Think Globally, Art Locally

I've been developing a workshop that I'll be presenting for the first time at the Gaia Centre in Haliburton on September 16th (and previewing at the Renaissance Cafe in Toronto on August 23rd.)

It's called "Creativity Off the Grid: Values, Meaning and Money". It's designed to help artists sustain their work through healthy sources of energy...and clarify the meaning of their work and its value.

Meanwhile, as always, I've been aware of my own addiction to sources of power and energy that may be harmful to me--and the community and the earth--in both the long and short term. (As I develop this workshop, I'm reminded--as I am when I write new songs--that I'm writing whatever I am at the time because I need it.)

For example, I sometimes discount the value of local and immediate opportunities to sing--which include my home, my church, the subway, the local cafe. At times I worry that I'm not touring enough; I'm concerned that I don't have wider distribution. Like many artists, I'm vulnerable to the sales pitch of a service that might possibly help me have a song picked up by a major international artist. The idea of fame is seductive...and it's an empty "Idol", a show of no "reality".

I know from personal experience that the songs that have the most meaning for me (and that have been most deeply felt by my audience) have been specific and locally based. They have sprung from this place, this person, this time. They don't have to go any further to be valuable (and yet, ironically, they've often gone much further... without any help from me.)

In the evaluation of the commercial marketplace, they may appear to have less value.
But, on the other hand, they are far more in line with my personal values, which are community and family-based.

If my art stays local, my attention can as well. I can look after and beautify this corner of the world, which includes specific people I would like to honour and specific causes I would like to support (such as two local environmental and healing organizations which, serendipitously, expressed an interest in my music today).

Art that has the world in mind--but that is created out of a sense of deep connection with the local and the immediate--is work that will have ongoing spiritual and personal meaning and will ultimately sustain the artist and, hopefully, the world.