Retrospective, Part 2
Looking back on our first 12 interview features, what are the common threads? What are the pillars for growth and sustained success across disciplines? From fiber arts to photography, painting to songwriting, the artists we’ve talked with share core traits that got them where they are and keep them driving forward through both successes and challenges.
The artists we talked with are led by curiosity and a real vision for change. They rely on resilience and community, and they’re willing to be vulnerable.
Nurture Your Curiosity
We’re born curious. It’s what leads us to create, and it’s something we must continually cultivate and nurture as life begins to wear on us. Curiosity leads us to new paths, new conversations and new ideas.
Theatrical designer Deb Sivigny describes herself as, “inherently a researcher.” “I've always loved history and cultural context,” she says. “I love that kind of stuff. I can just read and read and read and absorb and listen and watch things.” Curiosity led her to the Korean adoption agency where she learned about her birth parents, and then to the creation of her play Hello, My Name Is.
Storyteller and activist Tasneem Tewogbola says, “I’m just insatiably curious … I think that we've confused curiosity with nosiness and probing, whereas sometimes curiosity means ‘you're interesting. And there's something about you innately that could take my understanding of myself and the community we occupy and elevate it and create this bond, you and I, between the questioning and the asking the answering and all of that.’ So, I consider it to be like a precious thing.”
It’s Ok to Be Vulnerable
It takes a special blend of confidence and naivety to believe you have something important to say to the world. In the beginning, we’re sometimes shamed, embarrassed or bullied into shutting up or shutting down. Throughout our careers, it’s a challenge to hold on to the optimism and innocence that started us on our path.
Having the strength to be vulnerable is a key to maintaining balance because it’s precisely when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable that we connect with audiences. It’s the moment when another person sees themselves in the work that we do. It’s the moment of shared humanity.
Eric Ward compares songwriting with activism because of the vulnerability required for both. “It’s about crafting the right practice, and the right practice is about vulnerability,” he says. “we use a term in organizing called courageous conversation. And for me, songwriting is probably the most vulnerable form of courageous conversation one can have.”
Community is Key
This seems to be Outer Voice’s drum to beat, at least this summer. No artist does it alone. The rugged individualist is a myth. The lone visionary can’t do everything by themselves. We need other people. And other people need us.
From his first solo show, painter and multidisciplinary artist Marlos E’van has been a leading example of drawing strength from community, and building bridges between the arts community and the neighborhood community. “I feel like we're hungry …hungry to be world-changers, and hungry to be a part of a community,” he says. “One of the most important things I did was speak to my community rather than trying to make this work and just throw it in the gallery.”
Dancer, choreographer and activist Kai Hazelwood found the time of pandemic and disappearance of performance opportunities to be a crucial time to focus on the community of her company. “How do we get our little community through this time, because nobody's coming to save us. The leader of this country has made that abundantly clear. Nobody's coming to bail us out. So how do we get each other through this intact?”
Resilience, Resilience, Resilience
It may be something of a buzzword at the moment, but resilience is vital to an artist’s career and personal life for multiple reasons. Not only does it help you move through and learn from setbacks, criticism and disappointment, it also provides the necessary spine to your career.
Without a central resilience, it’s impossible to be flexible. You’ll break instead of bending. To maintain a career as an artist, you must pivot. You must be open to new opportunities, to learning new skills, to diving into unknown waters.
Playwright and resilience educator Callie Kimball explains, “Resilience isn't about never losing your cool. Resilience is about how you handle those moments. How do you handle the challenges? Can you talk to yourself in the middle of being all worked up and feeling anxiety? Can you develop ways of self-soothing of calming yourself down, as simple as breath work, thought work? Waiting it out, waiting those feelings out … I want to give people tools so that they can build their own relationships and their own ways of navigating the challenges.”
Resilience is the wellspring of character, and character keeps you the same artist through acclaim and ridicule.
Beyond the Artist’s Statement: Vision
Vision is another buzzword, particularly in the corporate creative world. It’s become code for “I’m the idea person. Other people do all the work.” But the truth is that vision is work. Having it, deepening it, keeping it — this takes hard work.
Vision keeps your work coherent and cohesive when you’re required to pivot and as your work changes and grows. You have to hold fast to the why of your work, even as you’re deep in the how.
Finally, vision allows you to see through and across disciplines. It guides you in times of social change, industry upheaval and civil unrest. It connects your work to the change you want to see in the world. Actor Cecil Baldwin says, “we are in a time of great questions. The old forms just don't cut it anymore. We need new forms. And so now is the time to reinvent or to augment yourself as an artist and go ‘yes, I know you love what I did five years ago, but now go with me. Go with me on this. It is not five years ago.’ We are right now, and therefore we must make things related to right now.”
Vision is based on values. Every artist we’ve interviewed has clear values and purpose. Vision provides the destination, values keep you on course.
This Is Just the Beginning
This is an ever-growing, ever-deepening conversation with incredible artists of all backgrounds and disciplines. As Outer Voice grows, we hope to learn from disabled artists, indigenous artists, international artists, outsiders and more.
As the texture of our conversations grow more complex, so do the lessons we learn. Expect this list of pillars to grow and evolve. Now, you go grow and evolve!
