November 19, 2024 • 51 mins
Today’s interview is with Audra Kubat (she/her) teaching artist, musician, and educator.
Today, we’re going to learn about teaching yourself, breaking bread with your neighbors, and helping others find their own voice.
One takeaway I can offer you already? When you’re vulnerable, you may be your truest self.
Mentioned in this Episode:
Inside Out Literacy
Build a Musical Toolkit (AKA THE BOX) At Home!
If you enjoyed this interview, find Audra online at https://audrakubat.com/home.
Submit your own community questions for our guests here!
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers themselves and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Living Arts Detroit.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Hello, I'm Laura Scales, a dedicated arts facilitator, career counselor, and the CEO ofLiving Arts Detroit.
Join us as we chat with both experienced and emerging artistic professionals who haveignited their creativity and shaped their careers to thrive while living in the arts.
Today's interview is with Audra Kupot, teaching artist, musician, and educator.
(00:22):
In today's episode, we're going to learn about teaching yourself, breaking bread with yourneighbors, and helping others find their own voice.
One takeaway I can offer you already
When you're vulnerable, you might be your truest self.
For more, stay tuned.
Hi, Audra, how are you?
(00:43):
I'm good.
How are you, Laura?
I'm good.
Would you like to take a second and introduce yourself to our listeners?
I would love to.
So my name is Audra Kubat.
I'm a teaching artist, a songwriter, a producer, educator.
And I'm really happy to be here today with you to talk about my work and celebrate thattoday.
(01:06):
Incredible.
Before we get into it, I just want to
start us off with a little good thing and a bad thing.
For those of you who might be new to the podcast, I like to do this before all of ourmeetings and before our recording episodes, but you can have two good things.
You just can't have two bad things.
Those are the rules that I made up.
(01:27):
I'll go first.
My bad thing is that a massive tree limb fell on our deck and like bent the steel frame ofthe bench that was out of there.
But my good thing is that it doesn't seem to have actually done any other damage andnobody was outside when that happened.
That's the way.
(01:48):
Yeah.
Mother Nature is mighty.
Claire?
I'm just going to go good thing today.
I've been working on a fundraiser for Living Arts and a couple other like internetstreamers have joined in to that to that move.
And I donated to one of them because I liked the rewards and got made the
(02:09):
cutest emote of like, it's like a drawing of me and my cat.
And it was like, the reward was like, you get a doodle from this person.
And I really thought like, it'll be like something she already drew.
No, she fully messaged me last night, was like, here's what I drew for you.
And it's so cute.
And it's me and my cat, Al.
And like, I just was so, what a joy, what a joy it is.
(02:30):
If you have friends, get art made of them.
It's such a great gift.
It's so fun.
Yeah.
That's mine.
I'm going to skip a bad thing.
I'm going to live in the positive today.
I like that.
Yeah, a lot of good things have been going on.
The peach trees that I planted a few years ago have bloomed this year, and they're justabsolutely gorgeous.
(02:55):
So I'm really happy about that.
I also planted 13 fruit trees over the last couple of years, and they all survived.
And so that was a really good thing as like I was, I've been walking around every day kindof like looking for the little buds and like, you know, are they, you know, did they all
make it and they, they all did.
(03:17):
And there's just been a lot of loss.
feel like it's, you know, like the globe is kind of like dealing with a lot of losses.
We just are feeling like just innocent lives be lost.
But then a couple of personal losses have been recent.
So that's been.
you know, challenging, but also a reminder of how precious life is and to take time withthose you love.
(03:41):
So there's always a bit of good in all loss in a way.
Yeah, and the juxtaposition of the new life and your fruit trees is like really beautiful.
Yeah, so.
My son was born on the anniversary of my grandfather's passing.
(04:01):
And so that day had always been so sad because my aunts and my mother had lost him whenthey were so young.
But now they like cried in the hospital because we named him after my grandfather.
And so like now it's like a joyous day and full of celebration.
But yeah, it was like almost 50 years.
(04:22):
It was 49 years to the day.
And I was like, this is wild.
circles, we like the circle of life.
That's a beautiful legacy.
Yeah, and remembering it.
Yeah.
Speaking of circles and passing things on and stuff, like the whole point of the pod iswe're passing on knowledge in that way of like being able to talk about where we are and
(04:44):
how we got here, whether or not we really can even fully put together those pieces.
But we sort of have this mindset of like, OK, everyone who has worked in the arts andentertainment industry that when you talk to them is like, well, know, my story is really
strange or my story is different.
And we love that and want to celebrate that and dig into that.
(05:04):
And it's also like, what's the best way to do that?
Let's listen to everybody's stories and hopefully the listeners can kind of take what theyneed and like, you know, leave the rest as something they've learned about someone's
journey.
So in a much smaller microcosm of the world, we're trying to do a similar knowledgesharing.
We would love to hear about your path into the arts and how you got into it and.
(05:28):
And how has it led you to where you are now?
Yeah.
How much time do you have?
No, I'm just kidding.
I was really blessed.
I grew up in Detroit, and my parents really wanted to put me in early childhood.
They were like, OK, you're like three.
What can we do?
And I got to be a part of Montessori when I was really little.
(05:51):
And I gravitated towards music then.
And I loved the format of
being able to kind of lead yourself with some guidance made a lot of sense for me and itgave me an opportunity to just really explore myself.
yeah, music was the thing that I sort of took away from that time.
(06:11):
And as I grew, I started playing piano by ear.
At like five and six, I had set up the piano.
And when I ended up going to public schools later, when we moved to Southfield,
I went through a lot of challenges.
The system was just so different and it was a very more disciplinary vibe and I had a lotof problems and I ended up being in special ed for like six months because they just
(06:38):
thought I had such behavioral problems.
Because I literally would just get up and change, shift, know, shift my focus.
I'd be like, well, but I'm going to do this.
And they'd be like.
No, that's not.
No, you're not.
You're going to stay at that desk.
I'd excuse myself to go to the bathroom.
I just was handling everything.
I was really, yeah.
And so I got in a lot of trouble there.
(06:59):
My parents had to fight to kind of get me out of the situation.
But fortunately, they did.
My mom is a social worker and an advocate.
So I was really lucky to come up in a house that was surrounded by
really thoughtful, loving, and people that understood kind of early childhood already, youknow, through their own work.
(07:22):
My dad's a therapist.
And so that said, they tried to put me in piano lessons and I totally rejected it becauseof course, piano lessons are like, go back to playing like, da, da, da, da, da, you know,
like, no, I'm already playing chords, excuse me.
So I did reject any lessons that I got.
(07:43):
And music kind of like floated away for a long time until probably after high school.
I thought I was going to be a painter actually.
I was like, I'm a drawer, I'm a painter, but I was never great.
I was okay.
I probably could have gotten better.
But then I started, I had a boyfriend who had a guitar.
And I was like, teach me a song.
(08:06):
And so he taught me some chords.
And then it was like a year later, I was like writing my own songs.
And I basically absconded the guitar from
him and started going to open mics and things like that and just really was intosongwriting and I always was very much about like the word.
I wrote poetry when I was younger and everything.
(08:26):
So that kind of brought me into, you know, performing and I didn't have any training.
I didn't really know what I was doing.
In fact, my voice wasn't very good at the time and I would study Joni Mitchell records andI would mimic her voice and actually she is the one that taught me.
really how to use my head voice, how to sing really high and use all the parts of my voicejust by kind of mimicking her.
(08:51):
And got a little tension here and there.
And so as I continued to play, I put out some records and such, but I kind of got intoeducation really naturally.
I used to take my guitar and play on the porch.
And at that time I lived in Woodbridge, kind of near Wayne State.
the neighbor kids would like come up and be like, what are you doing?
And be like, you wanna, I'll teach you about guitar, I'll teach you about music.
(09:13):
And so, yeah, I started just giving lessons, like on my porch to kids.
So that was like my first and I was like, I was really natural at it.
I did some other teaching and people hired me to do songwriting lessons and things likethat.
And I did some piano lessons.
But early childhood education kind of came through.
(09:35):
A person that used to work for Living Arts actually, named Claire.
And also David Blair, who I really knew as Blair, a dear friend.
He asked me to come in and do like a workshop.
Actually it was for Inside Out at the time.
And he was doing songwriting with kids.
And so he was like, you'd be perfect, da da da.
So I came in and I did a workshop.
And unfortunately, he left this plane.
(10:00):
But Inside Out called me and said, will you come in and take over?
the songwriting workshop for Blair.
And so I did.
And then that was like, okay, I'm in the classroom suddenly.
I was like, how did this all happen?
You know, 20 years into my music career, it was like, okay, this really made sense to me.
And what I found with combining sort of music and education is like, people don't makemoney playing music.
(10:25):
It's really, really hard to even be a working musician.
And then this was like the pathway I found to do that.
So around the same time, my friend Claire, who worked for Living Arts at the time, sheneeded somebody to take over her residency.
She's like, I told them about you and they've heard your name, da da da.
So I went in and they brought me in to do that.
(10:47):
And then it was like, they just kept bringing me back, bringing me back.
And then I kind of got hooked into Wolf Trap, which is sort of umbrellaed under LivingArts.
I fell in love with it.
did the training and it was like, my gosh, it's like really using music to model foreducators how to use music, how to use an artful practice and all that combining sound and
(11:11):
rhythm with learning.
was like, this is what I was doing when I was a little child.
This is how I was learning and connecting.
And then it was like, here I am having people like sort of invest in me and training meand believing in my work.
And so that really just kept me going in that direction.
(11:34):
then sort of many professional development hours later and classroom hours later, I amlike where I am today, about 12 years into like my professional educational self.
So that's like the surface of sort of- The broad strokes.
Yeah, that's the broad stroke of where I am today with that.
(11:56):
I-
I get to work with all kinds of organizations.
I've really become kind of someone excitingly that people look to to say, well, we want todo an early childhood program.
Let's call Audra and see if she's available or if she has any guidance.
So it's like all of this culminated into more and more people reaching out.
(12:17):
I get to work with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra creating and helping to really developtheir initiative, or support their initiative that they had started around early
childhood.
being a supportive partner to other early childhood educational spaces and then havingtheir own sort of entity there.
And it's pretty cool.
(12:37):
That's so awesome.
It's great.
You've definitely solidified that.
I mean, I think that when people think teaching artists in Detroit, that your name, notfirst, is second or third on everyone's lips.
So it's been incredible to learn more about your path here.
When did you know you were in it for the long haul?
Like when we were like, this is my life now.
(12:59):
Yeah, yeah.
I think kind of the first time that I played music for people and people cried.
That was like very memorable.
In fact, I actually used to cry and I still cry on stage.
If you ever come to one of my shows and I cry about something, it's totally fine.
(13:20):
But yeah, know, somebody
came up to me after and was just like, you you being emotional on stage really allowed meto be emotional on stage.
And I hadn't cried in a long time, they said, you know, they were sharing.
And I kind of like, it clicked right away because I kind of came through a lot of abuse asa child.
And I mean, I had some challenges that were not quite in my family, but around people inmy neighborhood, you know, that I had to kind of get through.
(13:46):
And music was the thing that I turned to and writing was that release for me.
And so all my songs were about like my, really my own pain at the time.
I've really gotten out of writing as personal, even though it's all still personal.
So I realized, it clicked that like, okay, music is a vehicle for vulnerability andhealing.
(14:09):
And to me, vulnerability is my superpower because I believe truly that when you arevulnerable, you are your truest self.
And the more that we are our true selves, there's less miscommunication and there's
less disconnect, there's actually more disconnect and it really helps everybody around us,even though sometimes they're afraid at first, they're like, shoot, I almost said, I
(14:31):
almost had to bleep myself.
Otter's being vulnerable, it's like I'm starting to feel vulnerable too and it's scary,it's scary, but then another person's like, all right, I'm gonna go and then suddenly
there's a room full of people being really vulnerable that may never have connected inthat way.
And...
I think the things that connect us are just way broader and bigger than the things that wedon't connect on.
(14:57):
Like we're all human.
We all go through all these really similar feelings.
So yeah, it just clicked and I was like, nope, this is what I'm doing.
I'm gonna be really good at it.
And then I just went in hard and said, learn that guitar, be a better songwriter.
Don't just write a song and willy-nilly, because I used to, that was like at thebeginning, I just write a song and be like, it's great, I wrote it, you know?
(15:20):
It's like, no, there's work to do, there's always editing to do.
And when I work with others, especially like older songwriters or more seasonedsongwriters, it's really sort of like, have you done enough editing?
Have you gone in and interrogated your song and say, is this really doing the thing that Iwant it to do?
Because if it's not, maybe you need to go back in.
(15:42):
So I love working on songs and yeah, so that's when I knew.
Okay, this is so interesting to me because I feel like there's a real, like there'ssomething to interrogate in the energy of being a self-taught pianist and essentially a
lot of self-taught musicality in your life and becoming a teaching artist.
(16:03):
But I'm curious about like the intersection between education.
and your own artistic practice and how that journey has kind of informed that.
Yeah.
Well, one thing I think we all are intuitively musical.
I think that our society puts a lot of constraints on our little ones to be quiet, tofollow things.
(16:27):
And so the natural rhythm and aptitude towards music that would really be, I think, waymore prevalent if we were nurturing it.
I know is being kind of tapped down.
So because of that, I had to go my own path.
I had to sort of learn myself because again, I said when I was in piano lessons, theyweren't really nurturing where I was or saying like, wow, she's really just playing all
(16:54):
the stuff already.
They were like, nope, you must go back to the beginning and like learn that that is thatand this is this.
So I think then going through that whole path of like, okay, I must teach myself.
I'm gonna listen to records to learn how to be a singer.
I mean, I certainly didn't have the money to go out and pay someone to teach me how tosing or this or that.
So I like, I just looked for like, who, you know, I got a free guitar from a boyfriend.
(17:17):
I got free lessons from him.
got some, you know, but like I, I was a natural listener of music and I, I just could kindof take it through myself and put it back out.
Again, I just, think that there's so much more of that.
recently had,
I do this lot.
I have parties.
And when I do, and it gets to the point where everybody's having a really good time, I putan instrument in their hand and we could talk about the house in a little bit.
(17:42):
My next thing is right about that.
So let me, I would love if you just gave us a little preface of what Detroit House ofMusic is for you and how you've done that.
And I know there's like a lot of generation for female songwriters too.
And especially you talk about vulnerability as a superpower.
I feel like this energy of like,
hosting these gatherings and helping to develop these people.
(18:05):
And then hearing that you put instruments in people's hair, I'm like, yes, keep going.
But also now feels like the right moment to introduce House of Music for sure.
Yeah, so Detroit House of Music kind of morphed into a Detroit House of Music.
I picked a name really quick because we were like, OK, we need a name.
And it felt like it was not quite the right name until I came up with this is.
(18:29):
just a model for other places.
There's so many houses in our city, in beautiful neighborhoods that need artists to livein them and to do razor-focus outreach.
Like, we do not have to, I don't have to fix all of Detroit, you know, and I'm not reallyeven trying to fix my neighborhood, but I can offer to my neighbors and my community here
(18:49):
in Northwest Goldberg, which is the house, is what can I do for that?
so a Detroit House of Music was born.
And it's an old Victorian house that has been worked on for about five years to rehab it,to bring it to a place where the first floor could be usable.
We are still a little underground.
We are not a nonprofit.
(19:09):
We are kind of a very homegrown, still under the radar as we try to fix things and getthings up to code and get them to be in a real place where we can offer more.
As I was working on the house, it started during the pandemic.
Well, I really, was halfway through during the pandemic and I lost my funding during thepandemic.
(19:32):
And I was like, well, what am I going to do?
And I had this lot in the backyard.
said, well, I'm going to turn this into a community garden.
And I didn't really have a community of people yet, but I was like, okay, so I just, therewas nowhere to go, nowhere to be.
I wasn't making any money.
So I just went in the backyard and I started creating plots.
I got involved with the garden resource program and was able to get some wonderful plantsfrom them.
(19:56):
And three years later, I've delivered tomatoes and onions and all kinds of greens to myneighbors.
I've fed myself, I've fed my soul, I've fed people here at the house using things from thegarden.
And so one thing that was really important that I don't want to miss talking about is I'mnot from Northwest Goldberg.
(20:17):
I'm from Detroit, but this is not my neighborhood, right?
And so it was really important to me to not...
come into the neighborhood and just be like, I'm supplanting here and this is what I'mdoing.
And so when I started the garden, I made a commitment to myself that every single personthat walks by, drives by, rides by, I'm gonna wave.
(20:37):
I'm gonna notice that there's something happening outside of this little lot and there'sno fence, it's just a lot in the back.
And I did, I started waving every time and be like, I noticed some people probably, thatgirl is always just waving, what is she doing?
But it led to like the stop and chat.
Yeah, and this was still pandemic time.
So it was like, I'm also on a bus line.
I drive, wave to the bus drivers.
(21:00):
I say, know, what are you doing?
Well, I'm rehabbing this house to turn it into an informal space for music education, forcommunity.
And we're going to do performances here, da da da da da.
And it's like, so over that year and a half, I really ingratiated myself with mycommunity.
And it felt very much like, wow, this is the way you get invited to the party.
(21:21):
Hence I've...
I've been able to hire neighbors to do work here because strangely, if you ask yourneighbors, you find that there is a carpenter that probably lives in your neighborhood.
There is a plumber that probably lives in your neighborhood.
There is a teacher, there are artists, there are all these different people that like, youknow, we tend to like look in the phone book or people don't look in a phone book anymore,
(21:42):
but you know, to find people.
exactly.
But like, who are the people actually there?
So this all.
came together kind of like, I actually want to create like a pamphlet, like 10 steps tolike breaking bread with your neighbors as a new person in your neighborhood, which I may
do one day.
I genuinely think that would be a game changer for a lot of people.
(22:03):
Like the thing that I just keep thinking about is that like this thing that you have doneis incredibly brave.
Like just waving to people who pass by your house while you're outside is a brave thing todo in the world today because it's like,
We're so ingrained, like the don't talk to strangers that we receive as children is likeso deep into our mindset that like, that people sometimes look at me strangely when I
(22:28):
smile at them, when we pass on the street.
And it's like, it is so, I've been thinking a lot about local communities and like hyperlocality.
And so it's just really cool to hear you talk about the way that you've started navigatingthat.
So I know your work as a community builder from when my brother had moved back and he wasliving at home after college and you were really kind and instrumental and like welcoming
(22:57):
him in and having open mics and you know giving him a place to continue to like practiceperforming and a community of artists.
So I know that that is something that feels like a core tenet of
of who you are when I think of you as a person.
But can you tell us a little bit more about like how that is coming in and through withyour House of Music project as well as like your incredible group of female songwriters
(23:28):
and other musicians in the area?
Yeah, thank you.
That's a brilliant question.
I mean, really, I can look back at
my dear friend Blair, who was running some really great open mics.
He just knew how to get people in and give them the information they needed to understandthat they were a part of the experience, that they were gonna help guide it.
(23:54):
And when you give people that power, they're excited.
They're like, wait, it's not just the performer.
It's like, no, the audience actually is a part of the process.
And so I started an open mic.
He was still.
with us when I did that, but I ran an open mic for about 10 years at Union Street, whichis unfortunately no longer with us.
(24:15):
And fortunately, it was in a side room from the bar.
I invited people in, I reminded them that this was a listening experience.
You know, I invited them to go to the bar and have a drink if they were having a loudconversation.
And it just started a culture there that like people knew it was gonna be good.
And you would go and you would see, I mean, people that now 10 years later, 15 yearslater, they're at the top of their game.
(24:42):
Like they're doing amazing stuff.
I mean, I could point to like five to 10 people that started off in that open mic and theywere just starting.
And now they have careers in the music industry and they're touring and traveling.
And so I got a lot of love for that because...
Detroit is not necessarily known for singer-songwriters.
(25:02):
mean, it is more now today than it used to be.
But it's like Detroit's known for like Motown and for Techno and for like Jack White.
know, there's, you know, and other things, you know, other musicians and blues, BlackBottom and like, know, Hastings Street.
But the songwriter lives in all of those things, right?
(25:24):
The song has to be there.
But there aren't a lot, there weren't a lot of listening rooms in Detroit.
I mean, you go and it was like St.
Andrews, it was like these loud places, like nobody was supporting a singer songwriter,just guitar listening space.
So my open mic became, and we did a feature too.
So we would feature somebody really, really great in there.
And so people would just come to the open mic because they knew it was just going to be,people that weren't even players would come just to watch.
(25:51):
So yeah, a lot of that helped.
people meet each other and create like groups and like harmonies.
And so like there was just a whole beautiful culture that was created with the support ofthat whole community there.
And from that, I think part of the through line is that we all got to know each other.
(26:11):
We all got to be like really, really close.
And I definitely leaned into women performers.
Like most of my features were women and
Every time there was a new young person, female, trying out, and non-binary too, it'slike, everybody's welcome.
(26:32):
I would really lean into supporting them, especially when there was a lot of talent there,because for so long, you just always hear, there's a female-focused show.
And it's like, well, why can't it just be a show when it happens to be all women?
You know, there's all these just different ways that like we were marginalized or it'slike if you had one woman on the show, you were like, you were doing it.
(26:55):
And it's like, well, no, not really.
And so, yeah, it's like there's only- This really hits my heart.
Like this really hits my heart.
Exactly.
There's only room for one female singer, songwriter, guitar player.
It's like, no, actually that's not true at all.
So I just forced the issue.
I just said, well, I'm not gonna call this a woman's night, but-
(27:17):
I'm just gonna focus on more women.
And people can call it what they want, right?
So yeah, I just kind of took those words out of my mouth so that I wasn't kind of like, Iwas just saying, we've got a show with some really great songwriters.
Here's their names, right?
And then people just go, it's like All Ladies.
And it's like, well, yeah, it is.
(27:38):
But if I had a show with all guys, you wouldn't be like, it's an all guy show.
Isn't it so fun?
It's all men.
It's so fun.
And through that, when I would do shows, I would ask my female singer-songwriter friendsto join.
I just naturally, over time, it's like now I can call on three, four people that like,hey, can you come harmonize on this song?
(28:01):
It's like, yeah, absolutely.
Like, it's just, we know each other's songs, you know, and we can just jump on eachother's stuff.
And I think, you know, the hip hop world's really good at doing this and we are not.
Like folk people and rock people are not good at this.
You see a hip hop artist, they're featuring this person, this person, this person, thatperson, right?
Next album comes out, this person's putting out an album featuring this person, thisperson, plus two more people.
(28:25):
And we're afraid to share that wealth.
We're kind of like, there's only enough room for me.
And so if I tell that person, then it's actually not like that.
If you present stuff that's just actually really good, it only behooves the whole, youknow, the whole gets more.
So I've always just been like that.
I don't really...
I mean, aside from my clothing, like I pretty much share everything.
(28:47):
I mean, actually I share all my clothing too.
My friends come over and go through my closet.
Amazing.
We're big fans of the phrase high tides lift all boats here.
that's so encouraging to hear.
Like small personal anecdote, I run a lot of games of Dungeons and Dragons for all womenor just groups of diverse people who are often marginalized.
(29:10):
And it's so encouraging anytime somebody's like,
Yeah, no, it shouldn't be a rarity.
It should be exciting and different.
And honestly, probably has a lot of different vibes that are super fun to do a show that'sall women without it being about the fact that everyone's women.
Because it's just like a, it's a nice place.
It's a safe space to be in when you know you're surrounded by a bunch of people who arelike living that experience with you, but not in a way where that's the focus of the
(29:37):
experience.
Yeah, that's nicely put.
Thank you.
So changing gears a little bit, this is something I don't know a lot about other than thefact that it's been very successful.
Tell me about the box.
The box.
I should have the box right here.
Gosh.
Well, that's something maybe we can put a link in for.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
It's in the car, of course, because I use it all the time.
(29:59):
I just leave them.
You see my car is literally like a children's extravaganza.
Like, could literally do a workshop anywhere, anytime if I had my car.
my god, incredible.
Amazing.
Yeah, the box.
So when I started working for the DSO, they had an initiative already going on, you know,and they had some work, they were doing some work in early childhood musical education,
(30:24):
but they wanted to do more.
And they were working on kind of like getting some more grant money around thisparticular, like, like a toolkit or some kind of offering to community, but they really
didn't know what it was at the time.
So they brought me in.
to consult with that and I said, well, with my experience as a Wolf Trap teaching artistand using lots of boxes in classrooms, I understood that using a box was not only
(30:52):
something that was gonna create a lot of excitement for little ones, it was a beautifultool for educators.
Bringing out something out of a box or creating, you know, what's in this, what could bein this?
Anticipation.
Right, that curiosity, right?
And so it was like, okay, well, we're gonna build a box and we're gonna put musical, youknow, things like shakers and scarves.
(31:16):
We have a little werewolf, a little frog and a chime, a three-tone chime that comes in thebox.
so developing the box was about creating something that we could offer out to community,particularly educators and also homeschool spaces and also families.
to use to pair with education.
(31:38):
And it was in line with all the work that I was already doing.
And pure music is really fun and exciting, but it's not the same as pairing music withcurriculum goals for educators.
And they're all struggling in the classroom and not because they're not amazing, partlythey're underpaid, they're overworked, they're taxed very heavily in the classroom
(32:00):
because- Not heavily in agreement.
It takes a lot of effort to
help little ones understand where their bodies begin and where others end and all of thosethings.
It's just there's a lot going on.
And we know that when you connect music with something you're trying to teach, you'recreating a whole new pathway of understanding, a whole new connection for those little
(32:23):
ones.
So instead of like reprimanding somebody for not doing something that you like, you canhelp by singing what you do like.
Like if I see Laura is doing something nice with yarn, can say, I see Laura, I see Lauracrocheting, crocheting.
(32:46):
It makes me feel so happy, da-da, whatever we wanna say.
Or if I see Laura doing something that's like maybe questionable, I can say, I'd love tosee Laura, I'd love to see Laura calm her body, calm, I'm calming my body.
The whole thing is that you're not only using the music, you're actually using tone andit's hidden in music.
(33:11):
It's hidden rather than sort of like, Laura, I want you to stop doing that.
It's like, okay, but I'm not really listening to you.
if I'm singing and I'm practicing pairing the way I want you to respond with the way thatI'm using my voice, you certainly wouldn't take a baby and say, it's time to go to sleep,
time to go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep.
(33:33):
You might say that if you're like, it's time to clean up, it's time to clean up.
But when you're, you know, you're gonna use that tone.
So helping educators use the voice they already have, because like we said at thebeginning, music is in all of us.
We all have that right and that beautiful privilege to sing and kids don't care if yousing well, sing in tune, they don't care.
(33:57):
They just wanna sing with you.
They just want, they wanna hear their name in a song.
The amazing thing, when you sing to a baby and you say their name, their eyes, their eyesjust open.
And so that has brought the most joy into my life is really doing that work.
And so when I was able to then take that, all that work and all that knowledge that I'dgotten from being in the classroom and having the support of folks like Living Arts and
(34:24):
Wolf Trap and Inside Out, these incredible organizations, I was like armed to be like,
I know exactly what you guys need.
And then I made this beautiful box that like people are just so excited.
We've gotten about five or 600 boxes out into community along with professionaldevelopment for educators.
(34:45):
I've modeled for parents how to use it.
We've created videos.
We've worked with artists from Wolf Trap and Living Arts to create videos.
So it's also echoing back into like how are artists thriving?
How are we keeping our artists
employed, right?
And really, I'm a great model for like, I was a musician, and now I'm a music educator,because we can all take some of our art form and go, how can we actually, like not only
(35:14):
perform, but like, how can we like help others find their own voices?
know?
And I know from personal experience, my kids being able to have attended the
the Fisher BQI camp that we piloted last year and Audra was instrumental in that, but thatonly- Instrumental.
(35:37):
That's a total great thing to say.
was just going to grab this little- She's on Because I do happen to have the top of thebox.
Yes.
that's actually, that's gorgeous.
wasn't, I don't know why, I don't know why I was thinking that the box would be plain onthe outside.
That's an egg on my face, It's got this like gorgeous gold, like filigree situation,patterns, deep colors.
(36:05):
We'll have to, Audra, if you'll send me a photo of the box, I'd love to post that with ourepisode.
Yeah.
Cause it's, that's so cool.
I thought.
It is amazing.
Truly, I need to admit my lack of knowledge on this.
I was like, the box will be some sort of educational technique.
I didn't realize you were actually also sending these boxes out into the community.
(36:26):
And that is so amazing.
Like, that's so sick.
And it's Audra, and being able to sit in rooms with Audra and the partners that she wasworking with and DSO and all that stuff and watch it come to life and then to see it in
front of...
Children and families, like we have a box here and it's our quiet box.
I like to pull out the box here when we've had a little too much screen time or maybewe're getting a little cranky with one another on a rainy day.
(36:55):
A little little squirrely.
Then I'll pull out the, and the kids go, but like it's a whole ceremony about bringing outthe box, which like is 110 % what I think is really special and significant about the
tools that are in that.
I am going to shift us away from this because I haven't could talk about The Box for hoursand hours and hours.
(37:18):
In fact, sitting in a Detroit house of music for hours and hours talking about The Box.
But I wanted to ask you a little bit more about what's your personal artistic practice?
Like what strategies have you developed to kind of take care of yourself while you'reworking in the industry?
my gosh, I wish I was doing that.
(37:39):
Yeah, that's a really important question and one that kind of the older I get, I'll be 51this year.
I can't believe it.
No.
yeah, girl.
Amazing.
What's up?
Not it's off the skin care routine.
can cut this from the podcast, but I'm going to need your skin care routine because, myGod, I had no idea.
(38:01):
OK, that's incredible.
First of all, the work is so healing that I'm really lucky that I really followed myheart.
my whole life and I've had a lot of problems doing that over the years before I reallyfound that education, music education was a pathway to creating a career and creating a
(38:22):
stable life even though most of us don't have savings these days and I don't know what'sgonna happen when we all get old but the work that I do is a very healing work.
But it is overwhelming and it does take a lot of energy and it takes a lot of care andthere's a lot of.
moments where you have to really study yourself and decide what can you do, how much canyou take on, and when is it time to let go, or when can you give yourself that break, even
(38:52):
if it's five minutes, to clear yourself.
And so I think the garden has really stepped in as a healer for me.
I've always had a green thumb and I've always just wanted to be a gardener.
I mean, I am out.
I don't care if I've worked all day.
I mean, I literally could be in like four classrooms.
(39:13):
I've been jumping around with kids.
I'm exhausted.
I come home.
I'm like, I get in the garden suddenly like three hours have passed and I am like beendigging in the dirt and moving things and putting my hands and I'm like all the dirt's
under my nails.
And then it's like the next day I'm like, shoot, I got all this dirt under my nails still.
It's not because I'm dirty, it's because I'm in the dirt.
(39:36):
That's really what I do is I spend time singing.
I spend time singing to the plants and to the trees.
And last summer I was asked to go to Song of the Morning, which is kind of a spiritual,like meditation retreat space.
And it's just absolutely gorgeous.
I I was asked to come and sing and do a songwriting workshop.
(39:58):
And it's kind of, you know, it's steeped in Hare Krishna and there was a lot of singingand dancing.
and like celebration, right?
And I love community and I have a little Baptist church, like just a tiny in a house rightacross from my house.
And I look at it right now out the window.
And I feel like I lost my connection with spirituality because I feel like it had beenco-opted from me and that there was only this sort of like a few narrow paths of like what
(40:30):
it was to be connected and what God was.
And so I went to this retreat and I've been doing this for years beforehand, meditating inthe garden, singing to trees.
I mean, I'm literally touching the red buds outside and going, little red bud, little redbud, can't wait for you to bloom.
You know, whatever, like, but just natural, just making up that'll make those plants grow,right?
(40:54):
Like there's actually science behind that, right?
They're growing, right?
They did some study that like if you talk to the plants, they'll grow better.
Like that's wild.
they do.
And you grow better.
and you grow better.
so that, I mean, to a long story long is that when I was there, I found my way back to apractice.
(41:15):
And I'm not like, I didn't just sort of like, now I'm a Hare Krishna meditator.
It was like, but no, like I was aligned with what these people were kind of already doingin just a natural way.
And when I came home, like it really stayed with me.
And so now when I sing in the garden, I not only celebrate the trees,
I try to understand it as my own celebration of my own body and my connection toeverything.
(41:40):
And then how God sort of, for me, is in all of those things and that it's in me too.
It's been really good.
I feel happier than I have in a long time.
That's really special.
That's really special.
And inspiring too.
Thank you for sharing.
This is a little bit of a pivot.
(42:01):
like in the same way of what's exciting you, what's inspiring you, what media, so thatcould be like book, podcast, movie, whatever, are you consuming now that's been inspiring
for you or exciting for you?
yeah.
Well, recently a friend gave me a new Spotify list, which is great because I tend to gettotally lost in the old school songwriters, know, of like, you know, the folk world of
(42:25):
like the late 60s and early 70s, and then just really hard to...
for me, I have found that, because there's just is so much to consume that, yeah, so I'vebeen excited about listening to some young up and coming songwriters that I didn't know
about.
I also find that I listen to a lot of live music because I am so connected to thecommunity here that like my Bob Dylan's and Joni Mitchell's and stuff, they're like also
(42:52):
right here in Detroit.
And so it's like, so I consume a lot of live media, I would say.
And then the last part is I do watch a lot of like meaningless nothing stuff.
And it's part of my process of like letting go of everything to going back to the selfcare.
It's like sometimes I just need a Netflix series and I can't think and I can't do, and I'mjust going to lay down and have a glass of wine and watch a meaningless show.
(43:21):
there is, there's, it's all across the board for me.
I miss reading.
haven't been reading very much.
So it's something that I wanna get back into doing.
That's amazing.
Well, our last sort of big question for you is, as you've done all this work with youngpeople, as you've been through your own life as an artist, what would you tell either your
younger self or current young people or current young people's caregivers about havingthese career aspirations in the arts?
(43:53):
Yeah, that's a great question.
And I guess it's kind of three questions, but like you can bake those together any way youlike.
I would say, know, turning into, you know, localizing the way that you connect withcommunity has longevity.
that we've all stretched, global connection is really cool and interesting and national,you know, celebrity is really interesting and great and awesome.
(44:19):
But I think it's true in almost everything that like,
The further you have to go out to get something, the more expensive it is to get, the morecarbon footprint it leaves, and that you're missing out on someone that's right there next
to you that may have that skill.
And so I think that what I'd love to see is people celebrating Detroit art the way thatthey wear their Detroit shirts, the way that they wanna buy their Detroit beer, or buy
(44:50):
their artisan cheese, or their local greens.
or eat at their local sort of hand-to-table or farm-to-table restaurant.
Let's let that trickle into the way that we celebrate our artistry, the way that wecelebrate our children, the way that we invest in our local environment.
(45:11):
Because I think that is the key to us really creating a more sustainable, more collectivelife.
I mean, the way that we collectivize our pain and our joy,
really reflects who we are as a community.
And I see often, you you see that person on the street and you think, my hands are tied, Idon't really know how to help that person.
(45:35):
You know, I kind of, we pay taxes to help that person sort of do something.
And so we're really detached from helping them or really seeing them.
kind of like, that's not part of my job.
But if we start to think about like, well, if that one...
know, unhoused person is the only person I see every once in a while, then that's theperson in my spectrum, my life.
(46:00):
And so who are the people that are right around us again that we can support and reallybring more power into ourselves and take more power from what the city might not be able
to do or what the state might not be doing or what the, you know, I mean, I am actuallyfor more,
(46:21):
neighborhood power, more small based community power.
Cause we see as organizations, no matter what their drive is, the bigger they are, theharder it is to really keep focus and the more it costs to kind of run them and then
things kind of slip through.
So, and then the second thing that I would add to that is interview your elders.
(46:44):
Like take time to.
to find their stories.
One of the biggest projects that I know has legs that I want to leave you with is it's amemory project that I want to get a grant for.
So maybe we can talk about that more.
But I want to interview elders in my neighborhood.
I want to get local songwriters to mentor youth to help interview elders to create songs.
(47:11):
So it's kind of a three tiered thing.
It's like number one, we're losing
these stories and every one of those stories are important.
And we have young people that don't understand the history of Lula May, maybe, that hasbeen living in this neighborhood and she's an actual person that lives, is my neighbor.
And as we're losing our neighbors, we need to tell their stories.
(47:33):
So I want to create a mentorship program for teaching artists like myself and songwriterslike myself to take on a young person who wants to learn how to be a writer, whether it's
poetry or songwriting.
or storytelling and help them learn how to interview people and then take those ideas andput them into song and poetry form and short writings.
(47:53):
So it's called, I don't know, maybe Detroit Memory Project or Northwest Goldberg edition.
But yeah, I think that's a part of this whole thing of like localizing and understandingthe history that's there and really respecting it and celebrating it.
It's incredible.
I'm just in awe.
(48:14):
constantly.
Any advice for the kiddos who are maybe looking into going to music?
Yeah, I'd say do it.
Interview their elders.
Yeah, I interview your elders.
Go to open mics, go to places, you know, put yourself in places where you're seeing peopledoing the things that you want to do.
Because number one, you're going to be inspired.
(48:36):
Number two, you're going to get to know people that are doing that work.
Number three, you're going to get a sense of like what it really takes.
And like, is this something that you really wanna do?
I talk to young songwriters all the time and yeah, they ask the same question, what shouldI be doing?
I was like, you should be going to shows that you see yourself doing, you know?
And learn from that and try to get backstage and like do all the things, do all the littlethings, get your elevator speech together.
(49:03):
I don't care what it is, but like take a minute and go, what is my art form?
What am I doing with it?
And who do I want to hear it?
Make a sentence.
out of that and then be able to say, you know, my name is Audra Kubat, you know, I workthrough vulnerability in songwriting to inspire others.
Maybe that's your pitch.
I don't know, but figure out what that is.
(49:25):
And then you can, know, sometimes you have to say it before you can sort of be it.
So just say it, I'm a songwriter.
When you see little, like Laura, when I'm like doing the inside out thing and you seelittle kids stand up like better, like in fourth grade and they're like, I'm a songwriter.
You're like, yes, you are.
Yeah, you are.
There's nothing like the performing arts.
think we need, performing arts helps us in every walk of our lives when we have to presentlater in life, practicing speech, practicing songwriting, practicing standing up in front
(49:54):
of a classroom and saying, these are the things I think as a third grader, that's going tohelp them later.
So we got to, we got to really put more energy into those little ones.
I love that.
The moments.
Yeah.
Audra, as always, just incredible conversations with you.
I always leave feeling so fulfilled.
(50:15):
I feel energized.
Yay.
Your presence and just the way you approach not only the work, but community and just theintentionality behind how and what you do.
It's always been inspiring.
So I'm so excited that we were able to share your story.
and a bit of your journey with the podcast today.
(50:38):
Any parting thoughts?
It's just really great to be asked the questions.
think that it's part of the work that we all forget is so important is like asking theright questions can help me understand what I do.
And sometimes I learn so much more about myself and my own direction by answeringquestions.
(51:00):
So I want to thank both of you for just the thoughtful questions.
and I love the work you're doing and I can't wait to not only hear this, but also hearwhat you do in the future and what you've already done.
my gosh, thank you so We'll see you soon, Audra.
Yes.
Have a beautiful day.
Thank you.
Thank you.
(51:20):
Bye.
You too.
Bye.
Living in the Arts is hosted by Laura Scales with original music and editing by JasonDuran.
It is produced and co-hosted by Claire Haupe and our podcast coordinator is Colin Shai.
For more information about anything our guest mentioned, be sure to check out the shownotes.
Living in the Arts is made possible by listeners like you.
Don't forget to follow, rate, review, or share an episode that excites you.
(51:43):
To learn more and support Living in the Arts, please visit livingartsdetroit.org.
Thank you so much for joining us and so much for listening.
Hello, I'm Laura Scales, a dedicated arts facilitator, career counselor, and the CEO ofLiving Arts Detroit.
Join us as we chat with both experienced and emerging artistic professionals who haveignited their creativity and shaped their careers to thrive while living in the arts.
Today's interview is with Audra Kupot, teaching artist, musician, and educator.
(00:22):
In today's episode, we're going to learn about teaching yourself, breaking bread with yourneighbors, and helping others find their own voice.
One takeaway I can offer you already
When you're vulnerable, you might be your truest self.
For more, stay tuned.
Hi, Audra, how are you?
(00:43):
I'm good.
How are you, Laura?
I'm good.
Would you like to take a second and introduce yourself to our listeners?
I would love to.
So my name is Audra Kubat.
I'm a teaching artist, a songwriter, a producer, educator.
And I'm really happy to be here today with you to talk about my work and celebrate thattoday.
(01:06):
Incredible.
Before we get into it, I just want to
start us off with a little good thing and a bad thing.
For those of you who might be new to the podcast, I like to do this before all of ourmeetings and before our recording episodes, but you can have two good things.
You just can't have two bad things.
Those are the rules that I made up.
(01:27):
I'll go first.
My bad thing is that a massive tree limb fell on our deck and like bent the steel frame ofthe bench that was out of there.
But my good thing is that it doesn't seem to have actually done any other damage andnobody was outside when that happened.
That's the way.
(01:48):
Yeah.
Mother Nature is mighty.
Claire?
I'm just going to go good thing today.
I've been working on a fundraiser for Living Arts and a couple other like internetstreamers have joined in to that to that move.
And I donated to one of them because I liked the rewards and got made the
(02:09):
cutest emote of like, it's like a drawing of me and my cat.
And it was like, the reward was like, you get a doodle from this person.
And I really thought like, it'll be like something she already drew.
No, she fully messaged me last night, was like, here's what I drew for you.
And it's so cute.
And it's me and my cat, Al.
And like, I just was so, what a joy, what a joy it is.
(02:30):
If you have friends, get art made of them.
It's such a great gift.
It's so fun.
Yeah.
That's mine.
I'm going to skip a bad thing.
I'm going to live in the positive today.
I like that.
Yeah, a lot of good things have been going on.
The peach trees that I planted a few years ago have bloomed this year, and they're justabsolutely gorgeous.
(02:55):
So I'm really happy about that.
I also planted 13 fruit trees over the last couple of years, and they all survived.
And so that was a really good thing as like I was, I've been walking around every day kindof like looking for the little buds and like, you know, are they, you know, did they all
make it and they, they all did.
(03:17):
And there's just been a lot of loss.
feel like it's, you know, like the globe is kind of like dealing with a lot of losses.
We just are feeling like just innocent lives be lost.
But then a couple of personal losses have been recent.
So that's been.
you know, challenging, but also a reminder of how precious life is and to take time withthose you love.
(03:41):
So there's always a bit of good in all loss in a way.
Yeah, and the juxtaposition of the new life and your fruit trees is like really beautiful.
Yeah, so.
My son was born on the anniversary of my grandfather's passing.
(04:01):
And so that day had always been so sad because my aunts and my mother had lost him whenthey were so young.
But now they like cried in the hospital because we named him after my grandfather.
And so like now it's like a joyous day and full of celebration.
But yeah, it was like almost 50 years.
(04:22):
It was 49 years to the day.
And I was like, this is wild.
circles, we like the circle of life.
That's a beautiful legacy.
Yeah, and remembering it.
Yeah.
Speaking of circles and passing things on and stuff, like the whole point of the pod iswe're passing on knowledge in that way of like being able to talk about where we are and
(04:44):
how we got here, whether or not we really can even fully put together those pieces.
But we sort of have this mindset of like, OK, everyone who has worked in the arts andentertainment industry that when you talk to them is like, well, know, my story is really
strange or my story is different.
And we love that and want to celebrate that and dig into that.
(05:04):
And it's also like, what's the best way to do that?
Let's listen to everybody's stories and hopefully the listeners can kind of take what theyneed and like, you know, leave the rest as something they've learned about someone's
journey.
So in a much smaller microcosm of the world, we're trying to do a similar knowledgesharing.
We would love to hear about your path into the arts and how you got into it and.
(05:28):
And how has it led you to where you are now?
Yeah.
How much time do you have?
No, I'm just kidding.
I was really blessed.
I grew up in Detroit, and my parents really wanted to put me in early childhood.
They were like, OK, you're like three.
What can we do?
And I got to be a part of Montessori when I was really little.
(05:51):
And I gravitated towards music then.
And I loved the format of
being able to kind of lead yourself with some guidance made a lot of sense for me and itgave me an opportunity to just really explore myself.
yeah, music was the thing that I sort of took away from that time.
(06:11):
And as I grew, I started playing piano by ear.
At like five and six, I had set up the piano.
And when I ended up going to public schools later, when we moved to Southfield,
I went through a lot of challenges.
The system was just so different and it was a very more disciplinary vibe and I had a lotof problems and I ended up being in special ed for like six months because they just
(06:38):
thought I had such behavioral problems.
Because I literally would just get up and change, shift, know, shift my focus.
I'd be like, well, but I'm going to do this.
And they'd be like.
No, that's not.
No, you're not.
You're going to stay at that desk.
I'd excuse myself to go to the bathroom.
I just was handling everything.
I was really, yeah.
And so I got in a lot of trouble there.
(06:59):
My parents had to fight to kind of get me out of the situation.
But fortunately, they did.
My mom is a social worker and an advocate.
So I was really lucky to come up in a house that was surrounded by
really thoughtful, loving, and people that understood kind of early childhood already, youknow, through their own work.
(07:22):
My dad's a therapist.
And so that said, they tried to put me in piano lessons and I totally rejected it becauseof course, piano lessons are like, go back to playing like, da, da, da, da, da, you know,
like, no, I'm already playing chords, excuse me.
So I did reject any lessons that I got.
(07:43):
And music kind of like floated away for a long time until probably after high school.
I thought I was going to be a painter actually.
I was like, I'm a drawer, I'm a painter, but I was never great.
I was okay.
I probably could have gotten better.
But then I started, I had a boyfriend who had a guitar.
And I was like, teach me a song.
(08:06):
And so he taught me some chords.
And then it was like a year later, I was like writing my own songs.
And I basically absconded the guitar from
him and started going to open mics and things like that and just really was intosongwriting and I always was very much about like the word.
I wrote poetry when I was younger and everything.
(08:26):
So that kind of brought me into, you know, performing and I didn't have any training.
I didn't really know what I was doing.
In fact, my voice wasn't very good at the time and I would study Joni Mitchell records andI would mimic her voice and actually she is the one that taught me.
really how to use my head voice, how to sing really high and use all the parts of my voicejust by kind of mimicking her.
(08:51):
And got a little tension here and there.
And so as I continued to play, I put out some records and such, but I kind of got intoeducation really naturally.
I used to take my guitar and play on the porch.
And at that time I lived in Woodbridge, kind of near Wayne State.
the neighbor kids would like come up and be like, what are you doing?
And be like, you wanna, I'll teach you about guitar, I'll teach you about music.
(09:13):
And so, yeah, I started just giving lessons, like on my porch to kids.
So that was like my first and I was like, I was really natural at it.
I did some other teaching and people hired me to do songwriting lessons and things likethat.
And I did some piano lessons.
But early childhood education kind of came through.
(09:35):
A person that used to work for Living Arts actually, named Claire.
And also David Blair, who I really knew as Blair, a dear friend.
He asked me to come in and do like a workshop.
Actually it was for Inside Out at the time.
And he was doing songwriting with kids.
And so he was like, you'd be perfect, da da da.
So I came in and I did a workshop.
And unfortunately, he left this plane.
(10:00):
But Inside Out called me and said, will you come in and take over?
the songwriting workshop for Blair.
And so I did.
And then that was like, okay, I'm in the classroom suddenly.
I was like, how did this all happen?
You know, 20 years into my music career, it was like, okay, this really made sense to me.
And what I found with combining sort of music and education is like, people don't makemoney playing music.
(10:25):
It's really, really hard to even be a working musician.
And then this was like the pathway I found to do that.
So around the same time, my friend Claire, who worked for Living Arts at the time, sheneeded somebody to take over her residency.
She's like, I told them about you and they've heard your name, da da da.
So I went in and they brought me in to do that.
(10:47):
And then it was like, they just kept bringing me back, bringing me back.
And then I kind of got hooked into Wolf Trap, which is sort of umbrellaed under LivingArts.
I fell in love with it.
did the training and it was like, my gosh, it's like really using music to model foreducators how to use music, how to use an artful practice and all that combining sound and
(11:11):
rhythm with learning.
was like, this is what I was doing when I was a little child.
This is how I was learning and connecting.
And then it was like, here I am having people like sort of invest in me and training meand believing in my work.
And so that really just kept me going in that direction.
(11:34):
then sort of many professional development hours later and classroom hours later, I amlike where I am today, about 12 years into like my professional educational self.
So that's like the surface of sort of- The broad strokes.
Yeah, that's the broad stroke of where I am today with that.
(11:56):
I-
I get to work with all kinds of organizations.
I've really become kind of someone excitingly that people look to to say, well, we want todo an early childhood program.
Let's call Audra and see if she's available or if she has any guidance.
So it's like all of this culminated into more and more people reaching out.
(12:17):
I get to work with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra creating and helping to really developtheir initiative, or support their initiative that they had started around early
childhood.
being a supportive partner to other early childhood educational spaces and then havingtheir own sort of entity there.
And it's pretty cool.
(12:37):
That's so awesome.
It's great.
You've definitely solidified that.
I mean, I think that when people think teaching artists in Detroit, that your name, notfirst, is second or third on everyone's lips.
So it's been incredible to learn more about your path here.
When did you know you were in it for the long haul?
Like when we were like, this is my life now.
(12:59):
Yeah, yeah.
I think kind of the first time that I played music for people and people cried.
That was like very memorable.
In fact, I actually used to cry and I still cry on stage.
If you ever come to one of my shows and I cry about something, it's totally fine.
(13:20):
But yeah, know, somebody
came up to me after and was just like, you you being emotional on stage really allowed meto be emotional on stage.
And I hadn't cried in a long time, they said, you know, they were sharing.
And I kind of like, it clicked right away because I kind of came through a lot of abuse asa child.
And I mean, I had some challenges that were not quite in my family, but around people inmy neighborhood, you know, that I had to kind of get through.
(13:46):
And music was the thing that I turned to and writing was that release for me.
And so all my songs were about like my, really my own pain at the time.
I've really gotten out of writing as personal, even though it's all still personal.
So I realized, it clicked that like, okay, music is a vehicle for vulnerability andhealing.
(14:09):
And to me, vulnerability is my superpower because I believe truly that when you arevulnerable, you are your truest self.
And the more that we are our true selves, there's less miscommunication and there's
less disconnect, there's actually more disconnect and it really helps everybody around us,even though sometimes they're afraid at first, they're like, shoot, I almost said, I
(14:31):
almost had to bleep myself.
Otter's being vulnerable, it's like I'm starting to feel vulnerable too and it's scary,it's scary, but then another person's like, all right, I'm gonna go and then suddenly
there's a room full of people being really vulnerable that may never have connected inthat way.
And...
I think the things that connect us are just way broader and bigger than the things that wedon't connect on.
(14:57):
Like we're all human.
We all go through all these really similar feelings.
So yeah, it just clicked and I was like, nope, this is what I'm doing.
I'm gonna be really good at it.
And then I just went in hard and said, learn that guitar, be a better songwriter.
Don't just write a song and willy-nilly, because I used to, that was like at thebeginning, I just write a song and be like, it's great, I wrote it, you know?
(15:20):
It's like, no, there's work to do, there's always editing to do.
And when I work with others, especially like older songwriters or more seasonedsongwriters, it's really sort of like, have you done enough editing?
Have you gone in and interrogated your song and say, is this really doing the thing that Iwant it to do?
Because if it's not, maybe you need to go back in.
(15:42):
So I love working on songs and yeah, so that's when I knew.
Okay, this is so interesting to me because I feel like there's a real, like there'ssomething to interrogate in the energy of being a self-taught pianist and essentially a
lot of self-taught musicality in your life and becoming a teaching artist.
(16:03):
But I'm curious about like the intersection between education.
and your own artistic practice and how that journey has kind of informed that.
Yeah.
Well, one thing I think we all are intuitively musical.
I think that our society puts a lot of constraints on our little ones to be quiet, tofollow things.
(16:27):
And so the natural rhythm and aptitude towards music that would really be, I think, waymore prevalent if we were nurturing it.
I know is being kind of tapped down.
So because of that, I had to go my own path.
I had to sort of learn myself because again, I said when I was in piano lessons, theyweren't really nurturing where I was or saying like, wow, she's really just playing all
(16:54):
the stuff already.
They were like, nope, you must go back to the beginning and like learn that that is thatand this is this.
So I think then going through that whole path of like, okay, I must teach myself.
I'm gonna listen to records to learn how to be a singer.
I mean, I certainly didn't have the money to go out and pay someone to teach me how tosing or this or that.
So I like, I just looked for like, who, you know, I got a free guitar from a boyfriend.
(17:17):
I got free lessons from him.
got some, you know, but like I, I was a natural listener of music and I, I just could kindof take it through myself and put it back out.
Again, I just, think that there's so much more of that.
recently had,
I do this lot.
I have parties.
And when I do, and it gets to the point where everybody's having a really good time, I putan instrument in their hand and we could talk about the house in a little bit.
(17:42):
My next thing is right about that.
So let me, I would love if you just gave us a little preface of what Detroit House ofMusic is for you and how you've done that.
And I know there's like a lot of generation for female songwriters too.
And especially you talk about vulnerability as a superpower.
I feel like this energy of like,
hosting these gatherings and helping to develop these people.
(18:05):
And then hearing that you put instruments in people's hair, I'm like, yes, keep going.
But also now feels like the right moment to introduce House of Music for sure.
Yeah, so Detroit House of Music kind of morphed into a Detroit House of Music.
I picked a name really quick because we were like, OK, we need a name.
And it felt like it was not quite the right name until I came up with this is.
(18:29):
just a model for other places.
There's so many houses in our city, in beautiful neighborhoods that need artists to livein them and to do razor-focus outreach.
Like, we do not have to, I don't have to fix all of Detroit, you know, and I'm not reallyeven trying to fix my neighborhood, but I can offer to my neighbors and my community here
(18:49):
in Northwest Goldberg, which is the house, is what can I do for that?
so a Detroit House of Music was born.
And it's an old Victorian house that has been worked on for about five years to rehab it,to bring it to a place where the first floor could be usable.
We are still a little underground.
We are not a nonprofit.
(19:09):
We are kind of a very homegrown, still under the radar as we try to fix things and getthings up to code and get them to be in a real place where we can offer more.
As I was working on the house, it started during the pandemic.
Well, I really, was halfway through during the pandemic and I lost my funding during thepandemic.
(19:32):
And I was like, well, what am I going to do?
And I had this lot in the backyard.
said, well, I'm going to turn this into a community garden.
And I didn't really have a community of people yet, but I was like, okay, so I just, therewas nowhere to go, nowhere to be.
I wasn't making any money.
So I just went in the backyard and I started creating plots.
I got involved with the garden resource program and was able to get some wonderful plantsfrom them.
(19:56):
And three years later, I've delivered tomatoes and onions and all kinds of greens to myneighbors.
I've fed myself, I've fed my soul, I've fed people here at the house using things from thegarden.
And so one thing that was really important that I don't want to miss talking about is I'mnot from Northwest Goldberg.
(20:17):
I'm from Detroit, but this is not my neighborhood, right?
And so it was really important to me to not...
come into the neighborhood and just be like, I'm supplanting here and this is what I'mdoing.
And so when I started the garden, I made a commitment to myself that every single personthat walks by, drives by, rides by, I'm gonna wave.
(20:37):
I'm gonna notice that there's something happening outside of this little lot and there'sno fence, it's just a lot in the back.
And I did, I started waving every time and be like, I noticed some people probably, thatgirl is always just waving, what is she doing?
But it led to like the stop and chat.
Yeah, and this was still pandemic time.
So it was like, I'm also on a bus line.
I drive, wave to the bus drivers.
(21:00):
I say, know, what are you doing?
Well, I'm rehabbing this house to turn it into an informal space for music education, forcommunity.
And we're going to do performances here, da da da da da.
And it's like, so over that year and a half, I really ingratiated myself with mycommunity.
And it felt very much like, wow, this is the way you get invited to the party.
(21:21):
Hence I've...
I've been able to hire neighbors to do work here because strangely, if you ask yourneighbors, you find that there is a carpenter that probably lives in your neighborhood.
There is a plumber that probably lives in your neighborhood.
There is a teacher, there are artists, there are all these different people that like, youknow, we tend to like look in the phone book or people don't look in a phone book anymore,
(21:42):
but you know, to find people.
exactly.
But like, who are the people actually there?
So this all.
came together kind of like, I actually want to create like a pamphlet, like 10 steps tolike breaking bread with your neighbors as a new person in your neighborhood, which I may
do one day.
I genuinely think that would be a game changer for a lot of people.
(22:03):
Like the thing that I just keep thinking about is that like this thing that you have doneis incredibly brave.
Like just waving to people who pass by your house while you're outside is a brave thing todo in the world today because it's like,
We're so ingrained, like the don't talk to strangers that we receive as children is likeso deep into our mindset that like, that people sometimes look at me strangely when I
(22:28):
smile at them, when we pass on the street.
And it's like, it is so, I've been thinking a lot about local communities and like hyperlocality.
And so it's just really cool to hear you talk about the way that you've started navigatingthat.
So I know your work as a community builder from when my brother had moved back and he wasliving at home after college and you were really kind and instrumental and like welcoming
(22:57):
him in and having open mics and you know giving him a place to continue to like practiceperforming and a community of artists.
So I know that that is something that feels like a core tenet of
of who you are when I think of you as a person.
But can you tell us a little bit more about like how that is coming in and through withyour House of Music project as well as like your incredible group of female songwriters
(23:28):
and other musicians in the area?
Yeah, thank you.
That's a brilliant question.
I mean, really, I can look back at
my dear friend Blair, who was running some really great open mics.
He just knew how to get people in and give them the information they needed to understandthat they were a part of the experience, that they were gonna help guide it.
(23:54):
And when you give people that power, they're excited.
They're like, wait, it's not just the performer.
It's like, no, the audience actually is a part of the process.
And so I started an open mic.
He was still.
with us when I did that, but I ran an open mic for about 10 years at Union Street, whichis unfortunately no longer with us.
(24:15):
And fortunately, it was in a side room from the bar.
I invited people in, I reminded them that this was a listening experience.
You know, I invited them to go to the bar and have a drink if they were having a loudconversation.
And it just started a culture there that like people knew it was gonna be good.
And you would go and you would see, I mean, people that now 10 years later, 15 yearslater, they're at the top of their game.
(24:42):
Like they're doing amazing stuff.
I mean, I could point to like five to 10 people that started off in that open mic and theywere just starting.
And now they have careers in the music industry and they're touring and traveling.
And so I got a lot of love for that because...
Detroit is not necessarily known for singer-songwriters.
(25:02):
mean, it is more now today than it used to be.
But it's like Detroit's known for like Motown and for Techno and for like Jack White.
know, there's, you know, and other things, you know, other musicians and blues, BlackBottom and like, know, Hastings Street.
But the songwriter lives in all of those things, right?
(25:24):
The song has to be there.
But there aren't a lot, there weren't a lot of listening rooms in Detroit.
I mean, you go and it was like St.
Andrews, it was like these loud places, like nobody was supporting a singer songwriter,just guitar listening space.
So my open mic became, and we did a feature too.
So we would feature somebody really, really great in there.
And so people would just come to the open mic because they knew it was just going to be,people that weren't even players would come just to watch.
(25:51):
So yeah, a lot of that helped.
people meet each other and create like groups and like harmonies.
And so like there was just a whole beautiful culture that was created with the support ofthat whole community there.
And from that, I think part of the through line is that we all got to know each other.
(26:11):
We all got to be like really, really close.
And I definitely leaned into women performers.
Like most of my features were women and
Every time there was a new young person, female, trying out, and non-binary too, it'slike, everybody's welcome.
(26:32):
I would really lean into supporting them, especially when there was a lot of talent there,because for so long, you just always hear, there's a female-focused show.
And it's like, well, why can't it just be a show when it happens to be all women?
You know, there's all these just different ways that like we were marginalized or it'slike if you had one woman on the show, you were like, you were doing it.
(26:55):
And it's like, well, no, not really.
And so, yeah, it's like there's only- This really hits my heart.
Like this really hits my heart.
Exactly.
There's only room for one female singer, songwriter, guitar player.
It's like, no, actually that's not true at all.
So I just forced the issue.
I just said, well, I'm not gonna call this a woman's night, but-
(27:17):
I'm just gonna focus on more women.
And people can call it what they want, right?
So yeah, I just kind of took those words out of my mouth so that I wasn't kind of like, Iwas just saying, we've got a show with some really great songwriters.
Here's their names, right?
And then people just go, it's like All Ladies.
And it's like, well, yeah, it is.
(27:38):
But if I had a show with all guys, you wouldn't be like, it's an all guy show.
Isn't it so fun?
It's all men.
It's so fun.
And through that, when I would do shows, I would ask my female singer-songwriter friendsto join.
I just naturally, over time, it's like now I can call on three, four people that like,hey, can you come harmonize on this song?
(28:01):
It's like, yeah, absolutely.
Like, it's just, we know each other's songs, you know, and we can just jump on eachother's stuff.
And I think, you know, the hip hop world's really good at doing this and we are not.
Like folk people and rock people are not good at this.
You see a hip hop artist, they're featuring this person, this person, this person, thatperson, right?
Next album comes out, this person's putting out an album featuring this person, thisperson, plus two more people.
(28:25):
And we're afraid to share that wealth.
We're kind of like, there's only enough room for me.
And so if I tell that person, then it's actually not like that.
If you present stuff that's just actually really good, it only behooves the whole, youknow, the whole gets more.
So I've always just been like that.
I don't really...
I mean, aside from my clothing, like I pretty much share everything.
(28:47):
I mean, actually I share all my clothing too.
My friends come over and go through my closet.
Amazing.
We're big fans of the phrase high tides lift all boats here.
that's so encouraging to hear.
Like small personal anecdote, I run a lot of games of Dungeons and Dragons for all womenor just groups of diverse people who are often marginalized.
(29:10):
And it's so encouraging anytime somebody's like,
Yeah, no, it shouldn't be a rarity.
It should be exciting and different.
And honestly, probably has a lot of different vibes that are super fun to do a show that'sall women without it being about the fact that everyone's women.
Because it's just like a, it's a nice place.
It's a safe space to be in when you know you're surrounded by a bunch of people who arelike living that experience with you, but not in a way where that's the focus of the
(29:37):
experience.
Yeah, that's nicely put.
Thank you.
So changing gears a little bit, this is something I don't know a lot about other than thefact that it's been very successful.
Tell me about the box.
The box.
I should have the box right here.
Gosh.
Well, that's something maybe we can put a link in for.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
It's in the car, of course, because I use it all the time.
(29:59):
I just leave them.
You see my car is literally like a children's extravaganza.
Like, could literally do a workshop anywhere, anytime if I had my car.
my god, incredible.
Amazing.
Yeah, the box.
So when I started working for the DSO, they had an initiative already going on, you know,and they had some work, they were doing some work in early childhood musical education,
(30:24):
but they wanted to do more.
And they were working on kind of like getting some more grant money around thisparticular, like, like a toolkit or some kind of offering to community, but they really
didn't know what it was at the time.
So they brought me in.
to consult with that and I said, well, with my experience as a Wolf Trap teaching artistand using lots of boxes in classrooms, I understood that using a box was not only
(30:52):
something that was gonna create a lot of excitement for little ones, it was a beautifultool for educators.
Bringing out something out of a box or creating, you know, what's in this, what could bein this?
Anticipation.
Right, that curiosity, right?
And so it was like, okay, well, we're gonna build a box and we're gonna put musical, youknow, things like shakers and scarves.
(31:16):
We have a little werewolf, a little frog and a chime, a three-tone chime that comes in thebox.
so developing the box was about creating something that we could offer out to community,particularly educators and also homeschool spaces and also families.
to use to pair with education.
(31:38):
And it was in line with all the work that I was already doing.
And pure music is really fun and exciting, but it's not the same as pairing music withcurriculum goals for educators.
And they're all struggling in the classroom and not because they're not amazing, partlythey're underpaid, they're overworked, they're taxed very heavily in the classroom
(32:00):
because- Not heavily in agreement.
It takes a lot of effort to
help little ones understand where their bodies begin and where others end and all of thosethings.
It's just there's a lot going on.
And we know that when you connect music with something you're trying to teach, you'recreating a whole new pathway of understanding, a whole new connection for those little
(32:23):
ones.
So instead of like reprimanding somebody for not doing something that you like, you canhelp by singing what you do like.
Like if I see Laura is doing something nice with yarn, can say, I see Laura, I see Lauracrocheting, crocheting.
(32:46):
It makes me feel so happy, da-da, whatever we wanna say.
Or if I see Laura doing something that's like maybe questionable, I can say, I'd love tosee Laura, I'd love to see Laura calm her body, calm, I'm calming my body.
The whole thing is that you're not only using the music, you're actually using tone andit's hidden in music.
(33:11):
It's hidden rather than sort of like, Laura, I want you to stop doing that.
It's like, okay, but I'm not really listening to you.
if I'm singing and I'm practicing pairing the way I want you to respond with the way thatI'm using my voice, you certainly wouldn't take a baby and say, it's time to go to sleep,
time to go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep.
(33:33):
You might say that if you're like, it's time to clean up, it's time to clean up.
But when you're, you know, you're gonna use that tone.
So helping educators use the voice they already have, because like we said at thebeginning, music is in all of us.
We all have that right and that beautiful privilege to sing and kids don't care if yousing well, sing in tune, they don't care.
(33:57):
They just wanna sing with you.
They just want, they wanna hear their name in a song.
The amazing thing, when you sing to a baby and you say their name, their eyes, their eyesjust open.
And so that has brought the most joy into my life is really doing that work.
And so when I was able to then take that, all that work and all that knowledge that I'dgotten from being in the classroom and having the support of folks like Living Arts and
(34:24):
Wolf Trap and Inside Out, these incredible organizations, I was like armed to be like,
I know exactly what you guys need.
And then I made this beautiful box that like people are just so excited.
We've gotten about five or 600 boxes out into community along with professionaldevelopment for educators.
(34:45):
I've modeled for parents how to use it.
We've created videos.
We've worked with artists from Wolf Trap and Living Arts to create videos.
So it's also echoing back into like how are artists thriving?
How are we keeping our artists
employed, right?
And really, I'm a great model for like, I was a musician, and now I'm a music educator,because we can all take some of our art form and go, how can we actually, like not only
(35:14):
perform, but like, how can we like help others find their own voices?
know?
And I know from personal experience, my kids being able to have attended the
the Fisher BQI camp that we piloted last year and Audra was instrumental in that, but thatonly- Instrumental.
(35:37):
That's a total great thing to say.
was just going to grab this little- She's on Because I do happen to have the top of thebox.
Yes.
that's actually, that's gorgeous.
wasn't, I don't know why, I don't know why I was thinking that the box would be plain onthe outside.
That's an egg on my face, It's got this like gorgeous gold, like filigree situation,patterns, deep colors.
(36:05):
We'll have to, Audra, if you'll send me a photo of the box, I'd love to post that with ourepisode.
Yeah.
Cause it's, that's so cool.
I thought.
It is amazing.
Truly, I need to admit my lack of knowledge on this.
I was like, the box will be some sort of educational technique.
I didn't realize you were actually also sending these boxes out into the community.
(36:26):
And that is so amazing.
Like, that's so sick.
And it's Audra, and being able to sit in rooms with Audra and the partners that she wasworking with and DSO and all that stuff and watch it come to life and then to see it in
front of...
Children and families, like we have a box here and it's our quiet box.
I like to pull out the box here when we've had a little too much screen time or maybewe're getting a little cranky with one another on a rainy day.
(36:55):
A little little squirrely.
Then I'll pull out the, and the kids go, but like it's a whole ceremony about bringing outthe box, which like is 110 % what I think is really special and significant about the
tools that are in that.
I am going to shift us away from this because I haven't could talk about The Box for hoursand hours and hours.
(37:18):
In fact, sitting in a Detroit house of music for hours and hours talking about The Box.
But I wanted to ask you a little bit more about what's your personal artistic practice?
Like what strategies have you developed to kind of take care of yourself while you'reworking in the industry?
my gosh, I wish I was doing that.
(37:39):
Yeah, that's a really important question and one that kind of the older I get, I'll be 51this year.
I can't believe it.
No.
yeah, girl.
Amazing.
What's up?
Not it's off the skin care routine.
can cut this from the podcast, but I'm going to need your skin care routine because, myGod, I had no idea.
(38:01):
OK, that's incredible.
First of all, the work is so healing that I'm really lucky that I really followed myheart.
my whole life and I've had a lot of problems doing that over the years before I reallyfound that education, music education was a pathway to creating a career and creating a
(38:22):
stable life even though most of us don't have savings these days and I don't know what'sgonna happen when we all get old but the work that I do is a very healing work.
But it is overwhelming and it does take a lot of energy and it takes a lot of care andthere's a lot of.
moments where you have to really study yourself and decide what can you do, how much canyou take on, and when is it time to let go, or when can you give yourself that break, even
(38:52):
if it's five minutes, to clear yourself.
And so I think the garden has really stepped in as a healer for me.
I've always had a green thumb and I've always just wanted to be a gardener.
I mean, I am out.
I don't care if I've worked all day.
I mean, I literally could be in like four classrooms.
(39:13):
I've been jumping around with kids.
I'm exhausted.
I come home.
I'm like, I get in the garden suddenly like three hours have passed and I am like beendigging in the dirt and moving things and putting my hands and I'm like all the dirt's
under my nails.
And then it's like the next day I'm like, shoot, I got all this dirt under my nails still.
It's not because I'm dirty, it's because I'm in the dirt.
(39:36):
That's really what I do is I spend time singing.
I spend time singing to the plants and to the trees.
And last summer I was asked to go to Song of the Morning, which is kind of a spiritual,like meditation retreat space.
And it's just absolutely gorgeous.
I I was asked to come and sing and do a songwriting workshop.
(39:58):
And it's kind of, you know, it's steeped in Hare Krishna and there was a lot of singingand dancing.
and like celebration, right?
And I love community and I have a little Baptist church, like just a tiny in a house rightacross from my house.
And I look at it right now out the window.
And I feel like I lost my connection with spirituality because I feel like it had beenco-opted from me and that there was only this sort of like a few narrow paths of like what
(40:30):
it was to be connected and what God was.
And so I went to this retreat and I've been doing this for years beforehand, meditating inthe garden, singing to trees.
I mean, I'm literally touching the red buds outside and going, little red bud, little redbud, can't wait for you to bloom.
You know, whatever, like, but just natural, just making up that'll make those plants grow,right?
(40:54):
Like there's actually science behind that, right?
They're growing, right?
They did some study that like if you talk to the plants, they'll grow better.
Like that's wild.
they do.
And you grow better.
and you grow better.
so that, I mean, to a long story long is that when I was there, I found my way back to apractice.
(41:15):
And I'm not like, I didn't just sort of like, now I'm a Hare Krishna meditator.
It was like, but no, like I was aligned with what these people were kind of already doingin just a natural way.
And when I came home, like it really stayed with me.
And so now when I sing in the garden, I not only celebrate the trees,
I try to understand it as my own celebration of my own body and my connection toeverything.
(41:40):
And then how God sort of, for me, is in all of those things and that it's in me too.
It's been really good.
I feel happier than I have in a long time.
That's really special.
That's really special.
And inspiring too.
Thank you for sharing.
This is a little bit of a pivot.
(42:01):
like in the same way of what's exciting you, what's inspiring you, what media, so thatcould be like book, podcast, movie, whatever, are you consuming now that's been inspiring
for you or exciting for you?
yeah.
Well, recently a friend gave me a new Spotify list, which is great because I tend to gettotally lost in the old school songwriters, know, of like, you know, the folk world of
(42:25):
like the late 60s and early 70s, and then just really hard to...
for me, I have found that, because there's just is so much to consume that, yeah, so I'vebeen excited about listening to some young up and coming songwriters that I didn't know
about.
I also find that I listen to a lot of live music because I am so connected to thecommunity here that like my Bob Dylan's and Joni Mitchell's and stuff, they're like also
(42:52):
right here in Detroit.
And so it's like, so I consume a lot of live media, I would say.
And then the last part is I do watch a lot of like meaningless nothing stuff.
And it's part of my process of like letting go of everything to going back to the selfcare.
It's like sometimes I just need a Netflix series and I can't think and I can't do, and I'mjust going to lay down and have a glass of wine and watch a meaningless show.
(43:21):
there is, there's, it's all across the board for me.
I miss reading.
haven't been reading very much.
So it's something that I wanna get back into doing.
That's amazing.
Well, our last sort of big question for you is, as you've done all this work with youngpeople, as you've been through your own life as an artist, what would you tell either your
younger self or current young people or current young people's caregivers about havingthese career aspirations in the arts?
(43:53):
Yeah, that's a great question.
And I guess it's kind of three questions, but like you can bake those together any way youlike.
I would say, know, turning into, you know, localizing the way that you connect withcommunity has longevity.
that we've all stretched, global connection is really cool and interesting and national,you know, celebrity is really interesting and great and awesome.
(44:19):
But I think it's true in almost everything that like,
The further you have to go out to get something, the more expensive it is to get, the morecarbon footprint it leaves, and that you're missing out on someone that's right there next
to you that may have that skill.
And so I think that what I'd love to see is people celebrating Detroit art the way thatthey wear their Detroit shirts, the way that they wanna buy their Detroit beer, or buy
(44:50):
their artisan cheese, or their local greens.
or eat at their local sort of hand-to-table or farm-to-table restaurant.
Let's let that trickle into the way that we celebrate our artistry, the way that wecelebrate our children, the way that we invest in our local environment.
(45:11):
Because I think that is the key to us really creating a more sustainable, more collectivelife.
I mean, the way that we collectivize our pain and our joy,
really reflects who we are as a community.
And I see often, you you see that person on the street and you think, my hands are tied, Idon't really know how to help that person.
(45:35):
You know, I kind of, we pay taxes to help that person sort of do something.
And so we're really detached from helping them or really seeing them.
kind of like, that's not part of my job.
But if we start to think about like, well, if that one...
know, unhoused person is the only person I see every once in a while, then that's theperson in my spectrum, my life.
(46:00):
And so who are the people that are right around us again that we can support and reallybring more power into ourselves and take more power from what the city might not be able
to do or what the state might not be doing or what the, you know, I mean, I am actuallyfor more,
(46:21):
neighborhood power, more small based community power.
Cause we see as organizations, no matter what their drive is, the bigger they are, theharder it is to really keep focus and the more it costs to kind of run them and then
things kind of slip through.
So, and then the second thing that I would add to that is interview your elders.
(46:44):
Like take time to.
to find their stories.
One of the biggest projects that I know has legs that I want to leave you with is it's amemory project that I want to get a grant for.
So maybe we can talk about that more.
But I want to interview elders in my neighborhood.
I want to get local songwriters to mentor youth to help interview elders to create songs.
(47:11):
So it's kind of a three tiered thing.
It's like number one, we're losing
these stories and every one of those stories are important.
And we have young people that don't understand the history of Lula May, maybe, that hasbeen living in this neighborhood and she's an actual person that lives, is my neighbor.
And as we're losing our neighbors, we need to tell their stories.
(47:33):
So I want to create a mentorship program for teaching artists like myself and songwriterslike myself to take on a young person who wants to learn how to be a writer, whether it's
poetry or songwriting.
or storytelling and help them learn how to interview people and then take those ideas andput them into song and poetry form and short writings.
(47:53):
So it's called, I don't know, maybe Detroit Memory Project or Northwest Goldberg edition.
But yeah, I think that's a part of this whole thing of like localizing and understandingthe history that's there and really respecting it and celebrating it.
It's incredible.
I'm just in awe.
(48:14):
constantly.
Any advice for the kiddos who are maybe looking into going to music?
Yeah, I'd say do it.
Interview their elders.
Yeah, I interview your elders.
Go to open mics, go to places, you know, put yourself in places where you're seeing peopledoing the things that you want to do.
Because number one, you're going to be inspired.
(48:36):
Number two, you're going to get to know people that are doing that work.
Number three, you're going to get a sense of like what it really takes.
And like, is this something that you really wanna do?
I talk to young songwriters all the time and yeah, they ask the same question, what shouldI be doing?
I was like, you should be going to shows that you see yourself doing, you know?
And learn from that and try to get backstage and like do all the things, do all the littlethings, get your elevator speech together.
(49:03):
I don't care what it is, but like take a minute and go, what is my art form?
What am I doing with it?
And who do I want to hear it?
Make a sentence.
out of that and then be able to say, you know, my name is Audra Kubat, you know, I workthrough vulnerability in songwriting to inspire others.
Maybe that's your pitch.
I don't know, but figure out what that is.
(49:25):
And then you can, know, sometimes you have to say it before you can sort of be it.
So just say it, I'm a songwriter.
When you see little, like Laura, when I'm like doing the inside out thing and you seelittle kids stand up like better, like in fourth grade and they're like, I'm a songwriter.
You're like, yes, you are.
Yeah, you are.
There's nothing like the performing arts.
think we need, performing arts helps us in every walk of our lives when we have to presentlater in life, practicing speech, practicing songwriting, practicing standing up in front
(49:54):
of a classroom and saying, these are the things I think as a third grader, that's going tohelp them later.
So we got to, we got to really put more energy into those little ones.
I love that.
The moments.
Yeah.
Audra, as always, just incredible conversations with you.
I always leave feeling so fulfilled.
(50:15):
I feel energized.
Yay.
Your presence and just the way you approach not only the work, but community and just theintentionality behind how and what you do.
It's always been inspiring.
So I'm so excited that we were able to share your story.
and a bit of your journey with the podcast today.
(50:38):
Any parting thoughts?
It's just really great to be asked the questions.
think that it's part of the work that we all forget is so important is like asking theright questions can help me understand what I do.
And sometimes I learn so much more about myself and my own direction by answeringquestions.
(51:00):
So I want to thank both of you for just the thoughtful questions.
and I love the work you're doing and I can't wait to not only hear this, but also hearwhat you do in the future and what you've already done.
my gosh, thank you so We'll see you soon, Audra.
Yes.
Have a beautiful day.
Thank you.
Thank you.
(51:20):
Bye.
You too.
Bye.
Living in the Arts is hosted by Laura Scales with original music and editing by JasonDuran.
It is produced and co-hosted by Claire Haupe and our podcast coordinator is Colin Shai.
For more information about anything our guest mentioned, be sure to check out the shownotes.
Living in the Arts is made possible by listeners like you.
Don't forget to follow, rate, review, or share an episode that excites you.
(51:43):
To learn more and support Living in the Arts, please visit livingartsdetroit.org.
Thank you so much for joining us and so much for listening.
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