Editing Maya Deren (section)

==Early career==
After graduation from Smith, Deren returned to New York's [[Greenwich Village]], where she joined the European [[émigré]] art scene.<ref>Bill Nichols, “Introduction,” in ''Maya Deren and the American Avant-Garde'', ed. Bill Nichols (Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 2001), 3.</ref> She supported herself from 1937 to 1939 by freelance writing for radio shows and foreign-language newspapers. During that time she also worked as an editorial assistant to famous American writers [[Eda Lou Walton]], [[Max Eastman]], and then [[William Seabrook]].<ref name="Legend" /> She wrote poetry and short fiction, tried her hand at writing a commercial novel, and also translated a work by Victor Serge which was never published.<ref name=":0" /> She became known for her European-style handmade clothes, wild red curly hair and fierce convictions.<ref name=Nichols /><ref name=":2">{{Cite magazine |last=Brody |first=Richard |date=2022-11-16 |title=How Maya Deren Became the Symbol and Champion of American Experimental Film |url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/how-maya-deren-became-the-symbol-and-champion-of-american-experimental-film |access-date=2023-03-21 |magazine=The New Yorker |language=en-US}}</ref>

In 1940, Deren moved to Los Angeles to focus on her poetry and freelance photography. In 1941, Deren wrote to [[Katherine Dunham]]—an African American dancer, choreographer, and anthropologist of [[Caribbean culture]] and dance—suggesting a children's book on dance and applying for a managerial job for her and her dance troupe; she later became Dunham's assistant and publicist. Deren travelled with the troupe for a year, learning greater appreciation for dance, as well as interest and appreciation for Haitian culture.<ref name=":0" /> Dunham's fieldwork influenced Deren's studies of [[Haitian culture]] and [[Haitian Vodou|Vodou mythology]].<ref name="Modern Women">{{cite journal |first=Sally |last=Berger |title=Maya Deren's Legacy |editor1-last=Butler |editor1-first=Connie |journal=Modern Women |date=2010 |publisher=Museum of Modern Art |location=New York |page=301}}</ref><ref name=":2" /> At the end of touring a new musical ''[[Cabin in the Sky (musical)|Cabin in the Sky]]'', the [[Katherine Dunham Company|Dunham dance company]] stopped in Los Angeles for several months to work in [[Hollywood, Los Angeles|Hollywood]]. It was there that Deren met [[Alexandr Hackenschmied]] (who later changed his name to Alexander Hammid), a celebrated Czech-born photographer and cameraman who would become Deren's second husband in 1942. Hackenschmied had fled from [[Czechoslovakia]] in 1938 after the [[Sudetenland crisis]].

Deren and Hammid lived together in [[Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles|Laurel Canyon]], where he helped her with her still photography which focused on local fruit pickers in Los Angeles.<ref name="Legend" /> Of two still photography magazine assignments of 1943 to depict artists active in New York City,  including [[Ossip Zadkine]], her photographs appeared in the Vogue magazine article.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Lerman |first1=Leo |title=Before the Bandwagons |journal=Vogue |date=November 1943}}</ref> The other article intended for Mademoiselle magazine was not published,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Clarke |first1=VeVe |last2=Hodson |first2=Millicent |last3=Neiman |first3=Catherine |title=The Legend of Maya Deren: Volume I Part Two Chambers (1942-47) |date=1988 |publisher=Anthology film Archives/Film Culture |location=New York |pages=136–40}}</ref> but three signed enlargements of photographs intended for this article, all depicting Deren's friend New York ceramist [[Carol Janeway]], are preserved in the MoMA<ref>{{cite web |last1=Maya Deren |title=Portrait of Carol Janeway |url=https://www.moma.org/collection/works/52508 |access-date=August 29, 2020}}</ref> and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Maya Deren |title=Carol Janeway and Zadkine Sculpture |url=https://philamuseum.org/collection/object/334106}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Maya Deren |title=Carol Janeway |url=https://philamuseum.org/collection/object/334080}}</ref> All prints were from Janeway's estate.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Jenssen |first1=Victoria |title=The Art of Carol Janeway: A Tile & Ceramics Career with Georg Jensen Inc. and Ossip Zadkine in 1940s Manhattan |date=2022 |publisher=Friesen Press |pages=27–29}}</ref>