This Tiny Desk made me ask: What is the greatest version of myself?
For the series On Finding Inspiration, I search for inspiration in my daily life. Each week I muse on: what I’m thinking, what I’m creating, and what I’m loving. Join me on the journey and let me know what beautiful thing speaks to you this week.
What I’m thinking: Community is home.
This October marks my third year working Austin City Limits Music Festival, and it really hit home just how special it is to be part of a community. I’ve grown up in an around live music in Austin, Texas. I dreamed of working on festivals since I was a teen. I photographed my first concert at at age 16. And a lot of the photographers I looked up to when I was a teen, I now get to call my friends and peers.
ACL is a reunion of many of these faces. People from near and far. Friends new and old. The ones you see only once a year. You’re all here together because of the same driving passion. And Austin is special in that the live music scene here has also drawn in a talented group of creatives that support each other. We’re gifted to have so many with incredible photographers – people like David Brennen Hall, Ryan Vestil, Pooneh Ghana, Roger Ho, Daniel Cavazos, Sara Marjorie Strick. I could easily name 20 more.
But seeing these faces this year was special. It felt like coming home. Wherever you live, whatever your creative outlet or passion or hobby, it’s a beautiful thing to have a community.
What I’m creating: A new chapter of life.
The plan is to move to New York City at the beginning of 2025. You heard it here first, folks! (Unless you’ve seen me in the last two months in which case you’re a trusted confidant.) That’s right, the big apple. Big city dreams. I’ll wax poetically in a later newsletter, because there’s certainly much to be said. But for now…
What am I, if not the co-creator of my own life? I’ve been thinking deeply about this new life. The new version of me I see myself stepping into. Embodying bigger things I know that I’m capable of. Shedding any doubts. Letting go of the part of my brain that wants to keep me safe and comfortable. Taking the steps to reach new heights. Listening to my self. What I need, what I know I can be.
Something I tell myself a lot: It’s just the rest of my life. There’s no wrong choice. Any choice at all is just the next step in the journey. More lessons to learn, more life to live, opportunities, infinite possibilities, people, art, beautiful happenstance. I’m always exactly where I need to be. I trust that the universe will guide me, if I just allow it. There’s a beautiful song with this sentiment:
After all, it’s a beautiful life for you and me.
What I’m loving: This perfect embodiment of art on Tiny Desk.
I can’t stop thinking about this Tiny Desk from Argentine duo Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso.
This Tiny Desk is blowing up on certain corners of the internet, for good reason. There’s something beautiful captured in this performance.
This is fine art. They have a dozen people crammed into the Tiny Desk space. Horns. Backup singers. Not one, but two percussionists. The way they’re dressed, individually and collectivley. (Why do they have T shirts with people’s faces? Who are they?)
Ca7riel and Paco take turns rapping back and forth, playing off one another, and building tension with the whole band singing along, whispering together, interjecting ad libs and vocal runs. They’re all feeding off one another as they perform – lost in the music, creating something beautiful together. We see elements of jazz, latin and afrobeat that fit together so seamlessly that you wouldn’t know this format is wildly different from Ca7riel and Paco’s recorded music.
The two of them clearly have their own distinct styles as artists. It’s apparent in how they dress, how they sing, how they interact with the full band. They’ve found who they are as artists and they embody that fully. I don’t think either of them would say they have an artist persona – they are one and the same. But I do think that these personas are much greater than themselves as individual people if they had never made art.
And this makes me believe that we all have this within us. We all can tap into our full potential if we allow ourselves. We all can embody this bigger-than-life persona. In my opinion it’s the truest form of ourselves, because it requires that we listen to the passion in our hearts – and – we let ourselves run wild with that passion. I think so many of us don’t allow ourselves that journey. Often, the excuse is “because life.” But what if we didn’t view life as this thing that happened to us. What if we flip the narrative – life happens through us. What could we be, if we lived life as the co-creators of everything around us? What would our larger than life persona look like? What would we achieve? What would we create? How would we leave an impact on this world?
Does any of this resonate with you? Let me know what beautiful thing is speaking to you this week.