Art and Promotion

Ahh... the ageless balance between art and the marketplace. It plagues me, mostly when I am in Marketeer Mode for Art of the Song, but it does raise its head around my work as actor, teacher and all around "professional trying to make a living doing what I trained to do."

So often, when the subject of marketing and fundraising comes up, someone will roll their eyes and say, "Yes, if we could only just get paid to do what we love to do..." and with a heavy sigh, changes the subject.

I am fortunate that I trained a lot to do what I love well. As did all the scientists at Sandia Labs, and Intel. The difference is in the application that I have chosen. I did not go the academic route with my Masters degree, or into management. I trained to perform. What I am wrestling with is that the life plan for a management position or an academic is quite different than that of an indie performer/producer. So how does one create a model that becomes sustainable?

Three things come to mind:

• Honor that my creative work has an important role in the world, people's lives and my own
• Show up for the work as one would a nine - five job in the marketplace (it just may be 12 midnight to 3 am and another shift from 11 am - 6 pm)!
• Create a strategic plan, and an operating plan, and let them be as creative an expression as the writing or the performing.

okay actually six things:

• Rewards - my friend Deonne used to give herself french toast when she finished a particularly hideous, non creative job in service to her art...my favorite is Annapurna Chai... 
• Meditate & workout -  it really helps
• Gratitude list - again, a life saver. I have this low grade grumble that occurs in the back of my conscious thought that soaks up good memory like those pesky apps that launch and use up all the RAM on your desktop, slowing down your computer... Gratitude eliminates them pretty fast... 

So today, I am in full on markeeter mode, finishing our Not for Profit application, promoting our Indie Go Go campaign and by and large showing up in everyone's mailbox like that penny... but I choose to believe that its a penny you can save, spend and enjoy!

Learning to think differently

Exciting times. I've been wearing my producer hat for a long time now for radio. Wearing it channels a way of thinking that is more concerned with the whats and hows of a project than than the whys and how it feels. While 28 pages of original material doesn't seem like much in the face of my husband's new 160 page book, or my friends 130,000 word memoir, it is still a considerable piece of work that required me to let go of the hows and what for a time and just be in the presence of "other."

This week however I have been back in a How and What comfort zone, but challenging the edges of my particular sand box of artistic expression by looking at the sound and light design for the piece. I contacted a designer, Karen Perlow, who's work I have admired both from the audience perspective and from the stage as an actor involved in her work. Learning to explain what my vision is and why I had written in a particular effect is a great exercise. As a rookie at this, I simply wrote down what I saw and heard in my minds senses. Karen asked questions, which made me deepen my own understanding of the effect. For example, she asked "Why a constellation effect" and it helped me understand that I was trying for a feeling of distance that can at once make you feel small and insignificant, but also open and filled with potential.

This is a new form of creative thinking and a new form of producing that I find to be very rewarding.

Oh yes, and the great news is I have been accepted into the Filling Station's Solo Fest! July 9-12 and July 16 -18. Dates are not firm yet but I will be performing twice, once each weekend. I'll keep you posted.

victorious

What is it about setting a schedule, getting into a routine and then having a trip come up that creates a disruption in the pattern? Its seems to be more the norm than having an unencumbered schedule.

But I am victorious. Even with a travel day and visiting with my mother, I have gotten three new pages written. I like writing on planes, so I swapped Tuesday for Wednesday and wrote more.

I remembered some images from a stab at a memoir a few years ago. So I have stripped it for parts and am including the more arresting rhythmical language in the solo piece. And tonight I am sending to two friends.

Very tired... but wanted to be sure to get something up here before the week got away.

Being on the east coast feels really good. I love Upstate New York. So glad to be here for a bit.

Resting my eyes now...

Visualize Good Housekeeping's gold medallion here...

Why is it so difficult to allow time for the creative process? Is it that I am afraid of what I will hear when I get quiet enough to listen to what my inner voice is saying? Is it that I feel guilty taking time away from my company that sorely needs me to show up and figure out ways of making money for it (and consequently me and John...) Or is it that I am truly an unmotivated person with no real ideas about what to write?

All of the above and I think the latter statement is the voice that I am afraid to hear when I get quiet. As my beloved sister says - the fear of being No Talent Scum. When she says that, I want to tackle her and hold my hand over her mouth, or plug my ears and scream "LALALALALA i'm not listen to you"... It feels like an afront to all that is holy in the Law of Attraction. "No," I cry..."you are inviting "No Talent" and certainly "Scum" into this sacred studio space!" I enter into a downward spiral of demands that lead to less and less worthy behaviors, that must be met for my plummeting self-esteem in its dark journey to feel vindicated...See I was right... I really am Not Good. In turn I spend more time in the company of folks that love to dig around in the muck with nothing much good to say. (though today I had lunch with Three Wonderful Women and feel very upheld!)

These episodes are usually triggered by a moment when I am confronted with my own frailty. Today I acknowledge that I am feeling really fragile. In being an artist there is an inherent need for approval yet I must also be capable of spending hours upon hours alone in my studio doing what it is that I have stated I am... Actress & writer. The only approval I need is my own. Yes, I am writing this show. Yes, I do not feel up to the task. Yes, my story is meaningful, even if only for me... yes, yes and yes again.

It is 3:30 pm on Tuesday. My beloved stepson left this morning, and there were calls that I should have not taken and a lunch I could have postponed to a non-Eva day...

So at this late hour in the day, I sit down and at least got this much down. I am available for these next three hours. And unlike my need for a Seal of Approval saying how picture perfect I am, I shall write for a while untamed.

*** updated at 7:00 pm ... Three pages written... feeling pretty darn good about it too...***

"cockles and mussels alive alive o" it ain't but there are some similarities...

Day two of concentrated work on Eva. Almost finished reading her book of poetry picture to the right.

Biggest difference since the first time I tried this... the internet. I read something confusing, I look it up on Wiki. Amazing material there about both Eva and Kevin Izod O'Doherty. Also able to research in Australia, England, the US and Canada.

And another thing... itunes. Eva set several of her poems to popular music of the time. Including Irish Molly O... which is disturbingly sticky as songs go. Don't try it, just trust me, because if you listen to it you'll call me in the middle of the night cursing...

wrapping up for the day with a timeline, photos adorning my desk and blog, a basket full of research and the bones of an original tune to one of her more heartbreakingly beautiful laments Bridget Cruises to Carolan. Interesting title. Not sure what Cruises means in this instance. I don't think she had a low rider...

I think you can go back...just differently

I am revisiting an idea that I had 18 years ago. To write a one woman show about the life of my great great grandmother Mary Eva Kelly, from County Galway. She was a romantic nationalist poet and her nom de plume was “Eva of the Nation.” She pledged to marry Kevin Izod O’Doherty, a founding member of the Young Irelanders movement that was active in the 1840’s. Kevin was arrested for his activities and was sent to Van Dieman’s Land before they could wed. If you know anything about Irish history then you know of the famine and the troubles that plagued the country at that time. Imagine a young woman growing up in that time, falling in love and waiting 7 years until her love returned... One source said their's was one of the Great Romances of Irish History.

Interesting that today is the first day of Eva in studio and I have no journal prepared to write in... no notebook assigned so I am forced to go on record in this computer.

It is March 16, 2010.

I committed to return to this idea on Feb 15, 2010 at the encouragement of two friends who are both accomplished creators of solo work, Lynn Miller and Courtney Cunningham. They will act as guides in the process as well.

As it happens that particular day was Eva’s Birthday 180th birthday. Feb 15, 1830. Nearly 20 years after my first attempt at writing her story as a one woman show. Support (or rather lack of it) is the thing that stopped me cold the first time... so it is wonderful to know that my husband John, my coach Eric and my neighbor Kathleen are also holding space...

I am going to be working on Eva Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays all day in studio... I am sure that I will have time in between as well.

Today I plan not so much to think about what I did or didn’t do... that is a long tale of traveling to Ireland to research her life and write the play. That is a story that ultimately would have to tell how I bottomed out as an alcoholic instead, and returned to start a new life in New York City and get sober in 1992. Revisiting the play was a painful thing until now, reminding me of my failure to complete it and the depths to which alcoholism took me.
Today it is exciting... joyous and meant to be.

I have cleaned my studio space... Lit candles on the altar, my favorite incense too. and have found two of my favorite Irish music CD’s to listen to while I begin. As suggested by Twyla Tharp I have a basket in which to place all materials that pertain to the project.
All that is in it now is her name...

I am keeping it simple today; starting the process with these three things...
Create a photo collage that will guide me featuring the lineage...
Create a time line
Start a story board of what I remember to be a great start 18 years ago...

More later...