We recently connected with Alexa Hendrickson and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Alexa thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Are you happier as a creative? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job? Can you talk to us about how you think through these emotions?

This is a topic I think about often. Growing up, I always thought I would pursue musical theatre, but I also had major book smarts. My junior year, I let outside voices convince me to keep theatre as a hobby and go to college for something “secure”. I applied and was accepted to UNC Chapel Hill for Biomedical Engineering, but it did not take long after that for me to realize I would never be happy working outside of the arts. I would always have the “what-ifs” rolling around my brain. So I decided to defer and instead went to Western Carolina University for Theatre.

After graduating, I moved to New York and really fought for my place in the theatre industry as a plus-sized woman, but after years of obstacle after obstacle and exhaustion induced by working a full-time serving job to pay my bills while also having to put in full time hours as an actor taking dance classes, voice lessons, and waiting for hours to audition, I was forced to come to the conclusion that I was not happy.

This has led to many thoughts about how different my life would be if I had pursued Biomedical Engineering. I would probably be far more comfortable financially, but would that be the thing to make me happy with my career? I grew up financially insecure and always thought having that experience under my belt would make it easier to be a “starving artist” but instead it just made me hungrier for a comfortable life where I do not have to wonder if I have enough money in my account to buy an Uber home on a late night. Each time I have these thoughts, it always ends in me realizing the extra money would not be enough to balance out the loss of my art. Sure, it could be a side project, but I believe firmly in my purpose on this earth being art. I cannot turn my back on that.

So what can make me happier as an artist? There are multiple answers that I am discovering for myself. First, I need the art to feel like it is mine. That is something I never got as an actor. It always felt like the work belonged to someone else (and while this is true for me, I recognize this experience is personal to me and not every actor.) The second answer is the ability to enjoy the little things. Time to cook a homemade meal, a week to travel to a new country, the ability to have a dog, new tattoos, a career that is less comparison and competition centered, all things I never had while pursuing acting. Unfortunately, I think the third and final answer is money, but I still firmly believe I am happier as an artist than I would have been otherwise.

Alexa, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

After coming to the realization that acting was no longer working for me, I broke down why I was invested in musical theatre in the first place. The conclusion? I just love to sing and dance, but I wanted to sing what I want rather than songs I am told to sing. I wanted to write my own music and use it as a journal to get me through the hard stuff and see even more beauty in the good stuff. As for dance, I had to face the hard reality that I have an connective tissue autoimmune disease called Ehler’s Danlos, and I would put doing myself a major disservice by continuing to put my body through the stress of dancing to my absolute maximum abilities in auditions where I am fighting for a job, let alone dancing eight shows a week. This point was really driven home when I severely sprained my ankle in an audition last fall. I realized, I would be just as happy, if not happier, to leave dance for taking and teaching classes, allowing myself to evaluate how I am feeling that day without the pressure of needing to push my body past its limits.

Additionally, I have always loved photography. I grew up in a home with a photographer dad and photographer sister, but it never occurred to me that maybe I wanted to do photography too until I realized the magnetism I felt to the work of Marcus Lloyd. I loved it so much that it posed the question, “Is this something I should be doing?” I have always wanted to travel and have never had the ability to due to finances, so what if I can travel for work?

Lastly, at the start of the year, I stumbled into a job writing blogs for a few different businesses, and it made me remember the joy I felt in school researching and writing about a topic as well as just creative writing, telling people’s stories; telling my own stories. And while this all may sound like a lot, the vision is very clear for what I see for my life now; clearer than it ever was as an actor. I can do it all. I do not need to stifle part of myself and my passions because the world says so.

The second this vision came into focus and I started taking action with it, opportunities started lining up to sing jazz around New York City, to travel to places I had never been, to teach dance classes, to write. I began sharing more body positivity posts on Instagram and have received countless messages from people telling me how I am inspiring them to broaden their view of what they are allowed to wear as curvy bodied people.

So to answer the question of what I do and what I offer, I do a lot!

I am a proudly curvy plus-sized woman who strives to inspire others by normalizing the fact that I am no less healthy at my weight than I would be if I weighed a hundred pounds less and proving that self-expression through fashion is still possible in a bigger body.

I am a singer-songwriter, creating my first album that will be released within the next year, using music as a journal for the good and the bad I have experienced and grown through. In the meantime, I am also singing jazz live around the city with my next show at 8:00pm at The Delancey on July 25th.

I am a photographer, traveler, and writer, currently building my own blog to add to the other blogs I write. I tell stories. I bring life to the stories of other people and places. I once heard photography is the art of observing, and that is exactly what I do. I photograph those simple joys I have been chasing after, and I offer the perspective of a plus sized woman experiencing a life of travel, fine dining, and easy living only ever advertised by women half my size. We deserve to experience all of that too.

Through all of this, I have found such peace in being myself, leaving behind the pressure of feeling the need to fit into someone else’s vision. I have big goals for myself and am making steady progress to achieve these goals.

One last goal I would like to mention is my plan to open a creative co-working and live music lounge. More to come on that in a few years.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

In November of 2023, I woke up in the middle of the night to a smoke-filled room and the fire alarm going off. The building attached to mine had completely gone up in flames and smoke was pouring in through my open bedroom window and the hatch to the roof in my hall closet.

I lost almost everything due to soot and smoke damage, and while my renter’s insurance covered a lot of it, it didn’t cover everything including most of my electronics like my recording equipment and cameras. This was devastating as I had just started to grow my skills as a photographer.

In the first few weeks, I was feeling absolutely hopeless as I slept on friends’ couches and tried to distract myself by going to audition after audition, which only added a feeling of being unseen to the mix. As time went on and I spent more time unpacking everything with my therapist, my vision of what I see for my life and the things I needed to leave behind became more and more clear. I came to the conclusion that I needed the fire. I wanted to get a tattoo to commemorate this time in my life, and suddenly I knew it needed to be a butterfly. I didn’t know why I felt so strongly about it being a butterfly until I googled to see if there was a significance of butterflies and fires. As it turns out, monarch butterflies need wildfires because they thrive on the regrowth of a forest after one. I do not know what greater sign I could have asked for to know I am on the right path.

So that is the process I am going through now: learning how to thrive in the regrowth after the fire.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

I fully see the importance of social media for businesses and creatives. I think it is an incredibly powerful tool, but it can also be used as a weapon when it comes to basing an artist’s worth on their following. You see it all the time in the theatre world where it comes down to two actors and the one with the higher following gets the job or the agent. I see the logic in this, but it leads to the same few people always being given the spotlight.

So many people have perspectives that need to be shared. By pulling back the weight we place on an artist’s social media following, we can let the art speak for itself and give a lesser known artist a platform to build their following. Different audiences will connect with different people, so let’s begin to trust that hiring new underground artists can actually broaden the audience for everyone involved in a project.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://alexa-hendrickson-photography.client-gallery.com/gallery/portfolio/alexas-portfolio
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alexa_hendrickson/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexa-hendrickson
• Other: Currently working on transferring my website to a new host. Once this is done in the next week or so, it will be live at www.alexahphotosandsocial.comI listed my personal instagram where I will be highlighting my blog, fashion, and body positivity content, but here is my photography account as well: https://www.instagram.com/alexahphotosandsocial/

Image Credits

Singing Photo: Raelyn Brielle Photography
Others: Alexa Hendrickson