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Reflections on my creative journey: non-answers from a curious artist, for other curious artists.
Any singer will tell you that rolling out of bed and immediately making your most beautiful sounds is an unrealistic expectation. It can take hours of being awake and warming up before you’re in your “best voice.”
I’ve noticed a parallel with writing. It feels like a big ask to roll out of bed and dive into writing something of value. There’s a certain amount of warming up that’s required to activate those creative parts of the brain.
Read moreUnlike many resolutions, the mantra doesn’t have a finish line. We can’t do the mantra and be done with it, meaning that we can carry it with us into as many aspects of our life as we choose. Rather than the limiting nature of a resolution (e.g. “I’m going to read more books this year.”), the mantra’s applicability is limited only by our imagination.
Read moreThe flaw in this logic lies in the fact that, unless we pour ourselves into the creation of unoriginal work at first, chances are we won’t find our idiosyncrasies. It’s in the creation of unoriginal work—yes, of copying other artists (to an extent, and without plagiarizing)—that we figure out how our voice differs from the rest. We learn how our work relates to the genre, and how it differs. Idiosyncrasy is born.
So the irony is: in our feverish search for originality, we actually significantly reduce our chances of ever finding it.
Read moreThe unifying factor, then, is mutual respect. The friend who is staunchly opposed to my ideology, and who listens and questions and challenges with respect, is priceless. The diversity of perspectives inspires new ways of thinking that I wouldn’t have considered if I were in an echo chamber of my own beliefs.
Read moreThe spitting, disgusting as it may have been, was the unintentional byproduct of clear communication (i.e. good diction). The singer literally drenched the audience in their communicative intent. Disregarding the social expectation that one keep their saliva inside their mouth, thank you very much, the singer threw themself into the narrative—or non-narrative, as the case may be—of their performance.
Read moreI love my mornings. They’ve become my favorite part of the day, hands down.
According to Gretchen Rubin, some people are inherently night owls, and others are inherently early birds. If that’s true, I am absolutely the latter.
This is how I’ve structured my mornings in such a way that I feel prepared to move into my day from a calm, rooted place. I hope it inspires you to think about how you can do the same, in your own way:
Read moreWhen we receive unsolicited, hurtful criticism, we can choose to set boundaries. Not by throwing a fit, or calling for backup, or even quietly cursing. By saying, “You have the right to say what you’d like in this moment, but I also have the right to not listen.”
Read moreShould you decide to purchase any of these books, I highly recommend ordering from somewhere on Refinery29’s list of Black-owned bookstores (I’ve linked all the books below to Semicolon, a Black woman-owned bookstore & gallery space in Chicago that I can recommend from personal shopping experience). I have found that the $5-$8 premium I pay to order from one of these local shops (instead of from Amazon) is well worth the experience of supporting a local, Black entrepreneur.
Read moreWhat I have found to be the alternative to transition practices is a feeling of residual, nagging unease, like I left something undone. My mind continues to spin with to-do items, sometimes hours after I’ve turned off my work computer, preventing me from complete presence and rejuvenation during my non-work hours. I think of it as bad time hygiene: allowing the next part of my day to be muddied by the previous.
Read moreArtists often get very wrapped up in our whats. We are our art; we and our creations are one and the same. But what happens when a catastrophe comes along and rips away our ability to share our creations with others, at least in the way we were accustomed to sharing them? Over-identifying with the “what” leads to inflexibility, and if it all falls apart, it leads to despair.
Rather, we can realize that what we create is simply a function of our reason for creating. If I can’t build the empathy bridge on a stage, maybe I can do it at a computer.
