Can my podcast be art?
“All art is a conversation”
You can listen to me reading the podcast below.
One of the favourite things I do in life is hosting my podcast Writing Black Joy. It is seasonal because when I started it that was the only way I could even envision myself being able to do it! Find 8-10 guests at a time, host the conversations, and then the tech things - editing, publishing, social-media-ing and more.
I started the podcast that I thought would change the world. Has it? Well we don’t know yet, and in the meantime I am trying to challenge my beliefs about what a changed world would look like - given that I am an idealist. (Have I challenged those beliefs? This too remains to be seen!)
In addition to being an idealist, I am also impatient, and after publishing the podcast for a couple of years, I began to feel distressed that the world only felt like it was changing for the worse - in my opinion. Is this like when I go to clean my bedroom and it gets messier before it gets cleaner? Or was the podcast a complete waste of time?
These were questions I was seriously answering myself in between seasons. I also wondered if I should change the name (I have gone back and forth over this since starting the podcast almost 4 years ago) if I would move it to a weekly show with much longer seasons (still working on this one) if I should narrow down the guests and topics even harder to focus ONLY on writing, or widen it out to all creative pursuits (I went with the latter), if I should go back over all of my episodes now that I am 4 years in and have the experience and re-edit them all (step away from the computer Saf) and more. But these questions would always melt away when I hit record - and as I am deep in the recording portion of the podcast (I have 2 interviews later today) I feel far away from these questions.
The question that is feeling close - what if this podcast - these conversations - what if I thought of this as an art project?
What is art anyway?
Some months ago, I attended an exhibition by the artist Mickalene Thomas.
I love exhibitions. I know nothing about art, and so like most people, if I'm buying art it is limited strictly to what looks good to me. But I appreciate art when I come to see exhibitions because I LOVE to see and celebrate the creative work of others - particularly those folks who bet on themselves and their own creativity.
The show was fascinating to me. Mickalene’s work is mixed media in what I consider to be the truest sense of the words. There were paintings, enormous paintings that spanned an entire wall, and that were covered in sequins and other elements that brought an added dimension to the pictures. There was an entire section dedicated to her photography of herself, of her mother, and of others. There were installations - entire rooms of a house that she built and recreated - down to upholstering the furniture like her grandmother used to - with old clothes, including the books that reminded her of that childhood, and a record player with the music from a time period that she remembered blasting through the room. There was even a short film she created with the song Angelitos Negros (Paint me Black Angels) by Earth Kitt on repeat, which I sat and watched for almost half an hour, and which brought me to tears.
I had never seen anything like it - never heard anything like it - never experienced anything like it. I never imagined for one moment that art could be like that - taking up space in my entire body - engaging all of my senses. It got me thinking - what is art anyway? How do we define it? Who gets to define art and particularly - my art? Can I define my art? It got me wondering - what would happen if I decided to see my podcast as an art project?
Would it change how I felt about it?
How I related to it?
How I interacted with and scrutinize the metrics?
How I felt about it’s impact?
Given that I 100% believe that art and creativity can and do change the world every day - by simply existing in it?
I was brought back to a conversation I had off-air with podcast guest Karen Walrond, who first suggested to me that I consider my podcast as an offering, whose very existence can be considered a contribution, regardless of how many downloads I get. When she first suggested this, I was resistant to the idea - because I put so much work into it, and for me the idea of results was tied up in the metrics.
But when I began to consider whether I could call it an art project, and relate to it in that way - it really changed how I felt about it. I love creating the podcast. I love the creativity that has come to me as a result of creating the podcast as well!
Thinking about this now is almost laughable - particularly because for years - decades even - I would not have used the word art to describe anything I did, and I didn’t even see myself as creative! My relationship to ideas around creativity have changed over time, and it seems now that my relationship to ideas around art is also changing. Ideas around art and productivity, and purpose - which I may go into another day.
Particularly as someone who writes mostly because it’s fun and I enjoy it, and I believe it’s important to have it out there - but also as a way to connect with others, I felt as if the podcast was all of those things (aside from when it’s 11pm and I am up late editing out the uhms and ahs) and thinking of it as my own art project has made me rethink both how I feel about the podcast and metrics - and art as a whole. And what is hilarious is - when I first envisioned the podcast - before it even was a podcast - I pictured it as a writer’s gallery - and even then the idea was mindblowing to me as I considered what would happen if I showcased people’s writing in the same way that art is showcased - and virtually?
That first question was the seed of the podcast, but it was also the seed that eventually led to my current questions around - how I relate to my podcast as a piece of art. This way of looking at my podcast makes me so happy - particularly as someone who loves collaboration, but also loves the idea of blending two seemingly unrelated ideas together. And it has sprung other questions.
What other art forms could I bring into this project?
How does thinking of my podcast as art expand my creative process around it?
How can art be more accessible - both in ideas and execution?
And what if conversations themselves are a form of art?
And of course - now that I have gotten to the end of this post, I have a whole new set of questions around conversation as art - so more on this soon.
In the meantime - how do you define art? Do you feel included in that definition? And what might change if you changed how you looked at it and related it it?
I send you big love from by the sea.