June Update (Patreon)

Hello friends,

This was one of those months when all the work was quiet work. Building block work. Inside work. It was the kind of month when I rely on your support the most because this kind of work is the tree before the flower before the fruit work. Foundational stuff, the floor plan before the site choice and the build work. But all of it is important. In fact, there’s no going forward without it.

Some of the work is maintenance. Practicing instruments; updating calendars, websites, and social media; accounting; managing merchandise; responding to fan mail; administering license requests; general accounting, and of course sitting my butt down at the kitchen table every morning with candle and coffee, hotel pen and Moleskine, and writing, that I might be a channel for whatever insights and agitations the Muses might wish to funnel through me.

Some of the work is tactical. I booked a Pacific Northwest tour and am awaiting response about other shows, too. Date and contract negotiation, publicity plans, airfare purchases, lodging and car rentals, the whole nine. I’m a one-woman show here, I think you knew that but in case you didn’t, this is how it is. I do it all. With your help, of course.

And then there’s the work that isn’t work at all: the art. I have an idea for a recording I’d like to make, so I got busy in The Blue Room this month figuring out keys and tempos for some of the songs, creating click tracks to record to, and then setting up mics. I laid down a guitar track to sing over but discovered after a LOT of failed vocal attempts that the track is just a bit too slow. I’ll have to start over! No tears here — I am happy in my labors — but I regret not having a little studio-something for you this month :(.

I went to my first open audition and won the role of “Bessie” in Westfield Theatre Group’s production of “Marvin’s Room,” which runs in October. I’ve also been cast in “Last Request,” a one-woman musical monologue written by fellow songwriter, novelist, and screenwriter Peter Nelson which will run in November. It’s Peter’s first theater piece, so there were extensive conversations about how and where to stage it, what sort of personnel we need to engage, how to produce the musical and audiovisual components. All this theater stuff may not seem like "necessary work" from the outside, but community acting offsets the solitude of my musical life and makes me a healthier, happier, more well-rounded performer and person. I feel very lucky to have these opportunities for self-definition and integration.

I reviewed one cassette for the archiving project and quickly realized I need a piece of gear in order to digitize the tapes that didn’t get converted with the rest a years ago. I’m researching that now and will handle it within the week. You know, I’ve been chipping away at the edges of this archiving project for years. With the 20-year anniversary of both Dave Carter’s death and the birth of my solo career on July 19, it seems like a good time to dive in and make some serious sense of where we’ve been and what we’ve accomplished over the last two decades. I can’t wait to share some of what I find with you.

Finally, to support all my endeavors, I’m devoting more attention to my health and spiritual work so that I can be more present, light, equanimous, and clear. My kitty Pickles, like Miss Kitty before her, is a champion meditator, turns out. It helps to have a friend along for the ride.

And it helps to have you. More than you can possibly know. Your tangible and energetic support toward these endeavors and expansions means the world to me, truly, and makes this artistic life possible and fruitful.

More soon. Thank you. xotg