Pratfalls of Parenting

Jeannine Coulombe | Pratfalls of Parenting Ep 51

By Levi | Published: May 21, 2013

“I have no inheritance”

Playwright, theater artist, and teacher Jeannine Coulombe talks about deciding to concentrate on playwriting once she became a mother.

“I do find a parallel between playwriting and my father’s carpentry”

She talks about being a founding member of the Workhaus Collective and how much she gets out of producing hers and other’s work as well as writing plays. She talks about the complex relationship between a working playwright and William Shakespeare. And Jeannine talks about living in Europe for two years and figuring out who she was as a playwright.

“They paid me to go to grad school to write so… I’ll take it”

Jeannine talks about moving back to Minnesota knowing that working and living as a playwright was more realistic than in New York. She talks about getting her first play produced and about her decision to go to graduate school in Iowa for playwriting. And about what skills she was able to develop in graduate school that she may not have in the real world.

“Because of the background that I have, I don’t think that I’ve ever fit into the theater”

Jeannine talks about her work with a teaching program called Art Share and the impact that work had on her as a writer and eventually a teaching artist. She talks about her families blue collar background and the role that played in shaping her work ethic as well as her ability to not be heavily money driven. Jeannine also talks about what it means to be an actual expert at something and how to use that expertise to help others.

Posted in Podcast | Tagged jeannine coulombe, mother, parent, play, playwright, podcast, stages, theater, theater unbound, workhaus, writing | Leave a comment

TJ Kudalis | Pratfalls of Parenting Ep 50

By Levi | Published: May 14, 2013

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

“The comedic soul of a piece is all in the editing”

Video maker and father TJ Kudalis talks about the comic timing in editing video and film.

TJ talks about his study of Scottish and Irish poetry and how close he came to being a professor of Scotch/Irish poetry. He talks about how languages are a form of expression and thus a specific way of interpreting the world. TJ talks about how many other versions of languages also exist, such as dance, photography and film.

“Good cinematography replicates the act of seeing”

TJ talks about being an audio/visual nerd. TJ talks about accidentally becoming a web journalist before there were a proliferation of blogs and citizen journalism sites. He talks about creating content specifically for the web rather than just repurposing old print media. TJ also talks about ending up covering a riot, winning awards, and working for a national news organization.

“I used to think I was a great multi-tasker but it turns out I’m bad at paying attention”

TJ talks about narrating his pre-language daughter’s actions as a way of playing with and enjoying her. He also talks about listening to audio books and podcasts that have adult themes with his infant.

“Another thing I didn’t realize is how much time you spend with your kid just hanging out”

Posted in Podcast | Tagged bill stitler, cats, comedy, convergence, d & d, dad, father, film, fringe festival, moontalk productions, parent, podcast, poetry, thacko, tj kudalis | Leave a comment

Brendan Kelly (BK-One) | Pratfalls of Parenting Ep 49

By Levi | Published: May 7, 2013

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

“Being a dad is kinda awesome. It’s way better than when I worked at Best Buy”

DJ, producer, record collector, and musician Brendan Kelly, aka BK-One, talks about growing up learning music, obsessing about records, stumbling into DJing and becoming a stay at home dad.

“Every big thing I’ve ever done I’ve been underqualified for”

Talks about spending a decade as a touring DJ and then deciding that fatherhood meant the end of being a touring musician. Brendan talks about the difficulty in creating structure when his only job was music. And Brendan talks about deciding if and how he could keep making music as a stay at home dad.

“I have trouble being productive unless there’s too much to do”

Brendan talks about the business model of an independent musician and the strengths and weaknesses it carries. He talks about the role of the DJ in a rap performance and what it means to be focused on making someone else look good. Brendan also talks about his early obsession with music and records and how that unintentionally moved him into the work of being a DJ.

“I just want to model for them how I got to the things I care about”

Brendan talks about how his identity would change based on whether he was a touring musician or a guy at home or a dad. He talks about his focus as a parent on showing his kids how to care about things rather that what things to care about. Brendan also talks about learning from the other artists he worked with who were already parents about how that might impact his career.

Posted in Podcast | Tagged bk-one, brendan kelly, brother ali, dad, dj, father, hip hop, kfai, minneapolis, music, parent, podcast, rap, rhymesayers, rse, stay at home, toki wright | Leave a comment

Susan Shehata | Pratfalls of Parenting Ep 48

By Levi | Published: April 30, 2013

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

“What I put out into the world has a through-line of personal transformation”

Space Guru, holistic wellness practitioner, musician, producer, designer, radio host, and stepmother Susan Shehata talks about the challenges of describing the work she does because she does so many different creative things. She also talks about her desire to rebrand the idea of stepmotherhood.

“Children are the biggest mirror that we can have”

Susan talks about approaching spaces as an art form. She shares how for her helping people design and shape the spaces where they live or work becomes an art practice for her. She also talks about the creativity of finding and repurposing old or discarded objects.

“It takes some of the joy out of the things you’re passionate about because now they’re also the way you’re going to earn your income”

Susan talks about having her business partner also be her life partner. She also talks about the challenges of working on big projects with people who are collaborators but also friends because of the sometimes hard to define relationship.

Susan talks about being a stepmother and some of the challenges surrounding sharing parenting relationships not only with her partner but also with her stepdaughter’s other family. She talks about how having so many self-employed projects results in setting her own schedule but also never being off the clock.

Posted in Podcast | Tagged art, design, fung shui, guru, holistic, improv, kirtan, mom, music, parent, podcast, radio, raising the consciousness, stepmother, susan shehata | Leave a comment

Jayson Clark | Pratfalls of Parenting Ep 47

By Levi | Published: April 23, 2013

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

“I love my kids but at the same time there’s always that intrinsic need to do ‘something’”

Jayson Clark talks about retiring from the professional rap world to focus on family while also exploring other creative projects.

“I wish when I was 20 I had gone a little harder at my music”

Jayson talks about growing up in Austin, Texas, and how that influenced his perspectives as a creative person but also how different Austin is from the rest of the State. Jayson talks about his first time rapping for an audience and needing to be extremely drunk to get through it.

“First song I ever kissed a girl to was rap music, that’s what I’m sticking to”

Jayson talks about starting out writing poetry and transition into writing and performing raps. Jayson talks about moving from Austin to Minnesota and the challenges of building new relationships with artists. He talks about connecting with other rappers and producers in Minnesota through Facebook, including the guys who would eventually form the Background Noise Crew.

Jayson talks about further pursuing his education while building his rap career in search of some stability. He talks about how becoming a father made him want to create a family life different than how he grew up. Jayson talks about how the work of being a 7^th grade classroom teacher is similar to being a performing rapper.

Posted in Podcast | Tagged background noise crew, dad, father, jayson clark, music, parent, podcast, rap, rapper, teacher, writer | Comments closed

Cory Hinkle | Pratfalls of Parenting Ep 46

By Levi | Published: April 16, 2013

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

“My perception of everything has changed since becoming a parent”

Cory talks about starting out as an actor and transitioning into playwriting. He talks about being a part of Workhaus collective and the motivations behind pulling together as a group of playwrights to help get each others work made. And he talks about what he’s learned about marketing a show by having to produce the work of so many other playwrights.

“I just keep writing the plays that come out of me and that I want to write”

Cory talks about how he discovers ideas by writing and about how he can’t understand what he’s writing about until he’s gotten into the writing. He talks about realizing after completing a play that it was directly informed by recent occurrences in personal relationships. He talks about being embarrassed as a young writer by what his plays were revealing about himself and how that has flipped as he’s gotten deeper in to his career.

“I don’t really have so much time to indulge this because Silas just peed on everything”

Cory talks about his shifting view of divorce as he’s become a dad and as friends have started getting divorced. Cory talks about the difficulty in articulating how differently he sees the world as a parent without seemingly like an annoying parent talking about how “amazing” everything is now that he has children.

“The thing about my dad is he hated being an accountant”

Cory talks about his ideas of adulthood and career as a teenager. He talks about discovering theater at the end of High School and then discovering playwriting while in college. Cory talks about getting more in touch with his voice as a writer the further away he gets from graduate school. He also talks about how looking back on his writing from before he was a dad he can see a different point of view.

Posted in Podcast | Tagged acting, cory hinkle, dad, father, fringe festival, parent, parenting, play, playwright, podcast, theater, theatre, workhaus, writer | Leave a comment

Shanai & Colin of Works Progress | Pratfalls of Parenting Ep 45

By Levi | Published: April 9, 2013

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

“It seems weird to me now that we would think about community as something that didn’t have children in it”

Colin Kloecker and Shanai Matteson of Works Progress talk about balancing their personal partnership, their artistic partnership, and their work partnership as they’ve transitioned in to parenthood.

They talk about how they were influenced by both having attended arts High Schools. They talk about knowing they were interested in the arts as young people but not really understanding what it would mean to become an “artist.” Shanai talks about how important playing music was to her father. Colin talks about working as an architect for several years and realizing it wasn’t exactly what he wanted to be doing.

“I don’t ever want to create experiences that are only for an elite group of people”

They talk about creating Works Progress as an umbrella for the numerous projects they were doing with various collaborators. Shanai talks about loosely defining what Works Progress is about so that it can include a wide range of events, mediums, and practices without excluding any ideas they find exciting.

“I don’t want him to feel like if we are poor it limits him”

Shanai talks about how growing up in a low-income household shaped her relationship with cultural events and experiences. And how it made her feel less married to the idea of needing a lot of things as an adult. She talks about wanting to make sure her son gets exposed to as many experiences as possible even if they may not be able to buy him a lot of stuff.

Colin and Shanai talk about one of their larger goals in all the work they do to make fine art ideas and highly respected artists accessible to people who don’t have arts training or a professional arts background. They also share how becoming parents has made them more aware of the fact that for their collaborators and audiences participation in their events may depend on whether or not they can bring their kids or find childcare.

Plus, check out this recent Works Progress video about artist Mankwe Ndosi called “Everyday Ways”

Posted in Podcast | Tagged architect, art, bell museum, colin kloecker, dangerous man brewery, father, mother, parent, podcast, salon saloon, shanai matteson, works progress | Leave a comment

Quinton Skinner | Pratfalls of Parenting Ep 44

By Levi | Published: April 2, 2013

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

“If you ever get crazy opportunities just make the best of them”

Quinton talks about how working in the arts and for arts organizations by day is bolstered by doing creative work. Quinton talks about how his work as a theater critic rarely felt like a job because it was mostly a looking for work that would be personal transformational. He talks about finding creative ways to showcase the work of other artists in his job as Communications Director at the Guthrie theatre.

“A really intense day job really cuts into your creative outlet”

Quinton talks about working as a ghostwriter. He talks about the powerful effect it had on him to be paid to write and to have external deadlines but also to not have his name on the work he was doing as a young writer. He talks about the rich education that came from knowing he needed to complete book projects in nine-month spans. And about how it allowed him to learn all about the world of publishing through someone else’s work.

Quinton talks about taking work as a ghostwriter in his twenties not only for the opportunity to write but also because of the need to make a living. He also talks about ghostwriting as a good job to have as a young writer who hadn’t yet found his own voice.

“If you don’t think about the paths that your life could have possibly gone than you can’t think about the paths that your life has gone”

Quinton talks about writing a book on fatherhood, “Do I Look Like A Daddy to You,” during the first year of his daughter’s life. He talks about how the book demonstrates that writing is how he processes things and about how writing the book briefly made him a parenting expert. And he talks about considering writing a follow-up book as a divorced dad with teen children.

Posted in Podcast | Tagged art, author, city pages, dad, father, ghostwriter, guthrie, podcast, quinton skinner, writer | Leave a comment

Suzi Q Smith | Pratfalls of Parenting Ep 43

By Levi | Published: March 26, 2013

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

“When you’re listening from a place of love rather than judgment, it really changes what you hear.”

In this episode Poet, spoken word artistic, and activist Suzi Q Smith talks about poetry, competition, education, race, class, gender, and modern motherhood.

“I need those things to exist in the world so that my daughter can exist in that world”

Suzi talks about going from writing poetry, to performing poetry, to competing as a slam poet. Talks about traveling to compete in slam poetry competitions, teach workshops, and participate in events. She talks about balancing time traveling and time at home.

“Once I’ve said what I needed to in a poem, I’m kind of sick of that conversation”

Suzi talks about balancing her desire to respect everyone and her desire to win the culture war. She talks about how becoming a mother heightened her desire to create positive change in the world through her work. She also talks about moving from an introspective focus in her work to a broader look at the world around her.

Posted in Podcast | Tagged activity, art, denver, gender, mother, parent, podcast, poem, poet, poetry, race, spoken word, suzi q smith | Leave a comment

Damian Johnson | Pratfalls of Parenting Ep 42

By Levi | Published: March 19, 2013

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

“I’ve have this side of me that needs to put myself in front of an audience, for God knows what reason”

Improviser and educator Damian Johnson attempts to feed and tend to his daughter while carrying on a conversation about his work and life. He talks about his love of writing and poetry as a young person. Damian shares stories of regretting not being a more productive writer while in elementary school. Plus, Damian shares how his interest in a girl may have fueled his interest in writing poetry.

“I use my fancy performing skills to make science fun”

Damian talks about moving away from writing and discovering a love for improvisational theater. He talks about using his improv skills to teach as well as teaching others how to be improvisers. And, Damian talks about how after he became an improviser that also become the main art form he consumed as well.

“We want our daughter Ruby to see us doing things that we love”

Damian talks about his desire to create things for the sake of creation as well as the part of him that wants to be in front of an audience and how improvising can feed both of those creative parts of him. And he talks about how improvising lets him be a writer and a performer without having to choose one over the other.