We recently connected with Lindsey Kellogg and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Lindsey thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?
The memory and consciousness are the most impactful tools a creative can have. These work hand in hand to aid the pure experience of the creative. Myself, I have been deeply immersed in the memory. Attributed to my memory, I vividly remember the first time I wanted to pursue a creative career in the arts. Picture this, I was three years old, yes, I am still even amazed that I can remember this far back, but like they say, “When you know you know.” This is usually paired and associated with the marriage of two parties which is usually romantic, but in my case my additional party was a musical. Not just any musical, but the ABC Family 1999 airing of Annie, with Audra McDonald and Alicia Morton. I was three years old and remember feeling this beautiful rush of love. It was unlike anything I had ever felt. I like to call it the feeling of Musical Theatre. Now, let me explain. The feeling of Musical Theatre is when you are watching a musical and the whole ensemble harmonizes just right and hits the apex of the harmony, or the feeling at the climax of a song the character is singing when their arms start to raise in the iconic Musical Theatre stance, or the feeling when you stop singing for a moment to hear the entire cast singing around you for the first time in the sitzprobe; with the entire orchestra as everyone is sonically elevating in perfect alignment. That’s love, that’s Musical Theatre, and that is the feeling of Musical Theatre. It is when your heart leaps to meet and match the perfect pitch. It is when you finally make it there and your heart could live in that musical space forever and make it your home. That is what the feeling is like. Now, imagine all of that in the entire epiphanal moment in the heart, mind and consciousness of a three-year-old. Witnessing this beautiful sight, I felt like my heart was going to explode. I could not explain it then, but thankfully have a better grasp of it now. The feeling, as explained above, I have thankfully experience since. It is a sonically and socially associative of love and happiness. I was processing all of this as Andrea McArdle (Star-To-Be) sung, “NYC” and the love for the arts blossomed in me right then and there. I vividly remember being stopped in my tracks and seeing myself in that song. It was the strangest and most liberating experience of falling in love with the arts. Thus, my core memory of Musical Theatre was born. I had caught a glimpse of this foreign space and I knew I had to be a part of it. I got a grasp of it, and I knew that I could not and would not dare let it go. From that very moment, where we will call her Broadway Annie (whom I thought in my adolescent brain was Annie in her 20s coming to NYC during the musical number) walked up during this musical number with bags in her hand beckoned me to come with her to experience her NYC. This three-year-old idea was not too far-fetched at all. This Annie was a mirror into myself. I knew then and there that mirror translated into my love for Musical Theatre. Her love for NYC was so pure and powerful that it gave me all I needed to know, on behalf of three-year-old me, that I wanted to be right here today. Let’s put it this way “NYC” is to Broadway Annie as “Musical Theatre” is to me—home.
Lindsey , 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?
I was three when I began singing, I attribute that to my admiration for Musical Theatre. I pursued it in college. From an early age I was always in chorus and church choir growing up. In between the different sonic pulses of memories arises another core memory here. When I was 12 years old, I sang in chorus at my then middle school. That was around the time when everyone was vividly jumping into the realm of which identity, they would like to pursue academic, arts and elective wise. I chose chorus and was asked to audition for a solo. This was a stark difference from normally singing in a sea full of voices that allowed me to blend and hide within this tonal sea of adolescence functionally. From then on, I began to slowly but surely step out of my comfort zone musically and become a “solo” artist. As I grew, I became more comfortable with my voice. Learning and changing with the adolescents into adulthood. I am a singer, actor, but most importantly an artist. I know that full well now. This issue of identity was a major difficulty finding myself. I have always gone through this internal struggle of accepting and fully embracing my gift or shying away from it. Amongst peers it has always been the same for this struggle. As I have grown, an additional struggle as emerge, which “genre” to pick for myself. As I stepped into my music artist identity there was always that one question. You know the big daunting one in the that is always there and always gets asked. Its synonymous to the age-old college question, “What’s your major?”, but more over “What are you going to do with that?” There has always been its equal twin, “Oh so you’re a music artist…” To which I would respond, “Yes.” But that second half, as daunting would always show up, “So what type of music artist?” The type, the type, they always want you to pick a type. This was my issue and is still a struggle, in an alternate form today. I remember being in my dorm room asking myself, “Country, Pop, Christian, Rock, Jazz, RnB, Indie…?” The list would fall and flow on and on. It still does today, but that is where the fun comes in. I realized my answer lies within my struggle. You don’t have to choose. This ominous “They”, an opinion of who you should be, will always be there to tell you what box you should be put in. When, in reality, you are the one who gets to make, create, and paint that box however you see fit. That is why we go so crazy for crossovers in genres, because it is a gateway and break from us playing in our own sonic sandboxes. We get to choose.
This realization would have to be the trait about myself that I am the most proud of. The fight for artists and the drive to not have to be bound and locked down to a certain lane. I am a Christian and was plagued with this similar thought process for a long time. “If I am a Christian, do I have to only sing Christian music?” This was a heavy one to wear and a real navigation weight to bear. The answer I have found is no. Now when I say that, of course there are spaces and places where we all operate differently with God, but I do believe that God made creatives and when you are operating on that tonal plain with Him; love and life, mixes with music to save generations. From my arts perspective only, He knows what that will look like. He is a creator and He made me to be one too. I don’t have all the answers, so don’t expect me to, God does. As far as an internal art struggle I have had that experience and continue too. That is what makes the art so real, and life like. Because it is real, life like, raw and touching the world of people in real time. Music is my ministry, and I can see how that will evolve over time. We must be bold sonically and step into who we were made to be.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
My goal is to let little girls with brown skin and loud personalities know that there is a space for them. I want to let them know that they can make the space as big or small as they desire. The truth is, in those formative years when you are expressing yourself and being told the opposite of what you desire for your life, just know that you have the spark in you FOR A REASON. You are more than enough, and that dream is the most tangible it has ever been because you believe it. The motivation, inspiration, and representation is what drives me to do what I do.
I also want to make the space for education and accessibility for these dreams and creative pursuits. I have been blessed to be a part of wonderful mentorship programs such as Power2Inspire, Broadway’s Artist & Beyond, and I am currently a proud mentee in the GrammyU program as well. There needs to be room and I will be the one to help make it.
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?
I would say the struggle of picking a genre in relation to faith. The mind of a creative is not as cut and dry as “yes” or “no.” It is more muddied than that. In the mind of a creative those unsure hazy and cluttered spaces are where the art is found. The weight of a decision is where we blossom. The push through difficulty, or the choosing to sit in it, is far deeper than we can express or imagine. If you have a creative in your life, please know that they are discovering parts of themselves and moments in their memory paths of their brains in real time, just as you are with (or about) them. There is a form of patience it takes to be in relationship with a creative. This goes in tandem with their mind, heart and creative pursuits. We have to be a bit far removed from the general in order to create the generational. We dream while awake, and it seems strange to those who may not think or process the same way. It is like driving down a familiar street but seeing a new house in the same spot every day. We are in a constant state of discovery, and everything is always moving. That is what the creative journey (and mind) is truly like.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @lindseykelloggsings
- Twitter: @LindseyKellogg
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT4Ql2fFKnOE8rMXRXNYw0g
Image Credits
Dwayne Boyd and Maggie Fuchs