‘Gilles, Emily and myself – all Los Angeles residents and freelance creatives – meet in my Echo Park home to shoot together for C-Heads Magazine.’
I meet Emily, at Chango on Echo Park Boulevard, to discuss what it’s like to be a creative right now. Los Angeles, with its sprawling landscapes, invites creativity and imagination, after all, there is so much room for it. The rent is far cheaper than New York, San Francisco, Paris, London and other creative capitals, which allows for some artistic risk and results in a community heavily dependent on freelance creatives. Emily and I discuss Los Angeles as a city, the nature of being a freelancer, the state of writing today, and the difficulties of staying inspired.
Emily wears high waisted jeans and simple, clean T-Shirt as she walks into the café with a laptop bag and notepad and pen in hand. “The things I carry with me? The literal – a pen, an engagement ring, and bobby pins. The figurative? A chip on my shoulder.”
Creative Director & Stylist – Kate Eringer
Photographer – Gilles O’Kane
Model – Emily Hunt
What do you think of LA?
I think LA is a pretty absurd city. It sort of planted itself on top of a vast variety of natural environments and we’re all trying to act like that’s normal. In the summer, when my fiancé and I are forced to go out and actually socialize because our house is too unbearably hot to enter until about 11:00pm, I realize how close we are to the desert. When I’m walking to get coffee in the morning and see a coyote casually trotting down the sidewalk, I realize how integrated we are with this natural hillscape. It’s alarming on one level, but this is also what makes it a city full of opportunities. You can live in a homey neighborhood or a beautiful canyon not even 5 miles away from an urban scene. You can travel from the desert to the ocean and back again in a day; you can go to a grimy, experimental music showcase in a strip mall and have dinner at a neatly-curated, expensively organic restaurant a minute away. It doesn’t make much sense as a city, but that’s what makes it magical. If you’re willing to put in the legwork to search, there’s probably someone or something perfect for you hidden here.
What’s been your strangest/funniest encounter since being here?
We used to have some wonderful neighbors! Across the street there was cat hoarder whom I think was eventually forcefully evicted without any real discussion about it in the neighborhood. Next to her was this man who would, every weekend morning at about 8am, take his shirt off to expose some really, truly impressive paunch, essentially drown his lawn with a high-powered hose, and blast “Carless Whisper” at an ear-shattering volume.
But one of my favorite incidents was when my friend, after getting completely sauced at this bar called Sunset Beer (which isn’t actually the norm there) decided to get up and do karaoke another bar down the street. She and a guy we barely knew were going to duet “Jackson” by June Carter and Johnny Cash and when their turn came, he was nowhere to be found. She got up anyway and just kind of mumbled into the microphone and repeated that she was “waiting for Johnny” until people started booing her. Someone shouted, “get off the stage” and she launched into this weird diatribe about Johnny Cash sand Christian guilt while the instrumentals to “Jackson” played in the background. It was the most antagonistic karaoke performance I’ve ever seen. She is great.
“So I find it impossible that everyone really feels as confident as they project about their artistic decisions or their career paths. I like a little vulnerability, a little lack of self-assurance sometimes. I think it’s sweet. It makes us real people.”
What inspires you?
I’m very heavily influenced by the people around me. I wrote a piece once that centered entirely around this guy from my university who actually had no idea who I was and with whom my only interaction was waiting together in the scrambled eggs line in the lunchroom. The same has gone for a few people I’ve known only by name and who for some reason have inspired something in me. How little they know! Sometimes certain people, like my grandfather, will inspire a theme that pervades throughout my writing. When I was in Paris, a lot of my work centered simply on people being cold. In Echo Park there’s a lot of different…vessels of inspiration. Lately I’ve been really noticing this random – to quote Steve Martin’s Pure Drivel—“red” guy who I see around Echo Park who wears all red and carries red shopping bags and uses red soccer cleats for shoes, so with any luck that will end up becoming a novel.
What is the biggest struggle, for you, career-wise?
I think the biggest struggle for many people, career-wise, is that they have no idea what they are doing. I’m so sick of the emphasis we put on confidence. People will tell you to walk into an interview like you already have the job, or to reach out to other artists or individuals in your field like you’re totally their equal. But it’s not true! You’re probably not their equal! I wish there was some guidebook on how to be, but there isn’t. So I find it impossible that everyone really feels as confident as they project about their artistic decisions or their career paths. I like a little vulnerability, a little lack of self-assurance sometimes. I think it’s sweet. It makes us real people.
What does it mean to you to be a ‘freelancer’ or a ‘creative’?
To be honest, the terms “freelancer” or “creative” mean very little to me. When I first moved to Echo Park, I was looking for work and spending way too much time at coffee shops when I realized how many people, at 2pm on a weekday, were buzzing about the streets and sitting in cafés. What are they all doing?! Since looking attractive while simultaneously owning a computer is not, as of yet, a profession, I assume that most of them are freelance. Now that I work freelance and am a sometimes-member of that coffee shop tribe, I’m almost certain of it. But I think that’s where most of our similarities end—I don’t think there’s one or a few unifying factors that lead to freelance. I probably actually identify with very few of them. For example, sometimes when I’m bored at a certain café, I listen to the conversations of this one man who introduces himself as a “freelance art-critic.” I wasn’t even sure if that was a job anymore! I felt like I had spotted a unicorn! Another café regular is a porn star who dabbles in comedy (or is it the other way around?), and he certainly identifies as a “creative,” but I’d guess our creative tastes are different. Fortunately, the words don’t really tell us much about the individual. I think everyone comes to creativity in a different way and for different reasons, and that makes the art compelling.
Do you have any words of wisdom for our readers?
Don’t talk too loudly in coffee shops. A creep like me is probably listening to you!
Creative Director & Stylist – Kate Eringer www.Kate-Eringer.com - @keringer
Photographer – Gilles O’Kane - gillesokane.com - @funkisfunky
Model – Emily Hunt @emilyhuntress
clothing:
Top & Trouser set – Opening Ceremony
Silk Shirt – Equipment
Slides – Nike
Vest – BLK DNM
Skirt – H&M
Slides – Nike
Kimono – Vintage
Jumpsuit – Zara
Clogs – Dolce And Gabana
Red silk shirt – Vintage
Yellow silk skirt – Zimmerman
White shirt – James Perse
Floral Dress – Opening Ceremony
