OBSTACLES ARE JUST OBJECTS TO MOVE

This week I received word that I was unsuccessful as a candidate in the Individual Project Grant from CADA. Just the same with any rejection, I was hurt, I withdrew and I started taking the pins out of the plans for my next album. As someone who has always waited for signs when it’s come to careers and love and such, obviously when you don’t get a grant it means you aren’t on the right path? This was also in alignment with making the decision to delay the release, which I was already having to convince myself was the right thing to do.(see previous post )

It’s a terrible thing to hang all the hopes for your artistry on grants. It’s expensive to be an artist, there is an unending road of sacrifices, choosing between this or that, scraping the barrel to get by and maybe make ends meet. I waited until I was successfully funded to make my first album. Now I am realizing that delay was another devaluation of who I was as an artist. I’m a parent, I have a responsibility to not drown my family in debt over something that doesn’t make us any income. I mean, not relevant income, not income that makes a difference. To complicate things, coming out of COVID makes me feel even more uneasy-like the rug could get pulled out from under us at anytime. However, by ignoring that part of me or by holding it down, I’m also doing them a disservice because they don’t get to see or know me fully. I’m not fully formed, even at 44 years of age.

So, what’s the plan you ask? I think it’s time to make another investment in myself. What could be more impactful or meaningful than spending your own money on yourself? If I used rejection as an immovable object on the path to my artistry, I would never make any more albums or do any more shows. Part of the creative process is taking a risk on that thought or idea that comes to you from the well, the other part is the physical investment into the process of setting time aside for it, and the next part is what I’m about to embark on, the release of your creation into the world.

Of course, non of this self-realization would have come to light without the support from my creativity guru Kenna Burima. Kenna has a way of turning the mirror around to see what’s behind the reflection, to get at what is underneath the grime and muck of self-loathing that we creatives seem to amass in great quantities. (Is it obvious that I’m encouraging you right now to reach out to her or find someone like her?) It’s also the reason why accountability is so important. There is a bible verse that always surfaces in my mind when I am musing about a great meeting of the minds.

“For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” -Matthew 18:20

I do think of Jesus as having special access to the well of creativity, God, whatever you might label as your Other power. When we meet in groups to converge on ideas, we are inviting the well to open to us, and that is what happens when I reveal myself to my loved ones.

And so, here I go to prepare for the big reveal.