The heart of our mission at VoyageLA is to find the amazing souls that breathe life into our city. In the recent weeks we’ve had the privilege to connect with some of South Bay’s finest artists, creatives, entrepreneurs and rebel rousers and we can’t begin to express how impressed we are with our city’s incredibly deep talent pool. Check out the area’s rising stars below.
Delila Rio and Bree Castillo
With Delila’s background in film and mine in creative writing, we connected over our shared love for storytelling. Honestly, we spend most of our time together overstaying our welcome at coffee shops writing cliche sad prose. I think writing and creating in general can be really frustrating. Read more>>
Alex Sprague-Cervantes
I’ve been doing art since I was a kid, and was always drawn to media that involved both storytelling and creative elements. On the weekends, I would stay with my dad and he would take me to the video and book store to get games, animated films. Read more>>
Angelica Silva
My father is a photographer, and my sister Is an illustrator. When I was younger, my sister went to art school and I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. I thought to myself “I want to be just like her!”. I drew all sorts of things, as kids do. Read more>>
Ariana Gastelum
It is pretty much impossible to briefly describe how I got to where I am today. My dad is an artist, and my mom is an English teacher. Together, they raised me to use creativity as a powerful tool in school, work and life, and it is apparent in my appearance. Read more>>
Briauna Smith
This is always an interesting question for me to think about. Although I wasn’t providing services this early, I discovered my love for nails in middle school. I would watch my mom do her own nails and toes and was so fascinated. I’m also very much a creative. Read more>>
Angelique Jackson
Prior to 2012, I felt like I had everything: a good job in the beauty industry, a company car, a 6 figure income, love, friendships, college education, etc… However, in 2012, my life took a dramatic change. I was in a car accident, which brought to light a diagnosis of having multiple uterine fibroids. Read more>>
Austin Belisle
ABD or Austin Belisle Design was born out of a need for great modern design in my surrounding communities. I didn’t see anyone really looking out for smaller “mom and pop” businesses or small up-and-coming businesses/startups when it came to logos. Read more>>
Ishmael Pruitt
I was born into a split family that included two very different households. One that include structure and stability and one that included violence and limited financial resources. As a result of this upbringing, I learned that a person’s opportunities to success is enhance with access to resources. Read more>>
Angelo Reyes
Always being on my phone, my parents would always tell me that I needed to get off of it because if I did not, I would end up having to get glasses just like everyone else in my family, but fast forward to eight years later and my eyes are just fine. Read more>>
Chris Alessandra
I feel very lucky to have been born in LA – I feel like most people I meet in the film industry have moved here to pursue their passion, whereas I was already in the perfect place. But my first goal was never film-related, I was actually really into riding motocross and that’s what I wanted to pursue. Read more>>
Carly Havenick and Ray Wilson
The Stamp Collection came about in April of 2019 when Carly Havenick and Ray Wilson started playing what can only be described as “messy garage-surf-rock”. Havenick originally played drums, but she quickly fell in love with writing on guitar and Wilson followed suit. Read more>>
Erik-Jan Pliner
Recognized at age five winning a coloring contest and ever since painting and creating. Born Erik-Jan, mother from Amsterdam, father from Chicago.. Add to that a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology with a Minor in Art and mix this with an eclectic 30-year resume of sales, you’ll get to Erik the Artist of today. Read more>>
Brittani Graves
The idea for The Bite came in the summer of 2016 when a group of friends and I were feeling discouraged after the shooting of Philando Castile. We wanted to find a way to redirect the negative energy we were feeling into something productive and beneficial for the Black community. Read more>>
Ariana Iverson
I was born in 29 Palms, CA; I grew up a military kid so of course that means I did a lot of moving around and not being settled. Music, books, writing honestly anything that required being creative allowed me to escape the consistent changing of my environment. Back then, I thought I would be an actress on Degrassi (I laugh at that thought now). Read more>>
Asia Nettles
I became intrigued with fashion at the age of 12. My mom would dress me in the trendiest outfits since I was a little girl. By the age of 13, I was able to shop for my own clothes. That’s when my sense of style came to life. I used to make my own distressed jeans and cut different pairs of jeans to male patchwork handbags. Read more>>
Audrey Hopkins
I moved to southern California from the small town Petaluma (located in the SF bay area) with my then boyfriend now husband in 2015 to attend California state university long beach. I started out studying illustration but realized soon after that I much prefer animation. Read more>>
