New York City, My Muse

I have been talking about muses and inspiration and it's so very obvious to me that my most important muse is New York City. Hands down. Today, it has been 12 years of that day that changed the world forever.  I have in particular, a personal goal not to dwell in the past and not to relive what doesn’t serve a happy and fulfilling purpose in my life and the lives that cross my path every day. I don't succeed all the time, but I really try.  So in that spirit, I want to use this post to pay a homage to my muse. Below there is a collection of some of my favorite New York City images and an excerpt about New York taken from my book.

"No place in the world has inspired me as much as the city that I have been calling home for the past 12 years. My New York represents the beautiful, the bad, and the ugly, a roller coaster of ups and downs, mean streets, sweet triumphs, boisterous failures, a resiliency of the spirit, the materialization of the impossible, high fashion, unorthodox style, an overpowering energy, the center of contemporary art, the irrepressible, and the irreverent. New York has been so generous to me and is still ripe with opportunity. It is poetic and dramatic, romantic, and prosaic, intense, and all-consuming. And yet, everything makes so much sense to me. The outpouring of creativity that I get simply from walking down the streets of Manhattan can give me enough fuel to create wild designs, even if I weren’t feeling inspired before. It’s no coincidence that poets, artists, filmmakers, writers, actors, musicians, as well as many other creative personalities have fallen for New York. I am not an exception. "

- Maria Brito - From "Out There: Design, Art, Travel, Shopping" Pointed Leaf Press, 2013