking on passion projects, and working in digital. 

Is there a word or phrase that describes the age of 24 for you so far?

Independence. I am in a really inward focused stage. Independence for me is about knowing what you want and not letting other people try to deter you from what you want or change how you think about it. 

I think going forward, my year will be more about how I have to balance having found that independence out with being a better brother, son and boyfriend.

I think striving for and being aware of that balance is really important to a lot of people right now. What sort of behaviors do you notice in your peers?  

I think that at the age of 23 and 24 a lot of people made changes. They got new jobs, moved, in general they start looking for something. I think the more ambitious of us want to say we made it by 30 so we are really in a state of figuring things out. Some people are scared of figuring things out, but I know that I want to be on Forbes list of 30 under 30. I want to run things now and then when I'm 30 i want to run some even bigger things and I know a lot of people who feel similarly. 

You've also obviously noticed a real creative drive in the community and created a platform for people to share their projects through Nasmo. What do you attribute that drive to?

I think it is from after graduating college to this age when everything starts to feel really charged. I think that is largely due to the growth of digital. You can see what everyone is doing because everyone has some kind of website for some kind of project or startup and is sharing on social media. And I think people start thinking, 'Wait, I'm passionate about things. I can do something too.' People just seem inspired by other people and are realizing that they can do more than just go to work, go to the bar and go home. 

Does Nasmo aim to echo that ability to inspire others to pursue their own projects?

Definitely, everyone who goes to Nasmo will tell you that they've been inspired because they were in a room with young people like us who were talking about new things, doing new things and they don't get to always have that experience. The intention of Nasmo is to be an open forum to push and innovate ideas: you present and then get into groups to talk through your ideas and get raw feedback. It can be hard to encourage people to give that feedback, but that's what we are working on.

What are your goals for Nasmo?

I think organically, Nasmo will continue to grow successfully and the ultimate goal for that success would be to have a Nasmo New York community, and then a Nasmo in Berlin that has the same vibe, and so on all over the world. We want it to become a verb or something that defines itself. So you can come to Nasmo with an idea, the idea becomes something, and you're out with a new direction or a new idea to move forward with.

How has the process or format of Nasmo changed since its inception?

We started in college, and back then, college was a real playground of ideas. I felt like I could connect with anyone at any time because we could make things happen through school funding and resources. We wanted to continue that feeling by finding out who is working on cool stuff out there, and get them out of their silos to come together to talk through their work and thoughts. We've been going for two years now. It started with just a few friends in apartments, but it has grown as we kept adding more and more people and everyone invited other friends. This past Nasmo we had about 80 people come out and meet at The Local, a hostel in LIC. 

Even now, we keep changing things: who presents, the format, how often it happens. My partner in this, Ben, and I have always let the changes be organic. That's how people actually get passionate about something, when it feels organic. We took our time with it.

Did Nasmo inspire you to pursue your own career as a freelance web designer and developer?

Partially. Most people at Nasmo have side projects that could allow them to go freelance or start their own business, and that community is there to inspire people to keep going and to build each other up, so it definitely helped me to realize that I wanted to do my own thing. I started to learn to code on the side of my full-time job. Soon after, I was doing projects on the sides and on nights and weekends, and eventually I had enough potential clients and my mind was totally somewhere else every day at work and I was just itching to move on, so i knew it was time to go.

How do you push yourself to learn and grow as a freelancer who is responsible for your own professional education?

I take it upon myself to learn more about my field. Online resources help. I tell people that Google taught me how to code. Web design and development is so open. I think a lot of industries can learn from web design, we can be more open and share information and see rapid growth that way. 

What has been a challenge of running your own business?

A lot of my clients a lot of times are twice my age and I have to still handle myself in an appropriate way in terms of both business legal operations. 24 is young, and I have learned the hard way to really pay attention to the details in my work and in my contracts. It can be scary to be handling all of this by yourself, but a lot of it is about coming off confident and  always learning from what you are doing.

What would you say to someone at Nasmo or in your community that was yearning to start a new project, job or endeavor of some sort?

I think a lot of times it just takes thinking about what you want, and as you think about it, your conscious brings you towards people to make things happen and you begin to have those conversations and act on your ideas. 

Right, I think at some point you have to stop saying that you want something and you have to...

Take it.

Exactly.

[twentyfourtwentyfour]

Having just returned from spending a year living in Hong Kong where he pursued his interests in teaching and traveling, Andrew shared with me his reflections on what he learned about himself, the new people he brought into his life, and his relationships with his family, friends, and girlfriend. Coming to a new understanding of his identity, of the value of time spent with others, and the concept of a home, Andrew is staying focused on his present, taking things day by day as he starts the next chapter of his life. 

Tell me about why you decided to spend a year teaching English in Hong Kong.

Moving to Asia has been a goal of mine since 2010 when I went to Vietnam to get certified to be an ESL Teacher. In 2010, I thought it would be a fun summer trip, and I would be opening up some doors for the future. Turned out that I loved every moment I had in Vietnam. So, I graduated at the end of 2011 and I had anticipated jetting off to Asia right after graduation, but then my relationship with Martha happened. I was happy to put my plans on hold for a year to be with Martha. I had always planned on going to Korea instead. I took Korean culture classes the last year of college thinking it would come in handy, but job offers weren't compelling enough so I was applying for jobs in other Asian countries as well. The decision to move to Hong Kong in particular was made easy after I was offered a position that I was happy with. After I accepted the job, I bought a plane ticket and was off to HK 12 days later.

From what I think I understand, you moved alone. Were you nervous about going to a foreign country to live and work alone? How was your adjustment socially and culturally?

I had extreme anxiety for a number of reasons. I was thinking things like: ”Is this job real? Am I going to show up to a make believe company? Is my girlfriend is going to bail on me? Is this really what I want?" 

I was getting three to four hours of sleep in the days leading up to my departure because I could't shut off my mind. 

I don't remember having any anxiety about living in a new place and culture, but adjusting socially and culturally is sometimes hard to describe. It was not easy to make friends by going out to social places like a bar. Developing my social life was really important to me and it took me a long time to tap into the social landscape of Hong Kong. I started playing soccer with some work buddies, and was finally able to create a community for myself through my soccer team. I grew a great community through my soccer teams that I rarely ever went to the pitch with my Western friends after a while. Culturally, the adjustment was difficult. I received no hello’s, no thank you’s, no you're welcomes, no excuse me's, nothing. I found that Hong Kongers are like my teammates, they are gracious and kind at their core, but they don't always know how to reach out to Westerners, often times because they don't speak English. 

Living in Hong Kong was freaking fantastic. I loved it but it was hard. It didn't take very long, maybe two months, for living there to normalize. I felt right at home there, and when I look back at this chapter in my life, I don't think I'll look back and think about "living abroad,” but instead, I will just think of it as “that year I lived in Hong Kong.” It doesn’t seem different from Washington DC or Orange County, to me, it is just another place I spent time in. 

Was there anything about the city that you found surprising or contradictory to your expectations?

Hong Kong is a sensory experience. Visually, there are the bright lights, the forest of skyscrapers and beyond those skyscrapers are some the most beautiful landscape scenes I've ever witnessed. I would never have guessed that I would describe this a beautiful place, because to me, metro areas aren't beautiful visually even if they are wonderful places. 

What was your average day like in Hong Kong?

My day at work was always fun. I taught anywhere from three to six and a half hours a day, from 9:30 am to 6:30 or 7:30 pm. Some days I'd have to get in early or stay a little late to get some extra prep done for the other 8 teachers at our center. 

The first half of the day was spent with 3-6 year old students. The second half of the day we'd get older students into the center up to 14 years old. Other than teaching, I was always busy with some kind of administrative work that needs to get done so the center functioned smoothly. I think one of my favorite parts of my job was having discussions with the other teachers about classes, students and how to improve ourselves as teachers. My goal as the head teacher was to make everyone feel apart of a team, so everyone knew they always had support if they needed it. 

This job was the first time I've been promoted in which was really nice. It took a lot of faith from my bosses to promote a guy thats only been with the company for three months. 

How do you think this experience has changed or added to your life?

This is probably one of the more important questions I've pondered for the past year. First things first, I'll be immune to crowds when I move back to the states. Nothing at home compares the population density of living on Hong Kong Island. 

When I reflect on the influence living here has had on me, the one idea I think about the most is my identity. I have shed a part of my identity over the past year. For the past 8-9 years, my origin, my answer to the "Where are you from?" question always meant so much to me. I've always been very proud to tell people that I am from Southern California and grew up in Los Angeles and Orange County. I used to wear it as a badge of pride, but now I feel that it’s just a fact about me. I started developing this Southern California identity obsession in high school and maintained it into college. In college, many of my peers also had a strong sense of identity about where they came from, most notably the New Yorkers. My identification as a Southern Californian exploded because I was in Washington, D.C. and so few of my peers were from my community. This sense of identity began to dissolve when I began making friends in Hong Kong. After an entire year of meeting people and making friends, I have zero American friends there, which I did not expect to be the case. My Hong Kong friends are from England, South Africa, Ireland, Hong Kong, the list goes on. It’s obvious to me now, but where any of these people came from had absolutely no impact on my assessment of them as people. I realized that if wanted to be taken for who I am as a person, then thoughts like "well in California..." or "in the States..." needed to stop. Me being American, has had no impact on how people treated me there except maybe a few occasions of drunken disrespect towards the American. 

I don't know if I've learned more about myself the past year, but learned more about others. I find it comforting that everywhere people usually desire similar lives. On first glance, I often saw Hong Kongers to be very different than me, but I think for the most part we're all the same. There’s a lot of goodness in the world. 

Do you think that it was important for you to have had this experience at this age in your life? 

I feel good about my decision to spend a year abroad. As much as it hurts to be away from the people I love, I think the time I went was the only time that it made sense for me to head out. Sometimes I think about all the time I missed out with my loved ones here at home, and knowing that I can't get that time back with them hurts a lot. But I feel confident that they supported me in my decision to go to Hong Kong for a year although it was difficult for them too.

How were your relationships affected by moving across the world for a year and now moving back home?

Being away form Martha was the most difficult part of being in Hong Kong. I was very afraid of our relationship suffering, but she gave me great confidence throughout the year. Our bond is strong and I knew that going into the year and I intend to move forward for the long haul. Without her support and encouragement I don't know if I would have had the strength to go. It turned out to be an opportunity for us to grow as individuals, to learn more about ourselves. It’s going to be an important era in our relationship as I intend to move forward for the long haul, and the transition will probably be a bit challenging because we've adjusted to being alone most of the time. 

Being away from my friends and family was something I was adjusted to since we'd been living on opposite sides of the country since 2008, but what made it difficult was communication. I used to speak to my mother every day, so it was hard to get used not being able to ring her up every day and see how she was doing. I’m very happy that I'll be able to communicate with my family more readily. 

The most important thing for me right now in my life, especially in my relationships, is to take things day by day. I'm so focused on what’s going on right here and right now, I don't have any room in my mind or heart to think about next week, next month or next year. I spent so much time towards the end of my contract in Hong Kong counting the days to going home to be with my loved ones, so it’s important to me to make the most of every day with them now.

I truly miss the friends I made in Hong Kong, they're friends for life. We knew that the time we had together was special and that our friendships were never going to be like that again. It felt really good to have such great friends whom were all on the same page over the past year. The most difficult part of leaving Hong Kong was leaving them.

[twentyfourtwentyfour]

I feel like I have to put a disclaimer on this one: I have read these words and talked through these thoughts with Renny many times and I am nonetheless still moved to tears when I read them here. Whether working behind the same desk at an art gallery, dancing in the crowd of folk shows in Brooklyn, or catching up over Whatsapp with an ocean between us, I have felt close to Renny's spirit regardless of where she has been since meeting her. Renny is effervescent. She is outgoing, genuine, and supportive in her relationships, and she absolutely does not let you forget that she cares about you. Last summer, Renny met her match and her life changed rapidly. After finishing her graduate degree in New York, she moved to Tel Aviv to build her life with Hadar, a decision that I find to be remarkably brave. Her total certainty and devotion to trusting in her emotions has already guided her through incredible experiences both beautiful and trying in her new home.

Tell me about knowing that you have found the person who you want to be with for the rest of your life at the age of 24?  

Meeting the love of my life at this age has changed everything for me. For one thing, of course, I've moved halfway across the world to be with Hadar. This seems bold or crazy to a lot of people, I know, but really, it was a very easy decision for me. And it was a decision that I made within just a few weeks of meeting him! We always laugh about how we don't remember having any specific conversation about my moving to Tel Aviv and us moving in together as soon as I could. It was just understood. I would have moved here right away, when I met him, but I had just committed to attending journalism school in New York starting that August. The grad program was only ten months long, so we figured we'd just pull through it. And we did. I wouldn't even label that time as "hard." There was no other option for us. Not being together during that time would have been much more difficult for both of us.

How has being in this relationship and moving across the world to live with your boyfriend affected the way you make decisions? 

Since moving here, I make every decision with him in mind. As new as this kind of thinking has been for me, it's also been easy to adjust to. Serious comfort comes from the knowledge that whatever we do from here on out, we do together. And whatever decisions we have to make, we'll make them together. He's my partner; I wouldn't dream of making a decision that affects our relationship without him. And I don't feel strapped down. I just feel excited! He's a real man, confident and strong but also thoughtful, caring and extremely loving. And he is so happy. You'll never meet a happier person! I'm as comfortable with him as I am alone. He's my best friend! 

Having Hadar in my life has not affected the insane amount of personal stress and pressure I feel in my work life. I'm still very critical of myself in this regard, the way I've always been. I constantly push myself to do more in order to determine exactly what it is that I want to do every day. 

How did you know that Hadar is so right for you? 

I've been asked this quite a bit. And it's funny because it's something that I always used to ask my mom. She and my dad fell in love and agreed to marry after only a few days together. She says, she didn't know. I'm pretty confident about Hadar being the person I’m going to spend my life with, but unfortunately, my answer is not any more satisfying than hers. Here it is: I just know. And it was so easy to tell. I really can't stress this enough: he is a man. It's a strange thing to say, but I just mean, he's no stranger to emotion. He's openhearted and wants to talk about every feeling so we can fix whatever problem is in front of us. We can't hide from each other or walk away from each other in a fight as a result, he will not allow it. And he makes it very clear to me time and time again that no matter how crazy I get - and believe me, I can get crazy - he will never leave me. Basically, I spend every day asking myself how I got so lucky and trying to give him as much as he gives me in return.  

Tell me a bit about how you are figuring out what you want to do every day in a professional sense.

I don't think I could ever be fully happy in my life unless I prove myself in some way. This, to me, doesn't mean making tons of money but rather, contributing something meaningful and valuable to the world while also challenging myself and growing as a person. So far, I've been getting the sense that in order to achieve this type of success I need to focus on one field, or even one aspect of one field. But I've been feeling like a jack of all trades with several interests in different areas. And I've been considering the very real possibility that I don't necessarily have "a thing." I've already studied and worked in so many different things, and I tend to feel equally excited and not excited about everything I try at the same exact time. 

Then again, our world is changing so fast. New fields form all the time and often result from overlapping disciplines. I'm hopeful that my skills will match an exciting role within one of those fields. I spoke with my mom a few days ago actually about this exact topic and what she said brought me a lot of comfort. She said that in order to achieve real professional success, you need to bring a well-rounded knowledge of the world to whatever your ultimate focused endeavor will be. At 24, we've only just started gathering this knowledge. Don't get me wrong, I have so much respect for people our age who go after their dreams, and go after them hard. But maybe for me, I need this general knowledge or understanding of the world around me to determine, by process of elimination, exactly what I want and to have the confidence to pursue it as hard as I can.

You’re living in a place where a lot is changing and happening. How have you dealt with some of the challenges you have faced in these past few months? 

This summer was tough, to say the least. Protective Edge began only a few weeks after I moved here and Hadar went into Gaza as a reservist only a week or so after that. He was gone for close to a month. During that time, I didn't have much to keep me in Tel Aviv so I spent a lot of time with Hadar's family at their home about 40 minutes outside Tel Aviv. It was comforting because Hadar's family loves Hadar as much as I do, of course, so if they could smile and let some joy in, I could too. That's how it is in Israel. Shit happens and people who are not directly involved have to try to function as normally as possible. It was hard. 

Reports of soldiers dying were broadcast almost daily. It was scary to pay attention to, so often I didn't. It was too much. As far as I was concerned, Hadar was just off to do his job and he would be home. I couldn't afford to think any other way. When I look back on it actually, I don't think I understood the situation at all. I had never experienced anything like that. The people around me, Israelis who have seen many wars, knew better the potential consequences and were undoubtedly more frightened than I was.

After Hadar returned home, we experienced a few more hardships. We found ourselves at the hospital a lot. His dad had to undergo a serious surgery and his good friend, Miki, got into a bad motorcycle accident. There was no rhyme or reason to how we approached these things or how we got through them. I think what drove us most was a sense of responsibility to be strong. It was easy for me to be strong for Hadar; it came naturally. And I think I processed his father and his friend in the hospital the same way I processed Hadar being in Gaza: I didn't consider the potential dangers. I just thought of their time in the hospital as necessary for their inevitable and complete recovery.  

What are important or strengthening qualities that you seek in your family, friends, and in your relationship? 

On an individual level, it’s a willingness to let the small stuff go and to smile and laugh as much as possible. I especially need the former because I have so much trouble with that myself. Family is really important to me, my parents are my heroes, no doubt. And they definitely influence how I see mine and Hadar’s future panning out. We talk about our family, about building a home and a life together all the time. It’s really exciting! To me, a good partner or family member or friend has a strong sense of love, compassion and friendship. If the people I surround myself with have these qualities - which, amazingly and fortunately, they do - then what you find on a community level is support, encouragement and togetherness.

[twentyfourtwentyfour]

From first encountering him, two things are immediately clear about Max: he is very tall (standing at 6 foot 7 inches), and he is very intelligent. I have always been impressed by Max's deep interest in his surroundings since meeting him about 5 years ago. Max truly thinks through the events of his life and and is always willing to discuss most any topic openly and without hesitation, so I knew that I could ask him to talk to me about his relationships, his thoughts on searching for and having a career, and learning about himself in the span of his 24th year and expect a really honest and meaningful response. 

Do you have any heroes?

The for sure heroes I have are my family, my little sister especially. She never ceases to amaze me. She developed juvenile diabetes when she was not even three years old and has been living with it ever since, but it has never stopped her from achieving and living a full life. She’s 20 now, and currently on her semester abroad in Granada, Spain, having the time of her life. For my parents, it was a huge hurdle to even ship her off to college, but she is truly a hero in that she is able to manage this chronic illness while still being absolutely the most grounded, down-to-Earth and lovely human being. Between her activism, her passion for cooking and food, her never-ending pursuit of intellectual curiosity, and her naturally graceful and kind soul, she is the person I would want to be if I could be anyone else, just because of how true she is to herself. I am constantly amazed and overjoyed to be her sibling.

What does your relationship to your family look like on a day to day basis?

I miss my family every day because I love them. Do I call them every day? No. Do I talk or see to my siblings at all times? Hardly, and I live in the same city as my older brother. But do I think of them constantly? Yes, very much so. My family is, and always has been, top of mind for me. Mostly because I love them a great deal and think of them as the coolest, smartest, funniest bunch of weirdos I know, and I’m glad to be one of them. The role they play in my life is being the thing that keeps me firmly rooted in reality and the emotions and feelings of the real world.

How do your proximity to your family affect your relationships with them?

I have never lived more than 3 hours from my family. If I got on the train now, I’d be able to make it home in under two hours, pending someone would be able to pick me up from the commuter line. That’s how close I am to home. I play with the thought of what it would be like if I moved to California or elsewhere, and it’s even hard for me as romantic as the idea of being away from home is. It’s more so telling of how I feel towards them. 

What role does a romantic relationship play in your life?

I remember the first time I wanted to be in a longterm relationship. It was in the 8th grade and I hadn’t even kissed a girl yet, and there was a girl in my class named Gabby. I thought she was just so cute that it twisted me into knots thinking about what it would be like to date her, even once. Nothing ever came of it, as I was a big old wallflower all through my formative adolescence, but it was a funny thing discovering that feeling all the way back then, and for the first time knowing how much I wanted to know someone. I think most kids, and plenty of adults, just want to satiate the quick and delicious feeling of crushing then discarding that gushy stuff once the reality of courting another person actually becomes a thing. I did, that’s for sure and there's really nothing wrong with it, but it doesn't necessarily lend a sense of fulfillment to one's romantic life. When I got into the relationship that I’m in currently - and have been in for close to four years - I did so not assuming that I would just end up knowing someone but also learning from someone so deeply, that it makes me constantly appreciate the fact that I have even gotten to this point in my life. And I have yet to lose any of the fascination of it all. 

What have you learned or how have you changed over the course of this nearly four year relationship?

How I’ve changed isn’t entirely incumbent on the relationship so much as the fact that change is the only constant of human experience, aside from the prerequisites of death and taxes. What being in a relationship for this amount of time has taught me is that when you reach any sort of barrier or even a fork in the road to making a decision that affects more than just yourself, the laws of nature demand something change. Whether it’s you or something or someone else is almost entirely out of your hands, but if you recognize that variables are being tested, know that you are one of them. 

Overall I’ve learned that growth and maturity in a relationship is key to trust. All these things play out in any relationship, whether intimate, formal, social or otherwise, and assume the form of a journey. It doesn’t need to be far reaching in geography, but it is about being able to arrive at those new places, together because you trusted and believed in one another.

How do you answer the question: “What do you do?”

What I tell people is I am a human, and most people observe that I am a very tall human in response.

What I do currently is only tangentially relates to my first response: I work for a branding agency doing marketing for the company, wherein I am the primary content creator and content strategist. I write, edit, and curate a corporate blog, as well as creating video content and finding other content opportunities and outlets.

Why are you drawn to video and content as a profession and a form of creative expression?

From a young age, I was drawn to the idea of being a filmmaker. As a child, I had an active imagination, which mainly manifested in an interest in photography and writing at a very young age. I think the first time I handled a camera was in the 2nd grade. The first time I used a video camera was probably in 5th grade or around age 10 or 11. As of yet, I have never handled cinematic film as an artistic medium, but since college I have been an active videographer, and ideally, I’d like to become a filmmaker, whether on film or not. The most interesting thing about plenty of my filmmaking heroes - William Friedkin, the recently passed Mike Nichols, Jane Campion - is that many of them didn’t start out as filmmakers, but let it develop out of an innate curiosity in creation. Nowadays with video, it is a very specific function and not an uncommon skill set. All of us have decent-to-high-quality video cameras in our phones, so the learning curve isn’t as steep, or the knowledge gap as insurmountable in any way. But I know I want to be a storyteller and storybuilder. Filmmaking, whatever the medium, is intrinsically about story, and I have always been drawn to that idea. The output is the story, told. 

Do you feel that your professional choices define you in any way?

If there’s one thing that I could relate, it is that it is hard to not become defined by your “job search” in this day and age. It is easy to feel harangued by oblique questions about what we - the royal, Millennial “we” - want to do with our lives from adults or peers, throwing us into an existential feedback loop. It is nothing new and it happens every generation in truth, but it would seem that in the here and now that question - what do you want to do with your life? - can come off as a personal affront. We know it isn’t, but we are also at a reactive stage where we can take umbrage at the very thought of us not being guaranteed success.

My job search was exactly that. It was two years of ups and downs from the time I graduated, false starts and sputtering out, trying on one hat and discarding another, being mistreated by employers, but ultimately, learning a lot along the way about people, work, life, and the world around me. Before being hired by the company I work for now, I was working stock up at a liquor store in a small town near where I grew up - not unemployed, but not seeing myself in a progressive or forward-moving stage in my work or career prospects. Prior to that, it was lots of near misses with idealized positions, and that takes on a very personal level when things don’t pan out, but it never meant I stopped trying to make each day a day, lived and experienced.

How would you define the idea of a career?

Everyone has a concept of what employment, work, and career all ultimately mean, but it takes the length and breadth of those things happening to fully understand the scope of each in their own space and time. Employment is being able to find means in the world to support yourself; it guarantees the act and idea of work. Work, to me, is about fulfilling the purpose of a job, and you can either do it as a matter of fact, or you can try and make something more of it; perhaps the best, but some of the time the work is what the work is. But ultimately, career is not necessarily defined solely by employment and work, but what you do with all the time that those things encompass.

What I ultimately want to do is many things. There’s no list, but there’s always the idea that if I give myself the time, I will accomplish the things I want to accomplish—whether it’s getting a job or it’s making a film or opening a bar, or even some goal yet defined, I have time and I will find a way to accomplish those things.

Do you feel like you know who you are right now at the end of your 24th year?

No, but also yes. I’m not so worried about knowing each and every thing about myself at age 24, or soon to be 25, because I have the rest of my life to live, learn, and experience new and different things. While I regularly take time to be introspective and consider the life I live in the near, past and longterm, I try to live every day as contemporarily as possible; as in living every day as it comes and as it goes. For me it’s not solely about living, it’s also about existing and being aware of what has past and what is yet to come, even if the latter is far less defined than the former. I look forward to the moment my life ends when I’ll be able to see it all arrayed before me and know in that moment, that regardless of whether I knew myself or not, I had lived a life worth living because I was alive in the first place. 

My year was a year, not unlike many that had come before, and it will not be dissimilar to those that follow. Exceptional things happened, for sure, but so did many, many mundane and banal trivialities. I learned lots of things, but I’d be hard-pressed to give you a succinct answer on what exactly those key learnings were. What I can safely say is that in my 24th rotation around the sun, I was able to see myself in a way that I had not necessarily looked for or at in years prior, if it was there at all. And because of that, I am content in knowing that 24 was a good year.