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Abbot Kinney Blvd

<h1>The balance between work and play </h1>
It’s at times extremely hard to balance building a brand and doing the things you love. It’s even harder to take the things you love and build a brand around them. It’s a risky venture. You can easily pigeonhole your self. The people you share interest with will fall into one of two categories. 

1. Your interest is large and has a large base of people that share interest in this activity. 

2. Your interest is small and a small base of people share this activity as a interest. 

Clearly the second category isn’t ideal for someone building a brand around something they consider fun but it’s all about what you consider fun right? If you are doing what you love you will succeed no mater what right?? I personally like to invest that energy into my project. In many ways I feel my brand is sort of a unicorn. I’m lucky that my hobby is shared by millions of people around the world but the more the shop is in existence the more I fine that even people who have never spent a night under the stars connect with it. People who have never even seen a adventure sprinter before. Even my new apparel is crossing borders with the fans. ￼i hope things continue on this path:) less of a story and more of a vent today haha but stoked to put it in a mag.

Magma makes every moment matter. Create digital, mini-magazines to share your life’s greatest experiences.

Campfire CULTure - creating a balance in branding..  — @undefined's mag on Magma

Cars

Crafts

Venice

<h1>Art of the pivot </h1>
How to change your work environment to fit the future

Over the last year we have all found our selves in a interesting predicament. Covid has caused some major restructuring in certain markets. My last Magma mag focused on how my imagery is evolving. How sometimes change is ￼necessary in order to reconnect with creativity when the our passion becomes stagnant. What I didn’t cover in that mag was the fact that I’ve been a Barber my whole life. Much like photo, barbering is a art. It’s something I use to get the creative juices flowing. It’s also a therapeutic outlet for my self and my clients. A place where we can talk about our world in a comfortable environment without having to feel judgment. Ultimately it’s a place that you should leave looking and feeing amazing. Covid took that for almost a year. Our safe space of conversation and relaxation disappeared into a world of stress and solitude like a harsh winter storm. 
 For those unfamiliar my name is Ryan Rich and I had several barbershops in LA up until a law change forced my buy out at the end of 2018. Although I stayed behind the chair at a shop located on Rose ave in Venice beach I knew I craved different. I was feeling like the conversation with friends in the chair was the only part of the day that I truly looked forward to which isn’t a good feeling when your job is to perform service and the service come secondary to the conversation￼. I knew it was time for a change. Even throughout 2019 I was trying to figure out what my new move was. I craved environment that was solely ￼mine, one on one, and sparked creativity.￼
 I had designed a floor plan for mobile Barbershop early on in 2019. The project overall was unrealistically expensive for a single chair Barbershop. I was looking into other spaces as viable options to put a single chair Barbershop.￼ I found a few locations that would fit my needs but never ended up pulling the trigger on the paperwork... 
 Then the world changed in a dramatic way. Covid forced mass closures￼￼￼￼ of the hair industry. All of a sudden a single chair Barbershop on wheels didn’t seem all that expensive of an idea. I went out and bought a sprinter van. ￼￼

I had a lot of familiarity with sprinter vans from my adventures and road trips over the years. It was actually a dream vehicle of mine. You can do so much with the sprinters. You can make them in the rugged off-road beasts or long glide tried and true roadmaster campers. Through this love of the sprinter chassis I had learned quite a bit about what exactly you need to have to run a successful power set up, insulation, and creature comforts￼￼￼￼￼￼.

Now my dream of having a sprinter was manifesting in a different way. 
 I wasn’t ready to separate from my dream. I needed my sprinter to be a fully functioning mobile barbershop￼￼￼ and adventure rig. I called my good friend ran over a van speed shop in Costa Mesa California to run my idea past him. he had never done a Mobil Barbershop before it was open ears to hearing my idea and with the solid floorplan and his knowledge of these incredible machines we would embark on one of the most unique barbershops the world had ever seen￼￼￼.

Upon completion we have been hit with such an overwhelming amount of support from not only the community but strangers on social media who simply have invested into the project and find it exciting, new, and different.

I finally have a space this fully moldable and impossible to get Stale in. It’s pure creativity in the truest truest form in the work coming out of it shows that. I’m located in Venice Beach on Abbot Kinney three days a week￼￼.

Art Of The Pivot — @undefined's mag on Magma

<h1>Los Angeles ca. </h1>

 I’ve been very blessed in this life to brush elbows with some of the most creative and successful minds this world has to offer. I’ve worked with Neal Preston, been on photo shoots with Mick Fleetwood, had wine with some of the worlds best graffiti artists, and cut the hair of half the Celeberty circles in Los Angeles. This story isn’t about them tho... this story is of one man who in my opinion ￼ embodies creativity and positive expression. My friend Griffin Loop. 
 I first met Griffin in 2019 at a gathering for my friend Spencer (the Unlikely Florist) and a new mag that was launching in the West Side of LA. At first I thought that Spencer had expanded his studio to the garage next door as both doors were open and people were freely floating between both venues. I was making my way over to the other door to check out the vibe when I ran into spencer out front. After about five minutes of talking to Spencer about the success of the event I made mention of the new space. “The expansion looks awesome Spence!” I exclaimed. Spencer stopped me there and explained that space belonged to a man named Griffin Loop, a artist who’s medium was welding and design.

Spencer said “come I would love to introduce you” and little did I know I was about to meet one of the most amazing people I had ever met.

What makes Griffin so amazing in my eyes is probably partly relativity in a large part. Both of us are tall with lots of tattoos and are often mistaken for people to steer clear of. You can sense the warrior spirit in this individual ￼immediately after entering the room without having ever spoken a word to him. His presence is BIG... like... REALLY FUCKING BIG! But once the conversation begins like my self you really get a￼ insight for the man. This man is kind and￼ his presence is that of a older brother. It’s a odd feeling meeting someone and ￼ immediately knowing this person has your back and best interests at heart. ￼
 His work is metal fabrication and makes a multitude of different shapes and patterns although it quickly becomes clear what his main project is. In front of me is a 30 foot tall sheet metal paper airplane. You might find these across the country in a open field of a mountain pass or at a museum. It’s awe inspiring and the message behind it is just as incredible. LAUNCH INTENTION he calls it. Griffin will ask you what is your intention? A question that is powerful and sometimes hard to ￼answer￼. It leaves you pondering what your next moves might be for your self and for this world. He is a great man and I recommend you check him out on his Instagram. 

<a href="https://instagram.com/griffinloop?igshid=1qcymwd1uayce">https://instagram.com/griffinloop?igshid=1qcymwd1uayce</a>

Launch intention... my friend Griffin Loop  — @undefined's mag on Magma

Malibu

<h1>Rebirth </h1>
Images by Ryan Rich
Instagram @maninthepine

It’s a trip... this creative life I’ve been blessed to live. Not everyone gets to have creativity or the ability to create. If you have it then you will fully understand the weight of the words I’m about to write. Artistic Rebirth, Creative Evolution, ￼ Stylistic transition... Words that explain a ￼transitionary ￼moment in ones art when they shift from one style of body of work to another. 
 For my self I’ve spent the last 5 years creating content centered around Nature, adventure and the outdoors. Recently I’ve found my self mentally jet lagged with the idea of continuing down this path. Don’t get me wrong I love what I’ve created and I love the places I’ve been able to create but truth is that now when I go to these unforgettable ￼ scenic vistas I have other things that feel like priority’s over pulling out the camera and pressing the shutter release. Fly fishing and enjoying my ￼ surroundings feel like they come before getting that next shot and I hate that. So in my experience that means it’s time to reinvent my self.

Don’t get me wrong tho. This isn’t the first time I’ve reinvented my self creativity. At several points in my photographic lifespan I’ve had to make it feel new again. I used to shoot fashion and ￼ streetwear before I migrated to nature

So it only feels right that as I once took the foundation of my previous works and integrated them with a new style I should follow in that path and not forget the past but simply evolve the path I’m on. It took quite some time to get a footing on

What exactly the future looked like for my work. 
 “Where did I want to go?” Was a question I found circling my mind quite often. Most creatives have suffered with this exact situation manifesting as some form of block or inability to see the picture as sharply as once before. 
 One day I was drawing (which I suck at it but do often￼) when it hit me! My future was in the merger of my drawing and design ￼ coupled with my need to be in beautiful, remote places! It was like lightning had struck and the flood gates of ideas just started flowing. Design, drawing, photography, editing... all combined as my next step. Instead of creating works of art for brands I would creat art for my self! I couldn’t believe I missed it for so long. I needed to be making actual art not marketing ￼ material.

So their it was. My future. 

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