Notes on Practice

Anyone who has ever committed to specialization of a skill knows there is no perfection, only continuous refinement and adaptation. Art changes the artist as much as the viewer.

I took yoga teacher training because I wanted to learn more, perhaps open a studio of my own (setting myself up to be employee #1), then The Pandemic happened. While we were all experiencing very personal levels of shock, panic, and grief, I was clinging to my communal practice for dear life. Home was not a safe place to be, but on my mat, I became fully present with myself in a moment, a movement, a breath taken then released. There are lovely ways to exercise in solitude, but I will always prefer yoga in community.

This practice - and I love it for giving me that word - is always and simply that. Some days I can headstand, other days I topple over. I can take my mat to the same corner of one studio with the same teacher 7 days a week and every single moment of each practice is different because that’s how I am and how life is within me. It’s the only time I slow down enough to notice, but I do, and that mindfulness is precious. It’s why yoga is truly a way of living and moving through life - we are all students and teachers, when open to the lessons.

Experts in any discipline know this; great artists drip, Olympians trip, A-listers have flops. It’s what makes the good shit so valuable. So even when winning (especially when losing), I keep coming back to practice, to remind myself of truths sometimes only my body knows, often wants to release, and return to center.

"Perhaps the immobility of the things that surround us is forced upon

them by our conviction that they are themselves, and not anything else,

and by the immobility of our conceptions of them."

-Marcel Proust

Notes on Compassion (Clean)

LORD if I had a USD every time I said something passive-aggressive or downright MEAN to myself! The funny (as in ironic/not LOL kind) thing about meditation is that I started noticing just how often that IS, and it's ANNOYING. Over time, I'd bet it's downright DETRIMENTAL! Perhaps even impacts my relationships with other people!

Before I stopped being so angry with God, I called this thing the "Jesus Principle," as in YOU (the proverbial) cannot help anyone who isn't willing to help themselves. While forgiveness is not self-interested (at least not on God's part), it benefits the giver as much as the receiver. The practice of forgiveness is H A R D. And forgiving oneself, in my experience, is hardEST. Completing this process is F R E E I N G.

Paradoxes galore. Soon as I level-up, I might start resenting that dingy self I used to be (HI, shame), maybe people who reflect that prior version of me, and I get brazen. Maybe I never awakened to edges snagging half-healed wounds of others, keep carrying on. But I live and hopefully learn…

There is always more Compassion -

To have and to hold

To give and to take

To love and to make.

ORIGINAL WORK COPYRIGHTED TO HYPE GIRL MEDIA

Notes on Cinderella (Amended)

Come close, I'll tell you a story - the only ones I tell are true. When I was a girl, I was teased for using big words and a having a flat chest, although those mocking loved to cheat off my papers, handsy too.

Soul searching led me back to my roots, a little Community in Houston, English at UT, wanting to work the fashion industry and coming up bone-dry in 2010 with a BA and the economy on the outs. I couldn't even volunteer abroad despite being heavily over-qualified (remember that recession?), so I took a job in retail trying to get close-up with clothes. Eating PB&J five days a week felt like starving, no art. I thought I sold out when I took a job in corporate, but science was my second love, and I knew I'd be able to dress the part.

I worked the only way I know how, like my mother's only daughter, with all I have, and with heart. Still, over a decade later, kept feeling this hole where my art was, until one day there was a break. One man, then one woman told me yes - You Can Do That - and so I did.

I started managing budgets and projects and timelines. With every spare dollar and moment, I was curating clothing and images and content. I went a little wild and started a business called MAVEN, thinking I should see how far this ship can sail. I trademarked my clothing because I'm making some of that too. People ask me what She Does - this MAVEN, and like most new business owners, I don't really know. What began as a name for a blog parked on a star has grown to include celebrity wardrobe styling for editorial and video shoots, consultation services for creative direction & set design, and this archive of weekly publications. I might be sleepless and broke as hell but I’m full of glee.

So the crestfallen girl who dreamed of working for Lucky Magazine but figured a career the next best way to make people healthier in Corporate America while starting this fledgeling side-hustle may have come full-circle... and ended up front-row at Soho House for the PatBo Fashion Show during SXSW. Walt Disney much? Only if the shoe fits.

ORIGINAL WORK COPYRIGHTED TO HYPE GIRL MEDIA

Notes on Empowerment (Amended)

I was sitting in a nail salon in Anywhere, America when I overheard two grown women discussing how their friend would look "slutty" if she chose a certain shade for her manicure. Question: When did the color, length, or design of our manicure (really, any application of cosmetics) become a symbol of how experienced a woman is with sex?

To begin with, answering these questions yields no reasonable answers, aside from squirmy revelations about how we view ourselves. I could sit in This Chair and prescribe what she Should do with Her face and Her body and Her career all day long, but come no closer to truth or happiness.

This conversation comes up a lot during styling consultations, but the script gets flipped. It takes a lot of vulnerability and trust working with clients, and it's usually quite early when someone will set some hard boundaries around what they "can" and "cannot" wear. Kelly was a NO to crop tops. Mark insisted on cutting an arm off every designer shirt I brought him. I was thrilled when Kelly ended up choosing the Tibi crop we shot her in most of the day and when Mark agreed to the Double RL shirts (both sleeves in-tact) not because that's what I wanted, but because they looked phenomenal and their confidence radiated through the iconic photos we captured from those very different shoots. As a stylist, it's my greatest joy to see someone overcome a limitation they set for themselves - and nail it.

I'm still curious about the conversation from the salon. When I was traveling for my corporate job, I chose classic colors to avoid looking too youthful or unprofessional - in short, to improve my chances of being taken seriously. These days when I'm invited to the office, I feel comfortable balancing a nail that pops with color-blocked basics or pared-down neutrals. I wonder when those women said "slutty," were they using it interchangeably with other words that typically undermine women in the workplace? I have so many questions, but instead remained silent as a very uncomfortable eavesdropper.

Ultimately, how we talk about others is reflective of how we feel about ourselves. Being able to sit with that discomfort, even get curious about it and try a different approach is the path to discovery. I have some very pretty pictures to prove it.

ORIGINAL WORK COPYRIGHTED TO HYPE GIRL MEDIA

Notes on SXSW

Remember the hipsters? Post-punk, possibly Emo, finally caught onto European trends, could find one in any U.S. startup within a matter of years? Because I favored skinny jeans and sometimes dark-rimmed glasses in the early 2000's, I took a lot of flak.

Unlike the hippies with the war and Woodstock and their protests, the so-called hipsters had no unifying culture aside from their fashion, and maybe some music. Based on bullying from jocks & nerds alike, I understood there was a shared misconception that the democratization of fashion (as I called it) had some underlying exclusivity that was shaking things up.

Quite the opposite, as time has now shown street style, eponymous influencers, and slow fashion explode across the internet, transforming the ways we live and dress. Covid might have slowed us down, but the ideas kept cooking, and now that tourism and festivals are back in business, fashion is fun again. 2023 was the year I had my first official SXSW experience, in the most unlikely way - as an expat local parading as a tourist. It's long been my favorite pastime to get out of a rut by hopping in my car or a plane to explore places unknown, but there is no music festival like the multi-national extravaganza that overtakes the Music Capitol of the World in the Heart of Texas, and what a trip, what a treat.

Post-pandemic, SX felt more like it did over a decade ago, when you knew the right people at your favorite places, and could get up close to the stage breathing and feeling the music. It's never the same experience. I saw Andrew Cashen's band twice, leaving with a yellow rose and a blissful haze. Lindsey Mackin was smackin' her lips driving the boys wild at Hotel Vegas with Annabelle Chairlegs. KMFA hosted the most intimate live recording of Caramelo Haze that felt like stepping into radio royalty. Bose took an empty lot on the East Side and turned up Coachella vibes, where Genesis Owusu shook like Prince - I couldn't take my eyes off him.

Grabbed a pedi to the 13th Floor where Pussy Gillette puts rock-hard bitch in your punk is alive and well, thank you. Eats at Comedor, land of artful Mexican where you never know who you'll meet in the moody alcoves. And Moody Bank$ WAS there, giving a private performance for the opening of woman-owned & operated Nativas Studios. Sleep, wash, repeat. Brunch with a dear friend at old faithful Aba, get invited to the Spin Pool Party (it's SX, it's magic), wander over to SX San Jose (anyone can, and should!), stumble upon Blondshell, my new obsession for Indie-Emo rocker chick ballads. The Zombies are releasing a new album, and SX-goers got a preview of old & new at Stubb’s. Pinch me.

Britt Daniel from Spoon hops on stage to duet with titties-flying Sabrina Ellis during A Giant Dog's set at Continental Club... another day in Austin, or is it? Still decked out in PatBo, the Oracle Sisters are singing me swinging lullabies. Switch gears, Caleb de Casper swoons with sparks flying (I cannot get that hook out of my head - you should know the one). I couldn't make it to Bun B but I did see Blackillac pop off the stage with fly beats and quips taking me back to hip hop's Golden Age. Never too full for dessert, finished with the girls at Justine's.

Was it all a dream? Only the best kind, and my camera don't lie. More important is the singing in my soul seeing this magnificent evolution go beyond fashion, even beyond music, to create, connect, to rebuild community we all so desperately need. If cotton was once the “fabric of our lives,” music is the language of God's love, bringing us together again in this dance of humanity. Question is - where will it take us next?

"Kid, you’ll move mountains!”

-Dr. Seuss

ORIGINAL WORK COPYRIGHTED TO HYPE GIRL MEDIA