Meet Morgan Hungerford West. She’s an artist, stylist, content creator and creative consultant. She founded Panda Head Blog in 2006, and over the last nine years has forged a successful, full-time career around hands-on visuals and creative problem-solving. She is really good at making things look really good. Her newest effort is A Creative DC.
1. What is A Creative DC?
A Creative DC is a platform that acknowledges and represents all aspects of the amazingly diverse creative communities and creative economy in the city. It started out in January of this year as a social media account –@aCreativeDC on Instagram – and a hashtag, as well as a once-a-week interview series on my blog, Panda Head.#aCreativeDC has since accumulated over 30,000 tags, and we recently expanded the platform to include a website – aCreativeDC.com – that has a weekly-updated FEATURED gallery of local projects, and a BLOG that includes interviews, round-ups, and imagery all related to what’s going on in the creative fabric of the city. We like to think of it as a resource and also an access point.
2. What was your motivation to put this collaborative project together?
A Creative DC is a platform that acknowledges and represents all aspects of the amazingly diverse creative communities and creative economy in the city. It started out in January of this year as a social media account – @aCreativeDC on Instagram – and a hashtag, as well as a once-a-week interview series on my blog, Panda Head. #aCreativeDC has since accumulated over 30,000 tags, and we recently expanded the platform to include a website – aCreativeDC.com – that has a weekly-updated FEATURED gallery of local projects, and a BLOG that includes interviews, round-ups, and imagery all related to what’s going on in the creative fabric of the city. We like to think of it as a resource and also an access point.
3. Has anything in the feed surprised you, or moved you especially?
Honestly, the way the #aCreativeDC tag has been embraced is incredibly moving. A cornerstone of this project was the knowledge that I, as one person, absolutely could not represent the city at large. We’re now a team of three and if we were working 24 hours a day we still couldn’t scratch the surface of telling D.C.’s story accurately and evenly. Every single person who uses the tag is a contributor. Every single photo is a document.@reallyfarrah’s beautiful imagery of a protest at Howard University is as important to the project as @polranforeal’s image of the Guerrilla Vending machine at Maketto and @laurenlucybean’s portrait of her dog in front of the Edgewood Murals wall. It’s about appreciating all that the city has to offer, appreciating what people are putting out, and about recognizing that life looks good in the District.
4. We often hear about the politically crafty but what are the traditionally creative people in DC up to?
You know, I think what’s great about the creative scene in D.C. is that everyone’s day-to-day is so different! My husband works as a political media analyst and plays in a punk band on weekends. I balance creative consulting clients and photo projects and am working on getting A Creative DC up and running as a legitimate media outlet. I have friends who shoot ad campaigns one day and later that night they’re covering events for the Bolivian Embassy. I have painter-friends who work in arts education and I know an art conservator who bartends at Rose’s Luxury and I think along the way we all try to make time to support other people’s projects, give back where we can, and try not to go broke supporting small coffee businesses in exchange for their wifi.
5. What is your advice to those who are looking to break into the creative scene here?
Photographer E. Brady Robinson gave some incredible advice in her A Creative DC interview: “Be a good friend. Don’t hang out with haters. Support other artists. Support your local art community. And be a nice person.” I can’t add anything to that!