Recently I had the chance to shoot with one of my new favorite creators: Brittney Cross. The owner of Uncommon Interior Design, Cross is a designer with big things in the works. Her flair for fun and bold design was evident in the character of her work.
Creator Studio and Content House
After we photographed her recent work at a community living center where she transformed a dining hall into a fun and vibrant space, we shot an interview and portrait of her friend, the artist Briannah Hart at Brittney’s home and studio. Stay tuned for more content from our shoot and to learn more about this creative space and these two dynamic creatives.
My dreams? Heh-heh-heh… I think the easiest one to start with is the ones I’m having while I’m sleeping. I’d say it’s more like colors and shapes. Sometimes, it’s the I’m falling dreams, sometimes I have a little more control, more lucid dreams.
I find after I wake there’s still some regret—regret that I didn’t take more advantage and there were some arbitrary parameters. I can only fly so high, or I can only fly as far as I can exert myself. It’s a thing I’ve been able to do on and off for many years. It kind of happens when I’m very tired, and I’m drifting in and out, and I’m trying to sleep. I’m kind of aware, so there’s like this meta-awareness already that sleep just happened or I was just dreaming. I think of it as like feathering myself into sleep, and I say I have control over this domain at this point.
You know, after Covid, my goals in life are a little more short-term. I’ve put things more into perspective. My goals are to keep my eyes on the road and not the horizon, to steer into the turns a little bit better, and maybe not to feel that I have control over what’s over the horizon, and just kind of go for the ride.
What’s the most important work you are doing?
My work is to harvest more joy out of each month. I deal with a lot of chronic pain. The best part of the work I’m doing is engaging with others. I get a lot of vicarious joy. I use humor.
The biggest challenge is perspective, is to not take hardships of the day and project them into the future. Doom and gloom. And this is as we are pulling out of Covid. To not think that this is going to last forever. Keep perspective in mind. Time moves forward and with that there is opportunity for change.
What is your current opinion of Santa Cruz?
That we are at the precipice of big change. Especially downtown—I’ve been a downtown resident since ’97. I see a lot of housing developments going on down the street, and I’m really excited about that. Cautiously optimistic. I’m hoping that we get ore small businesses that can support the needs of folks that maybe don’t have cars and therefore it become even more functional than it is already.
Maybe that’s naïve, but I’m probably a minority in that I’m optimistic and that things are going to get better. We’ll have more options, more variety. Stores may stay open later, who knows?
Mmmm… only sometimes—not often. I’d say not often.
Do you have any dreams you remember?
Not really, only from when I was a kid. This one particular dream—it was the mailman was coming but he was like, he looked like one of the balloons in the Macy’s Day parade and it was like him and his mailcart were like a giant slow floating Macy’s Day parade-type of golf or postal truck and then the mailman would come out and throw the mail really slowly and everything was like these giant Macy’s Day parade float envelopes.
And, that’s what I remember. I used to call it the “mail dream.” It was actually scary. I would have to go sleep with my parents. But otherwise no, I don’t really recall.
Do you have any dreams or goals you want to accomplish in life?
In life? Just to see stuff, do stuff—not like be totally sedentary.
What’s the most important work you’re doing?
Mmmm… I’m a stay-at-home mom. Yep, running the household.
What’s the best part about your work?
Well, it always evolves. A lot of evolving and changing, I’m always busy putting out all kinds of fires, and it’s never the same day. Everything’s different, so that’s fun.
What’s the most challenging part?
There’s no real break, so that’s probably a big challenge. But, it’s not really that challenging, I’ve gotta say at this stage—pretty easy.
What’s your current opinion of Santa Cruz?
Well, I love Santa Cruz and I’ve lived here for almost thirty years. And I’ve seen it do all kinds of ups and downs. And, I did just read that according to the 2023 census that Santa Cruz is the second highest growing city in the United States, which is nuts. So, it’s pretty crazy I think Santa Cruz is going to change in the next twenty years, I don’t think it’s going to be the Santa Cruz that we know. I think we’re going to be the Malibu to San Jose. So, I love it ,but I don’t think it’s going to stay—I don’t think it’s going to stay the way it’s been. I think a lot of people are going to get pushed out, sadly.
Short, A long E accent on the second syllable. A common French name. But the French spelled it A-l-i-n-e and mine is A-l-e-n-e–a namesake for a great aunt on my father’s side who didn’t have any children.
So, they said, okay, if it’s a girl, will name her after you.
Well, I wish to God I could remember them more vividly–in my thirties and forties I remembered my dreams.
But I do remember erotic dreams, which are very rare. Or the strange dreams.
I had one that’s on my mind every day. And I got a call. I’m trying to find a somebody to interpret it for me.
It was horrible. It was in a I was sitting in the back of a van of six-seater van of sorts.
Somebody was driving. I didn’t know the people in the front, just I was traveling and this ugly, ugly man.
I now know where that comes from. He represented all the homeless men I’ve seen out and about. But this man was smearing human feces on my jacket, shirt, torso.
And I screamed to the people in the front. Help me. Help me. And nobody came to help.
You can interpret that a lot of ways.
Yes. I still want to write a book that I started 30 years ago.
A nonfiction book about the second oldest job in the world, known as Sex Work.
I have published three self-published poetry books, and I write lots of poetry and like to orate it.
Loving and nurturing my cat, taking care of and helping neighbors, taking care of nurturing my plants.
We’re still in a supposedly a drought.
But I wish to start cultivating vegetables, if not in a plot, a small plot, at least by containers. One can do small cultivations on my little deck porch–little deck patio, and, well, every day we work at staying alive.
Well, my favorite work is composing poetry, which has to come to you in sort of a dream state, like a self-hypnosis.
Getting around to doing it.
I’ll jot down inspiration. But then–
And then maybe it’ll all come out. I’ve got, two or three now, works in progress that have to be fully crafted.
Oh, and I’m crazy about photography, but it’s expensive, so.
Oh, they’re so darling. Oh, three in a row.
Too goddamn crowded. I love it, though. It’s fascinating. People, other ethnicities, other countries visiting and and I’m thrilled with having made friends with a Punjab, Indian mother and her daughter who run a motel.
That’s all delightful. I thrive on diversity.
So many goddamn people and I’m scared. I hate all this horrible high-rise construction.
And I don’t want to see Santa Cruz–I predicted 30 years ago. How are we going to be another Carmel for just rich white people?
Or a miniature San Diego. But if we’re where we are with the building, the skinny skyscrapers per say, little ones, we’re too small to be another San Diego. I remember somebody joked years ago saying, “Yeah, let’s expand Santa Cruz, take over Monterrey and put an airport in a big airport in Davenport and a big zoo.”
Big like a San Diego Zoo in Davenport and a bigger airport here in Monterrey. And it’ll be a miniature San Diego. And I’m religious about conserving water and energy and recycling. But now there’s so much–we need to get rid of plastic all together, not to even make it. And I mean even produce it that way.
There’re not enough things to do with the recycled plastic. I learned from a BBC broadcast.
So, I guess that’s that.
Thank you. And I, if you see anybody out there, see me out and about with my postcards, come look at them and buy one–very unique photography.
And if you don’t mail anything anymore, you can use it as a bookmark or decoration, an ornament, a visual in your living space.
