We were lucky to catch up with Bianca Lopez recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Bianca thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Do you wish you had started sooner?

The divine timing of my creative journey is very difficult for me to pin-point. I would say to all of you that my creative career started long before my awareness of my creative career and I deeply believe the timing has been in my best interest.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Hello everyone my name is Bianca Lopez born and raised in beautiful Oceanside, Ca. I received a BS in psychology and played Division 1 soccer at The University of the Pacific. I cultivated a deep understanding of advocating for youth and young adults in sports by focusing on performance/sport psychology. As college came to an end I wanted to transition into something that was able to give me the same creative freedom and fuel me passionately. My passion for life and humanity has led me to all the proper endeavors with handfuls of failure and success. My creative journey post-college began to redefine the sense of what creativity was for me, realizing that creativity has always been in my life. As humans, we have been gifted with this ability to create. I have always loved photography since I was a little girl, thanks to my father who showed me the ropes of film photography. Since then I have actively shot film from 35mm to 120mm or 620mm medium format and have been shooting since 2015. I would bring my camera anywhere I went, capturing the world around me, as if I could make any sense of it, and just letting the photo speak for itself.

My love for photography has allowed me to meet others with very different upbringings and creative outlets which pushed me into my more current work. Capturing the diverse communities in my city and listening to the stories of why and how people pursue their creative outlets.

he most recent work I do is heavily centered around community. It’s more of creating some type of event that is creating access for marginalized members of my community and the communities around me.

Working as Ratas Rags a grassroots mutual aid organization that empowers, encourages, and inspires all walks of life. We have been able to do clothing distributions, and clothing swaps, host free art workshops, help with emergency housing for our houseless neighbors, and curate culturally driven art shows and events.

As part of The Silent Disco team, we have been able to create spaces for Djs to play whatever they want and inspire music lovers to dance the night away.

As a soccer coach to high school and middle school young ladies, I have always centered mental health around all my lessons. But to truly empower these young ladies to trust in themselves and to listen to themselves so that they become confident in who they are and their purpose in this world.

If you have an idea and need direction in making it come to life, I always want to be someone who can help others get connected, I deeply believe that my success and the success of others can and should be shared on a community level.

And all these ways that I am human, that I am alive, that I’m living my truth is what I’m most proud of, and to work alongside other people or organizations that are centered around compassion, uplifting and dignifying our brothers and sisters that walk alongside us.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I think the biggest lesson is just believing you are your passions, hobbies, or work. We as humans are so complex that we can not lose ourselves in what we do. Growing up playing soccer I heavily identified as just a soccer player and it held me back because when I was injured or soccer wasn’t going as planned I became very lost in who I was as a person. I ultimately surrounded my entire identity with this one thing I did. So now going forward I versus myself with so many things that don’t necessarily have that same power but give me outlets on what I choose to Center myself in. Grounding oneself in deeper ideals of self has allowed me to step into all kinds of new ways of being or acting. My ancestors and my relationship with them have allowed me to understand my purpose. I want to be me no matter who walks into the room, what obstacles I will face, and when the material things of this world no longer serve me.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

I find it hard to believe that there are non-creatives in this world. I do know that folks think that they are not creative and they are not able to express themselves but there are so many ways in which creativity is born. All I can say is I hope at some point in your life you are exposed to someone or some space that encourages you to get messy, have fun, and be silly, and through your humaneness, you will understand more of your creativity. I have always explained my relationship with soccer so differently than others. I think many of them did see it as just a sport as a hobby. It was a place where I could be angry at the world, where I could channel what I was going through at home and create a beautiful Masterpiece of a play or move. A soccer field was my canvas and I was the paintbrush and every time I moved up and down the field I was creating Strokes. Today the world is my canvas, the relationships I create, the connections I make, and the community that has trust in me are all strokes of paint. So for all the people out there who have not connected with their creativity yet look back at what you do, how you do it, and who you do it with. What are some things that you discover?

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @shooting_through_time @thesilentdisc0 @ratas_rags