Mid-Wilshire Inspiration

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 Mid-Wilshire’s (and K-Town, WeHo, Mid-City) 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 Mid-Wilshire’s rising stars below.

Dawsøn

I got started in music back in high school. Music was my escape, and what began as a passion for creating quickly turned into something bigger. I was part of a group as an artist, but I was also the one who recorded everyone. Read more>>

MICHAEL PIZZOLI

I’ve always believed stories are inherited before they’re written. In my case, it began with a Kodak 16mm camera my grandparents used in the 1930s. My father kept it around the house, along with other cameras that seemed to follow me through childhood. Film, both literally and figuratively, was always present. Read more>>

Marley Powell

My path has never been linear, and I can’t say that’s been intentional. A positive spin on my relationship to school and various jobs I held would be that I’d never felt drawn to the traditional “school-to-career” pipeline. Early on felt more like a series of switchbacks, and setbacks, instead of a straight line. At first it really was not an intentional decision. Read more>>

Tiana Phenix

My story didn’t begin in branding or entrepreneurship it began at six years old, in two very different worlds that shaped me in equally powerful ways. Read more>>

Jen Winning

It all started with a deep desire to build a life that didn’t fit inside the traditional 9–5. I’ve always been drawn to beauty — not just the aesthetics, but the way it transforms someone’s energy and confidence. I just didn’t know at the time that it could be a fruitful career choice. A friend in Utah encouraged me to explore it professionally. Read more>> 

May Charters

My Aussie friends, have dubbed me a ‘slashie’ as I pursue multiple talents in the arts. I am a painter/actor/filmmaker/writer/flamenco dancer/fashion casting director… and counting, haha. I believe we are all artists as children, but society can knock it out of us as we get older, or of course, our passions may lie elsewhere. Read more>>

Gabo Bendana

My story is one of movement—geographic, creative, and personal. I was born in Miami in a Peruvian–Nicaraguan household, and in 2008, during the financial crisis, my family relocated to Santiago, Chile. What was supposed to be a three-year stay turned into a decade that shaped me profoundly. Read more>>

Carolyne Chang

Ever since I was a child, I came from a music and art background; I took piano lessons starting from Kindergarten, I played the flute and sang in my county’s select chorus, I loved to paint and draw, I did ballet, and I even won awards for my creative writing. Read more>>

Jake Atlass

Growing up in a small coastal town of Knokke in Belgium, I always saw music as an escape. I remember really well in the early days of my life I was belly dancing to Shakira in my living room and at the age of 6 Beyoncé’s Live DVD ‘The Beyoncé Experience’ came out and I was obsessed. Read more>>

Jinjara Mitchell

I was born in Palm Springs and grew up between the United States and Canada. I always find this question a little tricky to answer without diving into too much detail, but the short version is this: I lost my dad when I was six years old, and although my family appeared outwardly privileged, our home life was full of turmoil. Read more>>

Carlo Parducho

I did my first photography job in 2009, shooting a cookbook cover and food images. After that, I bounced around different freelance gigs — restaurant features for a newspaper, an author portrait, construction site documentation — basically anything that paid one of my bills. A few months later, I was offered a full-time in-house photography job and took it because #steadypaycheck. Read more>>

Jacquie Aiche

I’ve always been drawn to gemstones and minerals. Even as a little girl I would spend hours collecting treasures in my background and turning them into jewelry for my family. I fell in love with the freedom of playing with Mother Nature’s magic…Years later, while working in my boutique, I found it hard to find jewelry that felt sensual, feminine and natural. Read more>>

Kristen Rutherford

My husband bought me my first Nikon SLR back in the late 90’s and I fell in love with it immediately. I brought it everywhere we went. We moved from NYC to LA and I was working steadily as a television writer on game shows, info-tainment shows, award shows, talk shows – the kinds of scripts people don’t realize are written. Read more>>

Ashley Lowe- Simmons

Dr. Ashley built her practice from a deep commitment to compassionate, culturally attuned mental health care, shaped by her passion for helping people heal from the inside out. Her own upbringing, where money meant both safety and silence, taught her the emotional weight of finances, a burden she carried even as a therapist. Read more>>

ANITRA MICHELLE

I was born in Detroit Michigan and grew up in DMV (Specifically Maryland); I always thought I wanted to be a Cardiothoracic Surgeon. I applied and attended Howard University in Washington DC and completed a Dual Degree in Biology & Chemistry. I had worked in hospitals during that time, but eventually got a job at Diesel in Georgetown in DC.  Read more>>

Saxon Logan

For reasons unknown, film making has been a vocation for me, not a career. I knew I always wanted to make films; erroneously, when I was very young I thought the actors made the films but after seeing Zulu and Lawrence of Arabia ( and reading background material) I realised that the Director was ultimately the ‘author’ of a film. Read more>>

Cort King

I’m a professional actor, musician and performance artist from Atlanta. i’ve been living in LA for 11 years now. I moved to LA with the goal in mind to take my acting career to the next level. Along the way I’ve been fortunate enough to book some pretty big jobs: I’ve starred in national commercials for Ford, Toyota, & Reese’s. Read more>>