Do you want to be a professional artist?

Yes

 

Are you sure?

No

 

Why not?

Because saying yes is an automatic response.

It has been ever since I can remember.

I soon finish my second bachelor in theatre.

I am 26.

What follows logically?

Me utilising the skills I learnt and practiced in both educations.

Doing so would generate my main source of income.

I would devote a lot of time and energy to bring creations to life.

Through performing and creating I would be able to say I make money as an artist. [I’m an artist: this gives many outputs. For the scope of this very serious document: one of the residual outputs is that I can eat and play and buy nice shoes and give to charity and travel and pay my rent because I am an artist.]

 

How would you not want to say I make money by being an artist?

It’s not that I don’t want it.

It’s that I don’t know why I want it.

Why I choose this path.

Why I have chosen this path ever since I can remember.

I take it for granted.

I don’t like for granted.

​

Ok. Let’s not do for-granted. 

Why have you chosen this path and perhaps even continue to choose it?

 

Theatre has run throughout my entire life;

 I’ve been drawn to it, pulled towards it.

 

It has always been A BIG DOOR OF ALLOWING.

I wanted to place myself in this place of being allowed 

to try,

explore, 

say obscenities, 

kiss if I wanted to, 

rage if I wanted to, 

throw paint if I wanted to,

spit-fire if I wanted to,

not make sense if I wanted to,

dance if wanted to, 

EVEN around naked bodies if I wanted to!

I was allowed to 

experience joy shamelessly, 

gape at bodies without being frowned upon, 

disrupt symbols,

be with others,

go to after show parties,

make mistakes.

In the theatre I often,

not always,

felt held,

free,

sexual,

ugly,

less predictable,

serious,

soulful,

funny,

sensual,

ridiculous,

empowered,

alive,

and sometimes I was even asked to sing!!

In essence, 

I could play.

 

I have played alone

with another

with others

with MANY others.

and even with imaginary others who I would not dare ask join me in the playing field 

fearing a no,

a laugh

or having to explain too much.

So I imagined them there and danced with them.

 

Theatre is/was always a way to connect with my capacity to play. 

To let loose.

To imagine.

 

But I was also scared of imagining, or staying in the theatre for too long as in society a different reality awaited me.

A place where people are drowning in boats cause no one really cares about saving them.

 

I am very existentialist 

Very.

Too much for my own good sometimes..

 

So why theatre and play despite this pain?

In our family,

neighbourhoods,

village,

country,

world?

 

Because that is my gift.

It’s what I do best.

It’s what I have to give to myself, to you and the world. 

It’s what I can contribute in this exchange we are all part of.

It is the only space where I can concentrate and share ideas and tell very intimate stories, and move in ways I have not moved before and ask each other to move in different ways.

It’s where I feel free and connected and also very disconnected and connected again and  disconnected again

Life is meant to be free and playful and enjoyable.

Even though pain is also part of life, 

play can help us navigate through.

Yes, this is what I want to do.

 

Yes.

This is also my gift.

I make Art! 

I am a performer, 

I am an artist, 

I am a theatre maker.

I am also a singer and songwriter 

I photographer (with my phone Xiaomi)

and some kind of musician (the undisciplined kind!)

I am also a writer.

I am a trickster who shows you something first and that another in opposition,

I am also a community artist because I care about the community a lot.

I am also a family artist,

A family artist?

Is that a thing?

I don’t know but I love to bring the gift of art not only in artistic spaces

but wherever it is needed.

Like singing at a funeral.

I just sang a song I wrote at a funeral and it made me happy.

I think it made others happy too.

I could bring some joy in places of pain.

Not with the aim of changing the situation 

I find that what blocks or disturbs my process or progress is when 

I get some idea that my art can completely change things.

I want to be humble.

A smile is enough.

Some fun for an hour is enough.

Good enough!

I can also go where there is joy already!

JOY MULTIPLIED.

 

As an artist,

what I can do is share my gift with others.

I have been very happy when others have shared theirs with me.

A scarf, a painting, 

their knowledge of excel of which I have none,

their cooking,

their hairdressing skills,

their touch,

their silence,

How great to be part of this exchange.

I am part of this too.

Sometimes I have to do admin to share my gift,

to plan,

leap in the unknown,

try,

fail,

try again, 

laugh at my mistakes,

have a break,

pause,

do something else,

try something new,

yes I can!
 

What about your need to have a part-time job unrelated to art?

 

I often think I might want to be a waitress for some time after I graduate.

It feels a bit like I want to hide instead of making myself visible after I graduate (as is encouraged).

I feel quite tired if I am honest. 

I feel like I need a break after 4 years.

I enjoyed them very much but after four beautiful and FULL years of knowledge there is now some 

sensation of IMMEDIATE LAUNCH.

Like I am a rocket or something.

 

Well, what if I want to take a pause 

To go for a walk somewhere?

To do the pilgrimage of the santiago de compostela?

To be a waitress for some time?

Why should my part time job be as related to my art as possible?

Maybe I want to do something that demands less of me as a contrast to Art. 

 

I feel bad writing this I must say.

I feel like I am letting myself down and that I am not using my full creative potential.

Well you know what, sometimes, fuck that also.

 

I want to find a way to do theatre and art in a relaxed way.

In a way that I really enjoy.

This year I did the solo ‘the disappearance act’ which was such a beautiful enriching process.

I did it for myself, nothing much mattered more than this. 

 

I am not required to save the world with my art or creativity. 

My art doesn’t have to be original, in other words; 

it also doesn’t have to be important. 

This might seem obvious but sometimes in the process this clarity 

disappears and I enter a very grey cloud where all these things start to haunt me.

It’s much better if I create in order to entertain myself or if the subject matter is darker and more serious (as it sometimes is with me let’s be honest here) I would prefer that I make that to save or relieve myself of some great psychic burden that has been following me! 

 

Or in order to make sense of my own journey and my own emotional confusion. 

To figure myself out!

Or just to play cause I am bored!

If in the process, though, it helps other people figure themselves out too, or if it inspires them in some way or other

— PARFAIT!—

but that was never my intention.