We are Dying to be Moved

I’ve done a lot of ranting lately about a show I loved last year that I’ve now come to hate. Maybe you’ve already guessed it, just from that sentence. Maybe you’re about to be gobsmacked by what it is, and you’ll respond by sending me angry emails. It doesn’t really matter to me which it is, because I have come to fucking hate Ted Lasso.

Which is a real shame, because it was honest-to-God one of 2020s bright spots for me. I looked forward to every episode of season one. The shocking cheerfulness. The unabashed hopefulness. What a treat! It felt almost revolutionary while the world was literally and figuratively burning all around us.

Now though, I retain my inexaustible thirst for and delight in things that are optimistic, warm, and wonderful. In fact, that’s kind of my whole deal. But the show has completely put me off through its self-aware aggrandizement. Something has become wildly inauthentic and treacley about it, and it’s just so painful to sit through. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but as I’ve been telling anyone who will listen, I’m pretty sure when we go back and watch the show post-pandemic, we’ll all realize it was terrible all along.

Which brings me to the complete other end of the viewing spectrum, where I’ve found myself today, on a gloriously sunny, happy, lazy fall day. I’m watching a digital performance of the chamber opera/contemporary theatre work Garden of Vanished Pleasures – a sombre, challenging, deeply moving piece of actual art. The piece is for four classical/opera singers and a trio of instruments. It is a heady, dreamlike expression of the end of one’s life, explored through the last days of English artist, filmmaker, and queer rights activist Derek Jarman. LGBTQ+-centric themes of life and loss and gender and love are beautifully expressed and never tokenized or co-opted. I sobbed. Through almost the whole thing. The music was incredibly composed and performed. The minimal set played gloriously against the extensive and tasteful use of projected photography and video. In a piece about death, I found myself feeling profoundly reborn.

Why do I tell you about this against the backdrop of what is clearly meant to be fluffy, feel-good television? Because, what I think we’re all reaching for, and what something like Ted Lasso (or the far worse offender, This Is Us) is trying to deliver, is the desire to be moved. To feel something rise up inside us that maybe we didn’t realize we felt. To be reminded of a profound human truth, or perhaps a part of ourselves we tucked away for a while. To have a bit of a cry. To feel catharsis. To reconnect to our feelings, which a lot of us have had to push aside for most of 2020 and 2021 just to get through every day. Feeling things is good. It’s important. In fact, it’s essential.

I was talking to my dad the other day about things that are so stressful or upsetting to you right now that you can’t let your mind touch them or you might just completely explode and self-destruct. I take back that opinion. I think that – aside from real trauma, which is completely different – we need to dive into the little corners of feelings we keep tucking into our pockets during this pandemic experience, and allow ourselves to move them out into the light. Art of all kinds is the most incredible tool for doing this, but we need to be proactive about seeking it out right now, especially as much of it continues to be delivered digitally. It’s worth it. Turn off the Netflix, the Apple+, the whatever-it-is, and find something where some people are taking artistic risks to tell bigger, richer stories. You will be moved. It will be okay. You will see.

Garden of Vanished Pleasures is a production of Soundstreams in Toronto. It runs, online, until October 10, 2021. Check it out here.

Month Five: Make Art!

So… per my last post… I’m catching up. It’s mid-August, and I managed to go all of June and July without writing about my ArtsOdyssey projects. My bad! I was just too busy enjoying myself, I suppose! But, here I am, and here’s what I was up to last month: MAKING ART!

I’ve loved to make stuff since I was… like, a baby? My parents have endless stories about me repurposing and “artifying” recycling and garbage and clothing and anything else I could get my hands on. My mom is a graphic designer, so I spent many, many, many a childhood afternoon combing through her enormous paper samples collection and drawing, cutting, colouring, painting, collaging, papier-mâchéing, and basically experimenting with any other manipulation I could dream up. I also spent an absurd amount of time playing around in Quark Xpress and using up all her Letraset (graphic design throwbacks, y’all!). As I got older, I also increasingly loved all manner of craft, particularly anything with thread, yarn, or fabric. I learned to quilt and embroider from my amazing aunty, whose quilts and charming little pieces of art adorn my parents home. I made friendship bracelets and little cross stitch designs positively relentlessly. I began taking private painting lessons from a family friend – a celebrated painter whose expressionistic acrylic portraits seemed like some sort of witchcraft to me. I made stuff and made stuff and made stuff some more.

This culminated in my brilliant idea to layer on the big printmaking year-long survey course when I was in the second year of my music degree, on top of an already full course load plus a gazillion music ensembles. It was the most over-scheduled year of my life, but the only part of it I really remember is being in the studio, working on an etching or a screen print or a woodblock or a litho. Driving home in the snow at four in the morning after printing all night. Basking in the warmth of other people doing the same thing and all just being alone, together. Oh sweet Jesus I loved it. So much that I almost tried the death-defying act of pulling-off a double major in studio art and music performance (my advisor wisely talked me out of it).

Well, then I got busy. I went all in on music for years and years, then after I stopped performing, I went all in on law and business (and if you’ve been here for a sec, you know that part of the story). And that brings us to July, when I decided to get back on the art-making horse (wait, is that a horse that makes art? My kinda horse!) and make some damn art. I chose the project of making a series of small linocuts, since woodblock was my favourite technique in college, and it’s a process that can be done without chemicals or a press.

To get started, I wanted to find where art lived inside of me, and what could inspire my work. Basically, I wanted to go on an odyssey within an odyssey to find my style.

“WAIT WAIT WAIT!” I can hear every artist reading this screaming at their computers, “YOU CAN’T FIND YOUR STYLE BEFORE YOU START, YOU FOOL!”

I hear you. But, while I say I’ve gone years without making anything, that’s not entirely true. You see, I’m a passionate doodler, I’ve been messing around on and off for years with hand lettering, and I’m also a long-time Bullet Journalista. In other words, I’ve been drawing and lettering for the past few years, even though it hasn’t been anything serious. I also take in an enormous amount of art, digitally and, when I can, in person.

Plus, I felt totally lost “just starting.” I felt like I needed to understand what I was aiming at before I started running toward it.

Lucky for me, I found two amazing sources of inspiration and clarity. First, the wonderful Andy J. Pizza. His podcast, Creative Pep Talk, and his two fantastic Skillshare classes were all absolutely instrumental in getting started on the right foot. The other was Lisa Congdon, whose art I’ve loved for ages, and whose book, Find Your Artistic Voice, was another key tool for me in establishing both my “starter style” and the confidence to make something – anything! – again.

So, it’s mid-August as I write this, which means this project should have been done for a couple weeks. Spoiler alert: I’m not done! And that’s okay! I’m loving it still! I ran into all kinds of challenges and little technical roadblocks, but now I’m off and running and about half-done my three-print series. And I’m feeling so inspired and engaged that all I want to do is cancel the rest of my projects for the year and do this every day. Is that good or bad? I have no idea… that’s why it’s an odyssey! But there’s eraser and bits of rubber everywhere, and I’m dreaming about words and animals and landscapes and texture and layers and colours, so I’d say it’s nothing if not beautiful.

To art! I’m back, baby, and I’m grateful.

Month Four: Understand the World of Jazz

Full disclosure: I got so caught up in actually ENJOYING these projects that I didn’t make time to blog about them for nearly THREE months. Ahhh… whoops! But it’s all good, because I’m popping in today to catch up and summarize how freakin’ AWESOME these projects have been going!

So. Jazz month! That was… *checks calendar*… June. Holy moly. It’s mid-August now, and my month of crushing a month’s-worth of classic jazz albums seems like it just ended five minutes ago. My goal for jazz month was to do some deep listening – an album a day for a whole month, drawn from lists of the greatest albums of all-time, my own personal favourites, and the most celebrated artists performing today. In parallel, I would read several key texts about how jazz history and American Black history are deeply intertwined. I scheduled this month to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, and intended to use both the deep listening experience as well as my readings as part of my own ongoing anti-racism education.

Well, let me say, “humbled” does not begin to describe how moving I found this month to be. My first read was the seminal collection of James Baldwin’s essays, The Fire Next Time. It was as remarkable as everyone says it is, and my only wish was that I had read it a decade ago. I moved on to the two monumental works by Amiri Baraka (aka, LeRoi Jones): Black Music and Blues People. While I learned that Baraka is a problematic figure, particularly with regard to his treatment of women and a history of antisemitism, I found his writing not just moving, but gasp-inducing. Having studied jazz history as a 20-year-old white kid in an almost-all-white-kids-and-white-profs music school, I could not believe how tight my blinders had been on the subject. How incredibly biased, privileged, and, yes, racist, my views of jazz history had been, right from the get-go. To read what Baraka wrote while the greatest works of jazz were being created around him was absolutely astonishing. I cannot recommend both books highly enough. Finally, I read Wynton Marsalis’ wonderful Moving to Higher Ground. As a life-long Wynton fan who almost fainted when I sat front-row at one of his concerts when he turned and played a solo to me (yes, it actually happened!), I took such delight in immersing myself in his words and ideas.

Now, onto what I listened to. It was an incredible month of music – truly. While I love a well-curated jazz playlist (those from Blue Note Records are my favourite across streaming platforms), there is absolutely nothing like listening to an album all the way through. It’s a cohesive work of art. A journey. It’s a story from beginning to end. I soaked in old favourites (John Coltrane forever), and discovered new loves as well (hello, Charles Mingus!). It was a beautiful month, whose lessons and music I’ve carried forward into the rest of the summer. Ryan and I continue to listen to jazz with our toddler around the dinner table. I am following and enjoying the creativity of more and more jazz artists on social media. And, most importantly, I am continuing to seek out and listen to the voices of the people who are actually experiencing racism and marginalization, and I’m trying to figure out how to use my own privilege in this world as a force for good… and not just as a well-meaning white lady who has a lot of feelings and can, as my good friend likes to say, “share an infographic on Instagram now and again.”

Anyway… a bit of a ramble, but an amazing month. Here is the listening list, if you feel so inclined!

1. Time Out, Dave Brubeck Quartet

2. Blue Train, John Coltrane

3. The Sidewinder, Lee Morgan

4. The Turnaround!, Hank Mobley

5. Ella & Louis, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong

6. Moanin’, Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers

7. Everybody Digs Bill Evans, Bill Evans

8. Ellington Indigos, Duke Ellington

9. Be Good, Gregory Porter

10. Sarah Vaughan with Clifford Brown

11. Jazz at Massey Hall, The Quintet

12. Kind of Blue, Miles Davis

13. Return to Forever, Chick Corea

14. Chet Baker Sings, Chet Baker

15. Out to Lunch!, Eric Dolphy

16. Speak No Evil, Wayne Shorter

17. Brilliant Corners, Thelonious Monk

18. The Shape of Jazz to Come, Ornette Coleman

19. The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady, Charles Mingus

20. Saxophone Collosus, Sonny Rollins

21. Lady in Satin, Billie Holiday

22. Getz/Gilberto, Stan Getz and João Gilberto

23. The Epic, Kamasi Washington

24. Somethin’ Else, Cannonball Adderley

25. The Window, Cécile McLorin Salvant

26. Night Train, Oscar Peterson

27. Radio Music Society, Esperanza Spalding

28. Head Hunters, Herbie Hancock

29. Black Codes, Wynton Marsalis

30. The Mosaic Project, Terri Lyne Carrington