What I Live By has been truly gifted with the support of the FIAF team. Not only did they support us to launch the project during their Crossing The Line festival in the fall of 2015 but the entire staff participated in sharing their What I Live By statement. So so so so so fun!!!!! Below are their statements.

Clementine Guinchat

What I live by: I live by my piano because he makes me feel better. He helps me alleviate stress, keeps me mentally fit and makes time going faster during hard time! When I practice I feel like I am accomplishing something better. Music fills me with something incredible that I can’t even begin to explain. And my piano embodies all of these unexplainable feelings.

Aditi Jhaveri

What I Live By: My bright pink phone! My link to family thousands of miles away. My favorite books on the go to read and re-read. Snapshots of places I’ve been and plans for places still to see. New York moments with old friends and new!

Alexa Ouaknine

Definitely my camera. I like to try to capture moments as they happen that don’t look staged or “professional”, especially of my friends and things happening in the city. My point and shoot is like an extension of my hand, and a form of an ice breaker when I meet new people that I like. Like having a crutch in social situations. The best part is having rolls and rolls of film, and getting them developed to see what happened, kind of a form of documentation of what we do at night, to catch emotions of unsuspecting friends, colors and light on their faces. With photography, I love that I can freeze something in time and look back on it as things seem to happen and pass so quickly in the city these days. When I get a picture that I really like, it gets added to a photo book I am working on and hope to print, then share with my friends and people I admire. It feels like I am always working on it in the back of my mind, even when I’m not.

Amelia Parenteau

"Everything will be all right."

Awantz St Fleur

Music has always been an inspiration to me. I love music, it what fuels me, what energize me! That’s what live by.

Crystal Gwyn

What I Live By: My Phone. A device that unites (the priceless moment of laughing over the dance dog video your mom sent, watching “Feeling Myself” with your sig other while reenacting the dance steez), but also divides (the social faux pas of work emails at a party, the frustration of talking to your loved one who is in more interested in a backlit screen). It is a strange reality of engaging with a person whom is not in your presence, accessing information within seconds, witnessing scenes from around the world, and recording and sharing a new reality only to become the pixels comprising someone else's device. My phone makes me feel powerful, connected, disengaged and privacy-less (Thanks Mr. Robot!) all at once: because it is not just the phone "I live by," but also all the potential lives that it enables.

Delphine Selles-Alvarez

Greatcinema! Eric Rohmer’s films are uplifting, funny and smart. There are all about the little things of life, the miracles of the everyday. I come out of a Rohmer film happy, refreshed and intellectually nourished. What else can you ask for in a film??

Jack Meyer

What I Live By: The freedom to walk freely, to go, dare, explore. As long as I have shoes on my feet, the world is my oyster.

Jacqueline Chambord

This crystal heart is my most precious treasure and rarely leaves my chest…...

Jacqueline Schweiger

What I live by: Optimism, cheerfulness, looking on the bright side of things…

Jeremie Patrier Leitus

I live by my Converse shoes. I have traveled the world with them from Asia to Africa. They are my faithful and reliable travel buddy and the most important object in my "survival kit"

Jessica Massart

What I Live By: Longstanding morning rituals. Caring deeply. Accepting chaos and finding silver linings. Words and text and language.

Laban Harris

I live by my necklace because a very good friend of mine made it for me.

Lea Canfrere

I run with headphones. I work with headphones. I travel with headphones.
But I breath with music. And I feel with music. I guess I live with headphones. And I live by music.

Lena Opper

What I Live By: I live by my watch. Its relentless ticking is like a close friend reminding me to keep moving.

Lili Chopra

What I Live By: This ring represents for me how to be in the world - strong, clear and luminous - it is like wearing an armor of love!

Lindsey Long

What I live by are my stories

Maelle Vallet

I Live By things that last like two little silver bracelets, a family gift for a 10-year-old birthday that I keep wearing ten years later. These are things that grow, get old, polished and damaged with me. They almost belong to my body, not only because my name is written on one of them but also because I feel like something is missing if I don't wear them (which I obviously never do).

Marie-Monique Steckel

I live by my shoes to go forward in life

Stephen Mann

I write daily. To express. To understand. To reflect.

Thyrza Meulens

I live by the Creator who has given me the gift of creativity as shown by my DIY ring, bracelet, and DIY nails.

Tom Guerrier

Picking a pencil and desperately trying to fill the blank, that’s what I live by.

Yann Carmona

Ronda Murdock

I am not the type of person who cares about brand names. I place value in my connections with other people and especially my pets. Seamus was rescued last year from a shelter and I live my life to provide him with a home, food, treats and belly rubs.

Do you have a group, company, business, family, community that wants to express their What I Live By? contact Elana at freedom@whatiliveby.com for more info.