Today we’d like to introduce you to Maya Fuhr.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I was born in Canada, and I started following bright light with flash photography and I now live in Los Angeles when the light is always bright. I’ve had a career shooting fashion, music, subcultures, and a lot of unconventional portraiture, as well as exhibiting sculpture and photography installation. I’ve always cared about making a difference with people, and if that’s through a feeling or relatedness you get from my looking at my photography or through conversations and community built on set. I juggle a lot of different stuff now: recently I founded a nonprofit called CLAYDD where we empower kids through mindfulness and clay work.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Definitely not! Self-motivation can be a total rollercoaster… Especially with ADHD where distraction is a real deterrent sometime. I’ve taught myself to embrace it though and multitask on a lot of different projects at once. Being an artist, it’s not like I can full-time just be creating … I need to focus on communication, having integrity with my schedule, meeting new people – and it’s been overwhelming in the past! Juggling all the different worlds and making a living that enables me to create.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m the founder of CLAYDD – A nonprofit organization that empowers students with special needs and mental health struggles through the healing qualities of clay and mindfulness. I also work in photography and art. I create sculpture installation with my photography and also shoot for lots of magazines.
What are your plans for the future?
I have my first U.S solo exhibiting called Compersion opening on Valentines Day, Feb 14th @ SADE gallery.
In terms of being on set.. The older I get; I realize that I don’t NEED to be the one taking the photo – I enjoy having the vision and working with teams of people who help execute that vision. Ultimately, collaborating is my favourite thing to do. There will be more creative direction in the future! My nonprofit team has really big visions for CLAYDD, and a dream is to have a physical community-run safe space that people can go and play and work with clay and connect with each other. A gallery would be great too!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.mayafuhr.com
- Instagram: @mayafuhr
