We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Storm Nguyen. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Storm below.
Storm, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.
I believe my purpose as a young creative and individual stems from my upbringing and childhood. I was born and raised by Immigrant Parents from Vietnam in a culturally diverse neighborhood located in the City of Seattle. Growing up, my family has instilled the value of carving my own path as I continue to learn and develop my mindset and skills everyday. They have always emphasized to me that happiness is achievable when I can understand myself and what I experience. Purpose I feel is often a hard term or experience to define for many people because “purpose” as a concept is an extremely non-linear journey and I believe that it is really relevant when it comes to my own life story.
Coming to embrace my gender identity, ethnic heritage and even my own creativity are all a non-linear journey filled with ups and downs.
I think purposes can change depending on the season of life but in this current chapter of my life, I would relatively define my purpose as a human being is to inspire. I recently graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Cultural Studies (with a concentration in Art) and minors in Fashion and Psychology. I use this background of mine everyday in my current full-time role working as a Youth Development Specialist for a Counseling Agency specializing in care and social services catered to BiPOC. The motivation for me to pursue this kind of career I believe stems from my childhood experiences. I recall having so many mentors in my formative years that always consistently emphasized the importance of embracing my own identity. This sentiment had such a huge impact on me as a young kid who had so many aspirations but had quite a hard time figuring out what it was that I wanted to do especially when it came to my own creative outlets.
In addition to my full-time role, I am also a fashion photographer and creative director– a pursuit that I would say my younger self has always dreamed of having. My work and creative expressions work in tandem with each other–
I receieved the same type of social service as a Queer youth of color (the kind of support that motivated me to pursue my creative passions without limitations) that I now currently provide to this generation’s queer youth of color and I feel this is where my purpose has been calling me since graduating college.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
My name is Storm Nguyen (they/he), I am a 22 year old and I work a 9am to 5pm as a Youth Development Specialist for a nonprofit Social Service and Counseling Agency serving BiPOC and Immigrant/Refugee communities. Outside of my full-time day job, I am dedicated to a 5pm to 9pm career as a Fashion Photographer, Journalist and Creative Director based in Seattle, Washington. I recently graduated from Seattle Pacific University in the Summer of 2023 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Social Justice/Cultural Studies (w/ a concentration in Art) and minors in Fashion Design/Merchandising and Psychology.
I was born and raised to Immigrant Vietnamese parents in South Seattle. As a child I had a variety of creative interests and recall becoming heavily immersed in the world of Fashion– spending many nights watching my mother (who belongs to a long lineage of seamstresses back in the motherland) sew clothes in the kitchen. Being raised under their roof, my mother was very proactive in nurturing my mind and often supported my interests by signing me up for extracurriculars in school. Coming from a low-income background, it was important to my mother that I could fully utilize the resources that were available around the community and in the schools I attended. As such, I garnered a wide range of interests and hobbies from Acting, Creative Writing, Drawing & Painting and even Painting. This attention towards nurturing my mind also encompassed enrolling me in extra academic lessons outside of school. Although looking back– being put into more tutoring wasn’t necessarily an appealing experience to my younger self’s playful and lively personality but nonetheless this initiative drilled a habit of prompt studying which managed to stick through my college years.
One of the activities that my mother enrolled me for was a healthy relationships and substance abuse awareness youth summer program which funnily enough is managed by the Counseling agency I now currently have a full-time job at.
The South Seattle area is one of the most culturally and ethnically diverse area codes in the country and I have grown to hold so much respect for teachers, mentors and non-profit organizations that dedicate so much of their time to this community. I can confidently describe my K-12 academic experience as extremely formative of who I have become today in part to the professionals that serve youth in this area. Particularly, it was quite meaningful to have adults in my life other then my parents that were passionate about supporting young students. Due to my sense of comfort from these professionals, I have grown comfortably into my identity as a Queer Vietnamese American and am now providing this same type of support to LGBTQIA+ youth of color in my current role.
Outside of my full-time day job, I am actively pursuing my passion career as a Fashion Photojournalist and Creative Director. An artistic medium that I would say originated from joining Yearbook/Journalism my senior year of high school (2018). Interestingly enough, I took the class on as an elective solely so I could learn how to photograph a fashion design collection I conceptualized and created the summer before senior year. Although I do not practice design as a main creative medium anymore- it introduced me to what I would eventually decide to be my main focus in my journey as an Artist.
My humble beginnings in the medium of photography started off with fun mini portrait sessions after school but this soon eventually evolved.
In the summer of 2020, several months after the start of the worldwide pandemic, I joined an arts, fashion and music publication called Ricespice Mag, centered around Asian American creatives and made by other young Asian American creatives around the country as a Staff photographer. Through this outlet, I had the opportunity to share my work which often explores and poses questions related to identity and expression.
My brand of photography and aesthetic can be described as vividly colorful and nostalgic and is rooted in a message of celebration and embracing of transformative human experiences. With each photography project I crafted, I would accompany it with a written piece that further illustrates the message in which I aimed to capture through my photos. As COVID restrictions loosened, I gradually expanded my breadth of work with Ricespice magazine through conducting concert and fashion photography and interviews. This allowed me to conduct conversations and also capture images with/of critically acclaimed Asian American artists that are making waves in their respective crafts. This expansion granted me opportunities to partake in a. variety of amazing experiences including covering New York Fashion Week and music festivals. In 2022, I started serving as the Style & Merchandising Director of RiceSpice Magazine and oversee the publication’s fashion sector.
In 2023, I became less active in the RiceSpice community to further develop my own photographer/journalist career as “The Morning Rainstorm” where I have chosen to focus my work more on highlighting and collaborating with other Creatives located in the Seattle area. As of the past few years, the fashion scene in Seattle amongst Generation Z has slowly begin to rise and I have become dedicated to contributing to the presence that many other creatives are focused on highlighting in the city’s artistic industries.
Since establishing “The Morning Rainstorm”, I have had my work published in international fashion publications, interviewed with up and coming Seattle Fashion designers and collaborated with Seattle based musicians.
What is especially exciting about what I do in both my 9am to 5pm and 5pm to 9am is that no matter the task, I am able to tap into the creative freedom and expression I have desired ever since I was a child and this is what I find the most fulfilling about what I do through all the highs and lows of my schedule.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
I believe the three qualities or skills that were most impactful to my journey thus far are Passion, Community-Driven and Open-Minded. I find that I am privileged and blessed to say I find so much meaning in the work I do in my 9am – 5pm. Being in the non-profit world, there is so much heart and passion that serves as reasoning for many individuals when it comes to why they choose to keep working in this field. Similarly when it comes to my creative career, despite stability in this profession being uncertain for many– I often find the emotional euphoria I experience in being bale to translate stories and feelings into tangible bodies of work that also have the potential to inspire and move other people is so gratifying. I would not continue to pursue my creative career without the true passion I have of being able to make meaningful art.
For the second quality, I believe that many of my professional decisions are often informed in how I can best serve community. Whether that is the schools I grew up in, the neighborhoods or even the communities in which my identities belong to- communities are such an integral part of the human experience and I believe these spaces offer so much enlightenment and perspective. Communities have shaped me into who I am today in so many ways and in both faucets of my work, I find it is my duty to curate what I do in the interest of building on this aspect of community.
For the third quality, I think it is really important to remain open-minded and this is again extremely applicable in both faucets of my work. In my day-to-day profession, I work with such a wide demographic of youth that face a variety of challenges and struggles that it requires me to remain open-minded and receptive in order to understand and best assist them. Similarly with my creative career in which so much of my work is heavily centered around storytelling and amplifying the perspectives of other creatives and people; the quality of being open-minded has allowed me to enhance my abilities to reflect and discern. This is something that has not only greatly benefited my professional life but my personal life as well.
What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?
Balancing two careers and also finding time to partake in hobbies and self-care/rest has proven to be particularly challenging at times and is often a source of feeling overwhelmed for me. Whenever I find myself in this state of mind, one of my favorite things to do is drive to a scenic location, turn on some music in the car and just sit and sing. By no means would I consider myself a professional singer or anything but I believe music is one of the art forms that is just so naturally therapeutic and healing (as much as it can be traumatic) but in so many ways, I see music as a form of escape and it is extremely helpful for me to do this while I am in an environment that is not directly tied to any obligation I am feeling. Kind of like— it’s just me, the view and my music playlist. I find that this strategy is most effective for me as I am an active person and don’t find that silent meditation fully nurtures my soul nor does journaling since I spend so much of my time in my careers writing.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.themorningrainstorm.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stcrmsworld/?hl=en
- Other: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/storm-nguyen-2489581b0/ Portfolio: https://stormsworld.myportfolio.com RiceSpice Magazine: https://www.ricespicemag.com
Image Credits
Personal Photo: Austin Matzelle (@austinmatzelle on Insta)
