Uncommon Personalities: Meet Emily Hodges

Emily Hodges, UncommonGoods Community Outreach AssociateMy hometown is…
Long Beach, California

My favorite design challenge product is…
Hands down, Chaos Mountain by Meghan Ellie Smith. All of our semi-finalists’ works for our design challenges are inspiring, but it was this particular art piece that I was completely mesmerized by. I remember the day I opened up her entry and automatically made her designs my desktop background. I think I felt connected to it the most because it really does reflect my style and personality. A beautifully structured, colorful mess. This piece will definitely be sitting on my fireplace mantel soon.

I’m inspired by…
The work of Brandon Stanton, the photographer behind Humans of New York. His talent to pull out raw, personal stories from complete strangers amazes me every single day. I always considered myself a pretty open person, especially after all of my travels and living in diverse cities my entire life. But it wasn’t until HONY that I realized I still have plenty of lessons to learn to feed my ignorance. Brandon’s work has taught me that the 76 year old Chinese man who can barely speak English that sits by me on the train in my morning commute could have more in common with me than my very own peers. I can confidently say that Brandon has permanently changed my way of thinking and how I communicate with strangers.

My favorite place I’ve traveled so far is…
This is probably the worst question to ever ask me. I absolutely love to travel, and I would feel like I’m cheating on all the cities I’ve explored and experienced by choosing one single place. I won’t answer that, but I’ll compromise by replacing it with this question: Which three countries would you like to visit that you haven’t been to yet? Senegal, South Africa, and Indonesia.

An uncommon fact about me…
I cried when Steve Jobs died, taught English to over 750 high school students in South Korea, went skinny dipping for the first time in my life this year in the Mediterranean Sea , and deep down inside I secretly want dreadlocks.

Your favorite place to hang out in New York City is…
Any Brooklyn rooftop overlooking the skyline. Extra points if there’s a bottle of red wine involved. I always feel invincible on a rooftop and even more invincible with a glass of red.

My style is…
Definitely inspired by my favorite fashion icons: Solange, Alexa Chung, and Zoe Saldana. A good friend of mine once said “If our bodies are canvases, fashion is our art,” and that always stuck with me. I love timeless pieces such as the little black dress, a pair of nice-fitted jeans, and a (faux) leather jacket. But my favorite thing to do is to dress them up with random patterns and textures, bold colors, and funky jewelry. I would like to say if Lenny Kravitz and a thrift shop owner had a love child, that child would definitely be me.

Working at UncommonGoods, I’ve learned…
That working a “9-5” isn’t so suffocating if you love what you do. I never thought the office life was for me. I always wanted to run away from any idea that tinkered with the thought of halting my overextended travels. I took a chance with UncommonGoods, and since my first day here I haven’t (seriously) thought about moving across the ocean once.

If you could go to dinner with any historical person, who would you choose and where would you go? (And why?)
Jean Michel Basquiat, a rebel in the art world in the ’80s who pretty much led the movement of neo-expressionism. Also, since we’re having dinner, he could totally gossip about his shenanigans with Andy Warhol and his baby-makin’ time with Madonna. And, come on, he had the best freakin’ hair.