Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ellery Sablan. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I think my parents would say that I was born singing; as a baby, I would not stop crying. The cries gradually transitioned into performances on my toy instruments while my dad recorded me and my siblings with the camcorder. I grew up involved in different music lessons, choir, band (marching and the kind where you sit down), theatre, and art classes; my love for the arts was only cemented by the community that surrounded me, from my friends to the people who would drop by my father’s music store.

I began to write songs seriously during my freshmen year of college. I had the wonderful opportunity to study music and during those formative years, through many heartbreaks and joyful moments, words and melodies slowly drifted into my life and with a ukulele in hand, I started to share pieces of heart with those who would take a moment to listen. I would say at this point, songwriting has become something that I can’t imagine living without; my phone is full of random notes with song ideas and phrases and voice memos with melody lines, and there are countless scraps of paper with ideas scratched into them around my room and workplace.

While I am primarily a singer-songwriter, my creative passions extend to other mediums. I deeply care about the environment and seek to promote my Chamoru heritage and sustainable mindset in my visual art. I have drawn Chamoru legends on scrap pieces of wood; painted on clothing I own to give it a second life; and reworked scraps of metal, plastic, and wood into my garden. My art extends to physical and digital works, and I have considered eventually making a shop as I make a lot of natural DIY beauty products.

In essence, my motto is “Humans are gardens, not machines”; I believe that a creative individual is an ecosystem comprised of their heritage, their community, and the different aspects of creativity that can grow and be shaped in numerous ways. With this in mind, my hope is that when people learn about me and what I am able to do, they get this sense of enthusiastic and boundless creativity through song and art.

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

I think any artist has heard the same old sentiments of “But how will you make money?” or “Do you have a backup plan?”– and quite frankly, I have tuned many of those voices out when they came my way. When you are an artist, when you know what you want to do and where you want to go, and there’s something deep inside of you that burns with excitement over fear, that’s when you know: that no matter what happens, it will be okay.

Society can do better by understanding when a person has this kind of call on their life, and that in spite of all the difficulties that may come their way, the undeniable surge of creative energy will triumph. While art is subjective, the act of creation in and of itself is an objectively good thing that creative individuals must and will do. I think society can foster a thriving creative ecosystem by allowing the space for these artists to breathe, and to come alongside these creatives and feed into the boundless imagination by showing support monetarily, through encouragement, through sharing, and by acknowledging the artists’ efforts.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I am a perfectionist through and through, and even now, this is something that I have to unlearn constantly. One of the biggest lessons for me was understanding the concept of “good enough”. We are all our own worst critics, and in striving for perfection, there is this tendency to find flaws in our work, regardless of the amount of time and energy that is put into it.

I remember when I was working on my first EP, “Backward California”, I kept finding flaws in everything I did. I had this vision of how I wanted the EP to go, but I nitpicked my lyrics, my voice, and my musical ideas. In doing so, I allowed voices and opinions of others to cloud my intuition, and because I trusted them more than myself, what I produced was not at all what I had imagined. I still look back on that project as a solemn reminder of where my fruitless pursuit of perfection has gotten me.

From there, and in working with a producer who I wholeheartedly trust and who values my vision, I have learned what it means to look for “enough”. Even if the vocals aren’t the most complex, or if I don’t use extreme production in my music, if I am able to feel content with what I am trying to say and do, then that is good enough for me. Now, I find peace in this acceptance.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ellerymusic/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ELLERY3

Image Credits
Sara Mislang Samuel Brown Mayah Gallego