Rising Stars: Meet Crystal Hays (Solehblu) of Culver City

Today we’d like to introduce you to Crystal Hays (Solehblu).

Hi Crystal, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I began my professional path working closely with women, mothers, and wellness-centered communities, creating spaces that supported healing, creativity, and more intentional ways of living. Before that, I spent part of my early life dancing professionally — an experience that shaped my understanding of rhythm, expression, movement, and the emotional language that exists beyond words.

Over the years, experiences surrounding motherhood, displacement, rebuilding home, and personal transformation deepened my relationship to writing and creative expression. What began as private reflection gradually evolved into a more visible artistic practice.

Today, under the name Solehblu, I’m stepping more fully into work centered around poetry, storytelling, atmosphere, sound, and creative resonance. My work explores themes of identity, emotional inheritance, resilience, softness, and the process of returning to oneself after survival mode.

In many ways, this chapter feels like a return — not to who I once was, but to a creative current that has always existed underneath every season of my life. The artist was never gone. She was simply waiting for the right moment to speak more fully.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
No, it definitely hasn’t been a smooth road. Like many women — especially mothers — there were long periods where creativity had to exist quietly in the background while I focused on caregiving, responsibility, healing, and simply navigating life’s challenges.

I’ve moved through seasons of major transition, including health and housing struggles, rebuilding after unexpected disruptions, and learning how to hold both resilience and uncertainty at the same time. Those experiences changed me deeply, but they also deepened my relationship to art, reflection, and storytelling.

One of the biggest challenges was realizing how easy it is to lose connection with your own creative voice while constantly showing up for everyone else. Returning to that voice required trust, honesty, and the willingness to begin again without needing everything to look polished or perfect.

At the same time, those experiences became part of the work itself. They taught me how much people are carrying beneath the surface and how powerful it can be when art creates a sense of resonance, recognition, or even just a moment to breathe.

So while the road hasn’t been smooth, I think the depth of the work comes from having actually lived through transformation rather than simply writing about it from a distance.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
As Solehblu, I create poetry, reflective storytelling, and multidisciplinary creative work centered around themes of identity, motherhood, resilience, reinvention, and emotional truth. My work blends writing, atmosphere, visual storytelling, and sound to create pieces that feel both intimate and emotionally resonant.

Before stepping more fully into this artistic chapter, I spent years working with women and mothers in wellness-centered spaces, supporting conversations around healing, nervous system restoration, creativity, and intentional living. That experience continues to shape the emotional depth and perspective within my work today.

I’m known for creating work that feels honest, immersive, and deeply human — pieces that invite people to slow down, reflect, and reconnect with themselves. Much of my creative voice has been shaped not only by my professional background, but by lived experiences involving motherhood, rebuilding, transition, and personal transformation.

What I’m most proud of is allowing myself to return to creativity in a fuller way after many years of putting that part of myself aside while raising a family and navigating life’s challenges. In many ways, this work feels like a return to my artistic roots. I danced professionally earlier in life, and now poetry and storytelling have become another form of movement — another way of translating emotion, rhythm, and human experience into something felt and shared.

Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
Growing up, I was deeply imaginative, observant, and emotionally sensitive. I was drawn to creativity early on, especially through dance, music, movement, and performance. Dance played a huge role in my life and gave me a strong sense of expression, discipline, and connection from a young age.

I was also very curious about people and emotional dynamics. Even as a child, I tended to notice what was happening beneath the surface — the energy in a room, the things people weren’t saying, the emotional layers within relationships and environments.

Writing actually came much later for me. I didn’t grow up thinking of myself as a writer. That voice really emerged in adulthood through life experience, motherhood, transition, healing, and reflection. Over time, writing became a way to process, understand, and translate experiences that felt difficult to express otherwise.

Looking back now, I can see that creativity was always trying to find me — it just changed forms throughout different seasons of my life. What began through movement and performance eventually evolved into poetry, storytelling, and artistic expression through words.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://substack.com/@solehblu
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_cry8tal_
• Other: https://www.homcollective.family