We were lucky to catch up with Alexandra Dawe recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alexandra, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I was raised in a family of creatives. My mother is a director and choreographer, and though my father worked his way up in the world of engineering, he would join the plays and musicals as well as build the sets, putting his architecture skills to work. My sister, aunts, uncles, grandparents – most of my extended family – would spend our days singing and dancing in shows.

I have been in piano lessons since around age three, and have been an artist in many forms since then. I knew around high school that I wanted to pursue singing professionally, but at the time did not know how many twists and turns my path would have. This drive to pursue a professional career in the arts has continued since then.

Alexandra, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Alexandra Dawe. I consider myself to be an artist of many shapes and forms. These include, but are not limited to, musician, singer, musical comedian, performance artist, cartoonist, and painter. I have been living life artistically since birth. Even while I rested peacefully in the womb, my mother, a director and choreographer, was directing a community theatre rendition of 42nd Street.

Currently, I exist primarily as a musical comedian as well as a performance artist. I wholly enjoy combining different forms of art in whatever ways are possible. I discovered I have synesthesia when studying French horn performance at Northern Illinois University. I was 19 years old, and I was being given a piano performance test in an aural skills course. My professor prompted me to play an exercise and allowed me to pick any key to play it in and I told him I chose the key of D because it reminded me of the color green, to which he replied, “You have synesthesia!”

Synesthesia is the brain’s combining of senses, I’ve been told due to how the senses grow and separate in the mind. Some senses don’t separate as far, thus triggering each other upon stimulation. Specifically, I have chromesthesia, so when I hear music, I see colors in my head, one for each note on a twelve-note scale. Since then, I have cultivated synesthetic painting performances; I will sing a song live and paint what it looks like in my head. To me, my mindspace is black and empty, and music fills it with color, similar to someone dropping water-based paint into a bowl of black liquid. I therefore paint on a black canvas, and the end result is fluid and splattery. I was even able to create a contract major, a combination of several degree paths into half art and half music. I was able to label it myself, and I now have a Bachelor of Arts Contract Major in Performance Art.

These days, I mainly perform musical comedy, once again combing two arts to pursue my dreams. My stage name is Lady Love. I have been blessed with innate musical talent and have been praised throughout my life for being able to make others laugh, so combining the two gives me immense joy and truly makes me feel the most like myself.

Financial instability, or I should say the fear of it, has significantly held me back in regard to pursuing my passions. Having grown up and worked professionally in the arts herself, my mother has consistently advised me to get a “regular job” to pay for a separate job in the arts. I will be forever grateful for her guidance and wisdom, but I have since then learned myself that it is possible to find middle ground. It is possible to support yourself in the arts, and to me, struggling is better if I can live the way I wish. At this point in my life, I understand the risk of pursuing a professional career in the arts, and I can still say that it is absolutely worth it.

If I were to speak directly to potential fans or followers or even just to all of you readers, I would say this: Pursue your passions no matter the cost. It will give you the life you desperately need, and you will ultimately be better off for it. If you are an artist and wish to be a professional artist, then be! The world needs more artists and musicians and weirdos and freaks and geeks!

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

The journey of the creative is long and arduous and absolutely worth the work. Having creative talents allows one to view the world in significantly different ways than those without such talents. Everyone has a different way of viewing the world, but to be able to express one’s own world for the rest of the world to see? That is truly marvelous.

From my own experiences, I feel non-creatives struggle to understand the validity of creativity and therefore can miss the point in pursuing one’s creative passions. There is a place out there for creatives, though our society has been built by those who tell us there is not. We are told time and time again by non-creatives that our pursuits will mean nothing if we cannot support ourselves, once again coming back to the fear of financial instability. This cannot hinder one’s pursuit, and that is what I want non-creatives to understand. Creatives have a place in our society and our world.

Regarding myself specifically, I feel non-creatives discredit me as a hobbyist, making futile efforts to live authentically. I have learned to let this roll off my back, as I love all and can see the reason for their judgment. There is a place for me here, and I will continue fighting for it.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Connection, in my opinion, is the reason for creative expression. Those who create are looking to connect, in their own way, to others. Even if you only create for yourself, I feel you are still striving to deepen your connection with yourself.

Being able to connect with others by expressing myself creatively is the most rewarding aspect of being an artist. The looks on the faces of those hearing my voice and the laughter erupting from those who listen to my jokes drives me endlessly. The awestruck expressions on the faces of those watching my synesthetic painting performances gives me life. I live to perform for the sake of connection to the world and those who inhabit it.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: LadyLoveComedy for musical comedy, and MissManateeMakes for art.