Deep In the Heart: Jame’s McCrae
I was commissioned by my wonderful friend James McCrae to photograph him on film in some of Austin's most beloved honky-tonks and dives.
James is the author of several titles, including The Art of You, and the beloved voice behind many-a-viral memes and poems shared on his Instagram account, @wordsarevibrations.
Deemed “The Eckhart Tolle of the Internet Generation” by The Huffington Post, James' art brings a blend of levity and acknowledgement to the woes and wonders of the modern spiritual experience…and often points to art-making as a path forward.
It was James' migration to Texas that gave way to creative exaltation—a return to the sovereign part of the self that doesn't wait for permission.
Below, I'll share a selection of the photos we captured, paired with a conversation about finding home, creative freedom, and the wild honesty that lives just beneath the surface; the kind that emerges when one finds the courage to live unarmored.
Following in the footsteps of Willie Nelson, George Strait, and Dolly Parton, James and I stepped into the shade of Austin's own Broken Spoke on a warm afternoon.
I grew up in places like this, where the glow of neon signs reveals a layer of dust on the pool table; where jukeboxes defy extinction, and the bartender calls me, “Sweetheart”. Texas, this home of mine, became a home found for poet James McCrae.
“As soon as my wife and I drove our car full of bags and boxes out of LA, I began to feel not only relief, but inspiration,” he told me over a Budweiser. The creative flood gates opened wider and wider with each mile they drove on Interstate 10. “I started making memes the day I arrived.” It's as if crossing the state line opened a door that had been waiting inside of him for years.
“As we settled into Austin, I just felt welcome here to show up as I am,” he said. “As a result, I started writing the weird, controversial things that felt true.” The memes became bolder, the poetry riskier, the voice edgier as James started speaking from the soul rather than the surface. The messages that poured through came from something bigger than his personal identity.
In his poetry and memes, James has his finger on the pulse of the collective, writing about creativity, authenticity, and the modern spiritual experience. As he began sharing online, his art magnetized waves of people who had been silently feeling the same things and asking the same questions. Views, shares, and followers skyrocketed.
Feeling accepted gives way to creative velocity, like that.
“The people here are the nicest,” James said. “No bullshit. No posturing. Just honest people.” LA and his previous home, New York City, had asked him to perform a version of himself. Both cities demanded their own kind of polished armor. Texas asked for none of that. The lone star state only asked him to be a good neighbor.
“Austin, in particular, has always been a haven for those who never quite fit the mainstream mold,” he went on. “There's a lineage of artists who've come here to start a second life—outlaws, mystics, misfits, and dreamers who needed wide open space to breathe. People don't just find their tribe here. They find their voice.”
That lineage has been alive for centuries and then some; counterculture refugees, cowboys, settlers, and Indigenous people all found sanctuary here, but not one that was easily earned. “You have to become a bit wild to survive here,” James said of the landscape. This state has rocky patches, stretches of desert, mountains to climb—both real and metaphorical. If you're not in relationship with the land, like our predecessors learned to be, you won't thrive. “Texas' soil needs love. But if you give to it, it gives back.”
The Cowboy represents one who has mastered this relationship with the land. Born centuries ago on lands like these, the identity has transcended timelines. The Cowboy has become not just an emblem for our history and way of life in the Southwest, but an archetype embraced globally. “The cowboy archetype is about returning to your wild nature. It's about remaining sovereign and self-sufficient—yet still a steward of the land and of your herd,” James remarked.
The creative process is its own frontier. It's an untamed, unpredictable journey, requiring risk after risk. “You learn by falling off the horse,” James said. Like bygone figures of the Wild West, artists must return to the unknown again and again, pulling a deeper wisdom out of the dust.
Texas, like the creative life, demands honesty, devotion, and the willingness to care for something even when it's not as easy as a California breeze.
James found a sense of home in his willingness to ride into the creative wilderness with no map. Being here has asked him to shed old layers, to let old selves fall away, to become the person he was always circling toward. Texas has reshaped him in the slow way it reshapes everyone who lets it.
Here in Austin, and now globally online, James McCrae leads Sunflower Club—a community space for expression where I, like many others, have laughed, cried, experimented with vocal bravery, and met kindred spirits.
