We recently connected with Marissa Ayala and have shared our conversation below.
Marissa, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?
I am a writer, researcher, and visual artist, living in Austin, Texas. I lead The East Austin Writing Project, which is a literary arts community that I’ve developed over the course of five years, and it’s based on the practice of writing as a collaborative act. My mission with this community, which has over 2k members, is to provide free and/or affordable arts programming for local residents and creatives and establish pathways for local artists to earn equitable wages.
The East Austin Writing Project is a 100% volunteer initiative and it’s a project based on my passion as an experimental writer, poet, and multimedia artist. Growing up I was a dancer and studied photography and writing earning a Bachelor Degree in creative writing with a focus on experimental fiction from Naropa University, a Master of Fine Arts for experimental fiction at the New School and a Master of Science with a focus on cognitive psychology, and child development, from Hunter College.
My career started in publishing and then pivoted to education, innovative research focused on improving the lives of individuals with disabilities, and research that impacted local, state, and federal education policy with a focus on supporting the most under-resourced schools and communities in New York City.
Six years ago, I transitioned to a role in tech. Currently, I am a researcher building the foundation of UX Research at onX and prior to this I was a researcher at Meta and USAA.
Marissa, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
My writing exists in the intersection of language and art and I’m most proud of being able to build a vibrant arts community focused on process, connection, and exploring one’s voice.
I started arts programming when living in NYC. The began as partnerships based on other things I was involved in with my community. I had founded an urban farming program at my elementary school and partnered with the Battery Conservancy to do so. I thought it would be fun to lead nature-writing workshops related for environmentalism and the farm to table movement so I asked them if I could do so with them. They loved the idea so I spent weekends doing that.
At the same time, I launched a multi-media art project as part of an online publication and was invited to be in a group show at Pen + Brush gallery, a 130-year-old publicly supported not-for-profit fighting for gender equity in the arts, and from there I partnered with them and I designed ekphrastic writing workshops as the gallery’s teaching artist.
In this partnership, I led free writing workshops, shared my work at literary readings held in their gallery, and hosted events with the Poetry Society of New York bringing Pen + Brush workshop participants to read their work as part of the NYC Poetry Festival. I was also active in the NYC literary scene and was invited to read at different venues around the city.
At one reading, a curator from the Archives of American Art Smithsonian Institute attended and invited me to their art archives to conduct primary research on color theory artists. I spent a week in Washington, DC with the private notebooks and writings of Rudolph Schaeffer, Josef Albers and Stanton Macdonald-Wright.
Drawn to Austin’s music and arts scene I moved here without work and learned about something called UX Design. This ended leading to a career as a researcher in tech. Once I landed my first role as a UX Researcher, I joined the first session of a new writing group called The East Austin Writing Project. A few months later the organizer moved and asked me if I’d like to continue to run it.
What began as a 10 person group in 2018, has grown into an over 2k community of writers and creatives that I organize across Instagram, WhatsApp, Substack, and Meetup. Something I am proud of is that I was interviewed by an editor at Poets & Writers Magazine, the largest magazine for the literary publishing community with a readership of over 100,000 nationwide, and am featured in their March/April 2022 edition focused on our writing group, The East Austin Writing Project.
Since then, we’ve grown quite a lot and I run two free writing workshops a month, a literary salon called ‘Poetry Night Collective,’ which is a collective of multi disciplinary artist and our shared medium is poetry, and I launched a performance series during SXSW. This September, I’ll have two teaching artists lead the current workshops and open up two new section for Intermediate/Advanced poets and writers focused on publishing and craft.
While my main focus is to provide free/affordable access to arts programming and for working artists to earn equitable wages, I also partner with locally owned businesses in East Austin as venues to host writing workshops and our performing arts events. Our current partnership is with Dear Diary Coffee, a vegan woman-owned cafe + art market that is a safe-space for the LGBTQIA+ community and home to 40+ local artists, and a neighborhood art gallery where we hosted our SXSW performance.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
My mission with the East Austin Writing Project is to create a sustainable arts program that continues to provide free/affordable access to the arts with pathways for working artists to earn equitable wages for teaching, producing, and performing. To make this happen, I’ve applied for grant funding from the City of Austin’s Cultural Division.
My goal for how people experience workshops and events is to discover different pathways into their art. An example of this is in a recent East Austin Writing Project workshop I brought in vintage Kodak film slides to use for the prompt. Writers randomly selected one or two and explored the images by holding them up to the light. They photographed them and explored how this non-everyday object felt in their hands. The prompt was to somehow include the slides in their 20-minute write.
Another example of this for writing is that this weekend we’ll write from scent. Each writer will randomly select an unlabeled scent, close their eyes, smell it and see what image/emotion/sensation occurs within them. They will then write a narrative based on how the scent impacted them.
I guess what drives my art practice is exploration – taking in the world in a way that feels different or new.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
The most rewarding aspect of being an artist and a creative is the sense of freedom and play that making provides. It creates a sense of expansiveness.
My writing and creative practices are a huge part of who I am and it’s always been important for me to maintain some type of art practice due to how it impacts my mind, emotions, and physical state. I recently read, ‘Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us,’ by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross, scientifically explains how our bodies and brains respond to different art forms, known as a relatively new field of science called ‘neuroaesthetics’. This book really bridged my focus on cognitive psychology as a researcher with my need for art.
The East Austin Writing Project has become such a large part of my life as an artist and as an East Austin resident. And I’m really happy about that.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://eastaustinwrites.substack.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eastaustinwrites/
- Other: https://www.threads.net/@marissaanneayala
Image Credits
Featured art is by Marissa Anne Ayala