Welcome to Leah and Elijah's art journal.

Hi Friends!

September has been a good and hard month for us. We submitted a proposal for an art showcase and are very hopeful about it! The project is called "Archives as Muse" and is curated by Arthyve, a nonprofit in Denver. Leah and I had a lot of fun putting the proposal together. It required that we visit the archives at the Museum of Discovery here in Fort Collins and find something to inspire a project. After a lot of conversation and research, we both landed on an idea that we are really happy with. If you would like to see our proposal, you can do so here.

We also got to go see The National at the Mission Ballroom with two friends of ours (shoutout to Ben and Eric!). The venue is relatively new and was really nice! The opening band was Alvvays who we had never heard before and were really good. The National was solid and had a fascinating screen display above them. We both felt inspired leaving that show, especially for the aforementioned proposal.

Elijah's Work

In December of 2013 I was freshly divorced, living in Springfield, Illinois. I was almost completely isolated. My biggest relief at the time was writing. I had just re-discovered an old recording of my mom telling a story about her estranged relationship with her father. She told me that story in the winter of 2006: a stolen weekend that was just the two of us. When she told me the story, I didn’t know how and I didn’t know when, but my 19-year-old self knew that one day that was going to be a song.

In January of 2014, I moved back to Colorado with our current housemates (Curtis and Katie), unsure of pretty much everything. The only constant I had at the time was my writing. So I did something I had never done before. I devoted my entire schedule to writing. My odd sleeping pattern found relief in writing. My difficulty finding a substantial job found relief in writing. Telling my mom’s story became my priority. I ate, slept, and drank my writing.

In March I hit a rut. For about two weeks I sat and stared at my computer with no ideas about what was supposed to come next. Thankfully, I had the opportunity to get a couple lessons with one of my college composition professors, Cherise. She has always been really good at helping me see the bigger picture within a piece. I had added this guitar part, and she rightly pointed out that it killed all the energy, and cheapened the work before it.

After removing the guitar, the flow just came back. No more staring blankly at the screen wondering what was next. At my next lesson I asked Cherise about it, and she told me something I still believe. She told me that the song was resisting me. It didn’t like the direction it was going and that is why it became impossible to write.

By the middle of May, "Soy Amparo" was mostly finished. But I couldn’t write. The need to write was still so urgent and desperate, but the willingness was stubbornly not interested. Every time I thought about it I got really upset, and I wasn’t really sure why. It finally came to a head when we found out Curtis was accepted for a position in Bogota, Colombia, and he and Katie would be moving at the end of June. So, for the last time I sat in front of "Soy Amparo," and we finished our dance together.

A couple weeks later I mentioned the experience to a co-worker, still somewhat confused, and she told me that the birthing process can take as long as it needs to. Her words helped me realize that I wasn’t ready to say goodbye. Soy Amparo was a close friend, and finishing it meant saying goodbye. It’s strange, but once a work is finished, your relationship with it is never the same again.

The timing of everything was seemingly perfect: A couple weeks after I finished "Soy Amparo", I moved into a new house and started a new job and a new piece of music ("Humanity").

Leah's Work

Since the first of September, I have had way more time to work on art. The first week was really fun. I got up early, made coffee, and pretty much got right to work on an art project and was consistently focused on it for hours. I felt accomplished and productive and pretty good about myself. That was a great week.

The weeks following were not like that one. I woke up groggy everyday, tried to get right to work, stared at something for a while, and became very frustrated very quickly. I felt very pointless. Those were bad weeks.

I produced things that first week, I had clear progress to share, and that's great!  When that trend inevitably got exhausted, I immediately felt like a failure. 

That fast. And thus the rest of my week was doomed.

When I stopped having something to show for this time I'm so lucky to have, I became a 'bad artist' who contributes nothing. I had no energy to fill the time, be busy, or produce, so I had nothing to prove that I did anything at all, because I did nothing, and therefore was not valuable.

Suddenly, this subjective idea that comes and goes (productivity), became the end-all signifier of a 'good' or 'bad' experience. It really took a toll on creativity, not to mention my general life enjoyment.

I’m learning that this is a really extreme and risky way to approach life and self worth.

This production-obsessed, self-sufficient, busy, hard-working, non-stop… thing is very engrained in my daily experience. And I think I can say it is also in less or more extreme ways engrained in everyone’s daily experience -- especially those living in American culture.

In this culture, worth and productivity are directly proportional. Hard work is praised, productivity measures accomplishment, and so we keep “pushing through” (a phrase we tell ourselves and each other way more than “go rest!”, or, “slow down and savor something!”).

There is a place for hard work. I love working hard. It’s satisfying and it helps me to direct and release my energy and then to rest well later.

AND working hard and making things is not who I am and does not tell me what I’m worth. There is no ideal amount that will make me 'good' or 'bad'. Ahhhhhh!

It’s an endlessly hard concept for me to grasp. I can type it out, but actually practicing it - and eventually believing it intrinsically - I’m sure is a lifetime of work.*

*AND where I am in even this work doesn’t add to or diminish my value!

Collaborators

Steve Rustin (We finished a song this month!)

Nick Hein 

Curtis Kline

Inspiration

Leah's

'Only Skin', Joanna Newsom, musician (forever and always my inspiration)

'Snow Knows White', Mariee Sioux, musician

Elijah's

Rob Bell's podcast "Ode to Part Way" (I listened to it at least four times this month)

30 Rock (My constant composing companion)