Inspiring Stories from Pasadena

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 Pasadena’s finest artists, creatives, entrepreneurs and rabble rousers and we can’t begin to express how impressed we are with our city’s incredibly deep talent pool.  Check out the Pasadena’s rising stars below.

James Goh

Getting into ceramics was a relatively recent development for me, but my relationship with art spans much further back through other mediums. Throughout high school, I attended Art Center on weekends, focusing primarily on figure drawing and illustration. Read more>>

Lureena Thompson

Creativity has always been the throughline of my life. I went to an arts high school for visual art, but I eventually found my way into theater and improv, which completely reshaped how I show up in my work. Read more>>

Qiaozhi Zhuang

My journey with design began in middle school when I discovered how much I enjoyed drawing and creating visuals that communicated ideas. Over time, this simple hobby turned into something much deeper. I realized design was not only a form of expression but also a way to understand problems and shape the way people interact with the world around them. Read more>>

Nakia Smith

I’m Nakia Smith. I’m a Black Deaf woman from Texas who grew up in a strong signing family. I started sharing my life and my culture online during COVID. I had no idea people would connect with it the way they did. I was just showing our world and being myself. As my platform grew, I began focusing more on representation, Black ASL, and accessibility. Read more>>

Rilee Acrey

My story really began in 2019 with a small idea that grew bigger than I ever expected. I started BalloonWorks as a one-woman operation, creating custom balloon installations out of my apartment and saying yes to every opportunity that let me bring a client’s vision to life. Read more>>

Ricardo Acuna

I was born and raised dirt-poor in a trailer home in Nogales, Arizona (that’s a small town on the U.S./Mexican Berlin Wall in case you blink and miss it on your drive through). At 15, I earned a full academic scholarship to attend The Lawrenceville School (a New England prep school for rich kids that’s been around forever). Read more>>

Clarissa Castillo-Ramsey

My path has been anything but linear, and that’s exactly what shaped the work I do today. I spent decades in the corporate world across a range of roles and industries, eventually landing in my dream position in organizational development. On paper, it looked like success. And in many ways, it was. Read more>>

Vanessa Obmann

I have been playing with makeup for as long as I can remember. I was very artistic as a child & I remember being so enthralled watching my mom do her makeup. In jr. high, my artistic abilities started to translate into makeup. I started asking for makeup for every occasion where someone was buying me a gift. Read more>>

Crystal Martinez

The inception of Record Store Meet Up (RSMU) started in 2022, after attending several Indy Bookstore Field Trips hosted by Bel Canto Books. After being a recluse during Covid, I was looking for a reason to get out of the house and meet new people in a way that wasn’t too intimidating. Read more>>