We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Celeste Felsheim a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Celeste, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

I am lucky enough to be able to make a living from many different forms of my art. Whether I am teaching or playing music, my day to day is infused with creativity and harmony. While still in college working towards my songwriting degree, I was teaching music on the weekends as one of my many odd jobs, and I ended up loving the act of sharing my knowledge with my students and watching them blossom on their respective musical journeys. Nowadays I am two years out of college and teaching full time for my own private studio, and also teaching door to door for a company run by a longtime friend of mine, and I wouldn’t have it any other way! I have never improved at my craft faster than when I am teaching, and I have learned an absolutely magical amount about music from my students as I experience how they think and approach the craft of playing and writing music.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

At my core I am a composer and songwriter. While I’m not teaching music to kids, adults, and anyone in between, I am writing, performing, and touring with my punk band King Sheim. The band has been a vessel for many of my inner thoughts and feelings for almost seven years and several albums, and now that I have a lineup of musicians who understand my every whim, we embarked on our first ever tour this past summer. I am beaming with pride for our most recent album Spin The Spite. It is a record about friendship, losing everything, turning to your support system, and growing exponentially from there, and I think you can really hear and feel how much we laughed, cried, smiled and held hands in the studio.

We offer punk-infused-pop tunes that you can scream in the car, or cry to, or whatever you feel moved to do!

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

I believe this task of supporting artists falls on our hands as community members. While there is a lot that society at large could do to make being an artist or creative a more viable career and way to make a living, and there are protections that could be put in place, I feel strongly that the change we can create as a community is more long lasting and sustainable.

I have seen lives changed through the support shown in our music community, and I am continually impressed by the way we all show up for each other, whether that be by making sure our people’s names come up in rooms with opportunity, or the way we always celebrate the wins of everyone, or the way we make sure everyone has the connections they need to progress.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

I wish I knew about Voice Science Works earlier on, they provide up to date, scientific information about the voice that is helpful and easy to digest!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Kingsheim.com
• Instagram: @king.sheim
• Facebook: King Sheim
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@kingsheim4697?si=NznL7ApT8hhopuso

Image Credits

Jimmy Humphreys @poundingthenail