Meet Alexia Hill

We recently connected with Alexia Hill and have shared our conversation below.

Alexia, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?

Having a chip on your shoulder, even if maybe a little dramatized, can really push you to get shit done and keep moving.

The chip on my shoulder that I find myself thinking about is that on distribution day for my high school newspaper, I found someone had already thrown away their issue of the newspaper. There it sat, wrestled in between homework pages, breakfast food trays, styrofoam cups and littered with gum on top.

My front page article as Editor In Chief was stained with grease, and crumpled, laying in wait to rot in the trash. That was the first time I truly felt like no one was concerned with what we were doing. Our work felt completely useless. Days of working on design spreads just for someone to look at the front page and toss it.

As I’ve gotten older, this doesn’t sit with me quite as spitefully as it once did. Still, the sentiment of criticism, of working through my fair share of unpaid jobs, of being looked down on all fall under having something to work toward in my eyes.

I’m getting to a point where I don’t want to execute work and creation under this lens. Let it be known that my resiliency also stems from passion, being inspired by the amazing creatives I’ve surrounded myself with, wanting to make myself proud and wanting to consistently grow in my crafts, even if it means being bad at something on the first few attempts. We’re all human after all. The only way to grow is to actually execute and fail and keep trying.

With Obscura (ObscuraZine.com), I know we will have criticisms as we start building out our content and getting the publication into the public eye. I know it’s going to take time to build and grow in an authentic and pure way. I know we all have a lot to learn still. But for me, to be able to host a platform to write what is needed, what is true and uncensored, to have creative freedom in editorials, give back to the community through open forums, and one day, potential and ethical career opportunities, it’s worth it. Resiliency is the foundation to any radical change or transformation, and I think we all naturally have resiliency in the work that divinely needs to be done by YOU specifically.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

Hailing from Phoenix, Arizona, I am a writer, social media Account Manager, PR Account Executive, and Executive Assistant now based in NYC. Admittedly, I am wearing a lot of hats right now, but I align all my work under my personal ethos of: Authenticity, Human Connection, and Creativity. Outside of work, I am a lover of the arts, fashion, culture, coffee, poetry, zine-making, and a good book (shoutout my Upper East Side book club!)

My joy, pride and passion is my latest venture, founding Obscura Magazine.

Obscura is not your regular fashion publication. Molded by both the objective, hard and fast journalism that is so desperately needed, and authentic, oddball editorials, we pursue reporting with an accurate and humanistic approach. We are sparking conversations in our open forums that are unswayed by the industry. Informing, observing, creating and investigating are what we do by centering content on market needs rather than individual brands. Reporting on the good and bad while staying true and unswayed by the big names, we are building a hub for true fashion news and aberrant views.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

If you can learn to be adaptable, respectful, and pay close attention to detail, I think you can perform well in nearly any setting you’re put into. For me, this has always been the case and it has allowed me the ability to take advantage of any opportunity that’s come my way. As for advice, I’m still incredibly early on in my own career as well! I think there is always room to continue learning from people above you AND below you (drop the ego, people). But my advice would be to keep pushing through, but also making sure you advocate for yourself! Take on jobs that challenge you to learn more, ask questions and network, network, network! Whether we like it or not, the creative industry has a “rite of passage” concept that’s been going on a long time. That rite of passage might be interning somewhere that you aren’t learning much or unpaid work, but get as much as you can from these situations. Then, move past them and set clear boundaries as you move forward i.e. you can only do unpaid work for so long! Don’t tolerate it! We’ve got to stop acting like the amount of unpaid or underpaid work that’s being done is normal, but that’s an entire other conversation. If your skills are truly an asset to them, there will always be a way to make a project or job mutually beneficial.

Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?

I am a firm believer that we can accomplish so much more in collaboration rather than in competition. Like, competition for what? It just makes us all the more stressed and misplaces priorities. Despite contrary belief, we can actually ALL create wonderful work and succeed.

On a personal level, I am always looking to collaborate in any way I can! If I can assist on an event/photoshoot, creatively direct, style, create content, assist in PR, or freelance write for you in any capacity, please do feel free to reach out!

For Obscura, we will be on the look-out for creatives including writers, graphic designers, models, photographers, videographers, fashion designers and more! If you have an editorial or pitch for an article that you think may fit Obscura’s scope, please email [email protected].

The act of creating, the process and the challenges are all so beautiful. Sharing that with people is beautiful. If you feel compelled to create something, I believe there’s a reason for it. If you’re feeling hesitant, that’s all the more reason to push through and execute. Our fears and resistance work hard to keep us down, you HAVE to work harder. Find joy in the journey, even if you don’t love the end result. If you get to be creative in any capacity, I beg you, do not take it for granted and just keep doing it, no matter what! Do it for yourself, create and trash it if you must, but don’t ever stop flexing that muscle.

I want to end on a closing note that has recently inspired me from Ira Glass/retold by Bliss Foster in a recent video:

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone had told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there’s this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s just not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer, and your taste is why your own work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work when through this for years. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing we want it to have. We all go through this. If you are just starting out, or you are still in this phase, you got to know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline. It’s only going through a volume of work that you will close that gap and your work will be as good as your ambitions. It’s going to take a while. It’s normal to take a while.”

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