Vents MagaZine Music and Entertainment Magazine
Related Articles
Hi Sarah, welcome to VENTS! How have you been?
Thanks! I’ve been better, haha! March has been a tough month, especially in Nashville. It’s kind of crazy that I chose this month to have my first-ever residency for Gardening, Not Architecture.
How were you drawn into the world of music?
I started playing music when I was 3 years old and my mother put me in Suzuki lessons for violin and piano. I grew up in a very musical family and then got into the idea of being a musician in high school when I joined my first band playing bass. Since then it’s been a winding road, from playing music to working in the music industry and back again. My relationship to the music industry and my goals or ideas about having a career in music have changed a lot over the years.
Known for your visual and conceptual approach to music, at least on your performances – how do you go on balancing both?
From the very beginning of Gardening, Not Architecture, my instinct has been to put a lot of effort into the visuals around the music, everything from handmade merchandise to really intentional visuals at my live shows. I love lighting and have only played maybe three or four shows in the past 11 years that did not involve a custom lighting setup of some kind. I toured with a custom-made light “wall” from 2009-2012, and then switched to midi-triggered fluorescent lights from 2012-2015. Around the time I began recording my third album, Fossils, I also got way into film and film scoring, and decided I wanted to bring in the element of film to my live show as well, though I had no idea how I would do it. I decided to start by making a feature film with the help of almost the entire filmmaking community in Nashville, and that film premiered at my album release party in 2015. Since then, I’ve been finding ways to incorporate both lights and film into my shows and I feel like I’ve really hit my stride. Right now I’m much more focused on creating an immersive live performance than on writing or recording songs, but with the quarantine in place I might finally get some time to start thinking about a fourth album!
Speaking of which, let’s talk about your month-long residency turned fundraiser in Nashville – how did you come up with the idea for this event?
After premiering the new live show in 2019, and getting to play it a few times that year, I realized I wanted to get more comfortable as a one-woman show by setting up a residency in town, playing every Saturday for a month. My friend has a really cool space in an arts collective building in the Germantown neighborhood in Nashville, so I reached out to him last November and he was totally on-board! I started planning for the residency, calling in favors from my filmmaker and producer friends, finding opening acts, and promoting the shows. Then came the week before the first night of the residency, and on March 3rd Nashville was hit by a devastating tornado that absolutely turned the entire community upside-down. I had never been through a natural disaster so close to home before, and for about two days I was in such shock and heartbreak that I could barely function, and I decided to cancel the entire residency. I mentioned it to a couple of friends, thankfully, and they rallied around me and encouraged me to see if I could use the residency to be helpful somehow, rather than just abandon the whole thing. So that’s how I decided to turn the residency into a fundraiser for victims of the tornado. I had already been asking for people to sponsor the residency with donations from $1 up to whatever they wanted to contribute, and so I had some funds to cover the costs of paying all the artists, paying rent at the venue, and paying for marketing and supplies for each show. Thanks to the sponsors, I was able to make the decision to give 100% of ticket proceeds and other income from each show to relief funds for victims of the tornado. The venue (Mindful Nashville) also offered to waive their rental fee, so I was able to also offer 20% of the sponsorship donations to the fundraiser as well.
How did tragedy serve as a good source of inspiration for this event?
There was a moment after the tornado when I felt like an asshole for even thinking of trying to get people to come watch me perform when so many people close to me had lost their homes and businesses. But then my friends encouraged me to think about how I could be of service to the community, to give back and help with the disaster relief — and also use the shows to bring people together, to offer some respite from the heartbreaking devastation, to give people something to look forward to and a chance to get together to process, grieve, and (before social distancing) hug each other and feel connected. The first show of the residency really delivered. There weren’t a ton of people there, because so much was going on post-tornado in the community, but the people who did come out said it felt really good to be together and share about what they were going through. Also, because the feeling of my show is so meditative and immersive, I think even visually/sonically it provided an outlet for people to feel some feelings and kind of let go of their thoughts for a bit.
I’ve always heard people talk about the importance of art in times of tragedy and I didn’t really understand what that meant. After the second week of the residency, which came right when COVID-19 lockdowns were starting to happen, I finally understood. We are all looking for ways to connect with each other, to be inspired, to feel like we are part of a community. Art and music do that for us. It brings us together, and we can find beauty even in the most dismal of times.
Speaking of tragic events, how has this self-isolation we’ve all been enforce to participate has affected and influence your approach to the event?
Nothing has ever challenged my desire to quit and give up as much as the events of this month, let me tell you! I feel like every week has just been one long agonizing meditation on impermanence, change, determination, and commitment. Each week there have been a hundred reasons just to quit and cancel the entire thing. But then each week I have gotten so much unbelievably positive feedback and encouragement, or signs from the universe, or strangers jumping in to make sure the shows keep happening. It’s been a true exercise in powerlessness and faith!
The attendance at each show has been either terrible or amazing depending on how you look at it, haha! If Nashville was not in a tornado-compounded-by-coronavirus situation right now, I would have expected maybe 20-30 people each week. The first two shows had maybe half that in the room. However, at the second show I added the ability for ticket-buyers and sponsors to live-stream the show, and that got attendance back up to what I was expecting, if not more. And because it’s a fundraiser, people have bought tickets even if they didn’t plan on going, just to help out The venue (Mindful Nashville) also waived their rental fee in order to donate to the fundraiser. On top of that, people continue to pour in sponsorship donations, which has been the biggest surprise of this whole thing. I’ve raised over $1500 in sponsorship donations, 80% of which is going to pay the artists involved with the shows, as well as marketing the residency and promoting all of the artists involved. It is unheard-of for opening acts on small shows like this to get paid, but thanks to the sponsors I’m actually paying every opening act! Furthermore, the producers and the filmmaker who helped create music and videos for my new set are all getting paid as well. Normally I’m having to ask all of these artists to help and play for free, or for a small percentage of ticket sales. Especially right now with artists losing jobs and getting their gigs cancelled left and right, it feels amazing to be able to pay all of the artists involved in this residency.
As for the logistics of hosting the shows, I’ve had to make tough decisions week-by-week, but thankfully I’m a huge computer geek and am comfortable with all the live-streaming technology out there, so adding that dimension has been relatively easy. I’m so grateful to have all of this amazing technology for free or cheap that helps me continue to perform and connect with people! I would definitely have had to cancel the residency — probably in the second week — without this technology.
How do you go selecting the songs for set list? Do you tend to take anything in particular?
Each set is its own “performance piece” so-to-speak, so it’s the same four songs and videos/lights. Each set has a name — the set I premiered in 2019 is called “Absence of Me” and the new set is called “Didn’t Know Love.” Each set has its own unique vibe and feeling. “Absence of Me” is very introspective, meditative, and vulnerable (especially for me as the performer), where the new set “Didn’t Know Love” is a bit more experimental with the visuals and my performance, and more light-hearted with the songs.
What has been the most challenging process of running this event?
It’s all been so difficult that I don’t know how to pick one thing! I guess the hardest part has been challenging my own ego and intentions, having to really figure out how to stay in my integrity and decide who I am as an artist right now — trying to decide what, if anything, I have to contribute to the world, and if it’s worth fighting for. And then, trying to get the word out about the residency in a way that feels humble and honest.
When and where can people catch on this event?
