Hello (3 years later) from Olympia, WA

Hey Hive! The last time I wrote a blog on the blockchain, Hive was still Steemit, COVID wasn’t a thing, and I lived in Seattle, WA. A lot can change in 3 years.

So, I thought it might be good to reintroduce myself. Hey y’all. Lily here. Again.

Where to start, where to start...

Maybe the beginning? So I was raised on a school bus by relatively radical parents. They generally believe in questioning everything, reading philosophy, and living a life outside of established guidelines. When I was about 8 or 9 we bought property in rural Eastern Oregon and homesteaded - building a shop for my Dad and eventually a house for all of us. Even so, I lived on that school bus until I was 15.

I was homeschooled throughout all of that (although I did take some classes at the local high school and became a major member of the drama club). I actually don't have my high school diploma or my GED - but because that stuff is actually not important at all - I was able to attend college AND graduate school. No one ever checked my educational background. Not once. Crazy, right?

I went to college in Portland, and grad school in NYC. I studied theater - and specifically got really into Theater of the Oppressed and using performance as a tool for social change. I am really into racial equity, feminism, environmental justice, economics, and how art can be used as a way of making all of these big ideas accessible to anyone, anywhere. I also believe in using performance as an engine to create empathy, tolerance, joy - and just more love in general between people. My god, the world needs more of that.

Great shot snapped by my partner when we were leading TO workshops in Hawai'i a few years ago.

When I was on Steemit before I was working as a freelance theater artist and fundraising consultant.

My work (then and now) revolved around building community with art. I’ve worked in rural communities, prisons, urban settings...you name it really. When it came to Steemit, I wrote some about art, a lot about hiking/adventuring (I will still/always be writing about the great outdoors), and other random stuff for general fun. I also dabbled a little in online community building on behalf of my artist collective, The New Alchemists, and it was awesome but also a lot of work. I joined a variety of groups, did curation work, and generally enjoyed myself and the people I met very much.

Where did I go? And why did I stop?

A ton of reasons. But the short of it is that I was too busy, and needed to work on my mental health and learn how to have better work/life/everything balance. The last few years have been full of challenges and also healing and learning. Cheers to growth, therapy, and new beginnings, am I right?

Over the past three years I've been spending more time with myself - giving myself the permission to invest in all the things that I love, including cooking, taking on new experiments in baking, and tending my menagerie of over 100 houseplants. My partner and I also recently moved to a house where we can have a full-on proper garden in the spring - so I'm looking into carbon-free no-till organic gardening methods. Would love resources on that if you have them.

Anyways, here we are today. I'm still making art, I still believe in social justice, I'm still hustling. And, I just moved down to Olympia to be the new Artistic Director for Olympia Family Theater! Overall, life is good.

I'm feeling incredibly lucky to be where I'm at today. Making a living making art is no small feat and not something everything is blessed enough to be able to do. I'm equal parts confident, thrilled, grateful, and nervous. All the feelings. All at once.

There's a lot of work to do at OFT (Oly Fam Theater) - beginning with reopening the theater in the middle of a pandemic and continuing to create educational and entertaining programs for people of all ages. We're also working on strategic planning, racial equity, and diversifying the stories we are telling and who is telling them. I'm sure I'll be writing about that journey here.

Image sourced from one of my favorite artists - go follow them on Instagram Hive account@yallaroza

I'm also still hustling on independent projects: co-producing a documentary about artists in Hawai'i, planning a film festival, and dreaming up the launch of a decentralized multimedia production company.

Ultimately, this is the stuff that is really bringing me back to Hive. The decentralized space is such a godsend for creatives who want to self-determine outcomes for their work. Sure, I can ask for donations from donors and write grants - but I also want to figure out how to make my money work for me - and how to earn money from my content and ideas as I develop it. I'm tired of waiting for other people to believe in me, it's time I start believing in myself. And that's the heart of what cryptocurrency and blockchain tech does for artists.

Also - I don't know nearly enough. So I expect that this time around I'll also be doing more writing about "how to crypto" and how I am using my learning to build a base for a decentralized production company. I hope you'll join me for that journey - and I hope it'll be useful to other artists who want an alternative to the capitalist grind.