Who raised you to be the artist you are today?

One part of a six part practice sharing on what remains after we are gone

The question Who raised you? is an icebreaker that Liz Lerman brings into her workshops. We coupled it with a practice sharing from another 8 DAYS, with the instruction to walk with a partner who didn’t respond, but listened. The walk was to and from the fossil museum in Parrasboro where the smallest dinosaur footprint in the world is housed. The responses here are anonymous. It’s less about the details of someone we know or don’t know, than how we characterize and contextualize our sources. Here are some of the phrases that provoke...

recognizing that we are not fully raised but continue to be raised

we have received permission to be curious

raised to see but not necessarily to allow myself to be seen

generous parents giving and allowing an excess of input; some of which I am grateful for and some which I long to refigure, critique or forget

a fractured situation – looks for connection, belonging and groundedness through dance practice

raised by a small town and now trying to make work that people feel invited into and can actually understand

influence of some of the unspoken experiences that my parents had before I was born

shifting her home base multiple times and through her mother felt that home was created through people and place and context, rather than site

he brought my attention to experimental work-he opened the doors

prioritized their children’s interests and experiences over material things

ideas of do it yourself, sustainability, challenging status quo appear in our work from our upbringing

my best friend: I see her influence in the sort of lightness, the joy I keep pursuing

hardworking immigrants who worked to be middleclass - that seeps into how I navigate my career

I think of my father's camera, his desire to create a space in which the people he took pictures of could feel safer with their own image

a long obedience in the same direction which is something he once heard and told me

my parents let me stay home from school when I wanted to and now I have a hard time with routine

artists in the family, which made being an artist something within the realm of normal

acknowledging that this is not the case for all, feeling grateful for that