We recently connected with Howard Lew and have shared our conversation below.
Howard, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Are you happier as a creative? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job? Can you talk to us about how you think through these emotions?
I’ve had regular jobs, and even when the jobs were decent, I was frustrated. Anything that was time away from my creative practice frustrated me. That being said, my advice is always to take every opportunity to learn your craft. A saving grace of a regular job can be having the chance to learn some aspect of your craft…whether that’s technical skills, teaching skills, or even just organizational skills.
I also don’t believe in the “starving artist” myth. A composition teacher once said, “It’s peace of mind that enables you to create.”
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I started as a poet; then I was a poet and composer, then a composer, a composer of song, a composer of stories. All my art tells a story.
Writing music or performing other people’s music is a pathway inwards to one’s self and also a pathway into other people’s inner worlds. When performing another person’s music, I am inhabiting their world. The cliche about classical music is that it’s abstract. I’ve heard this all my life. For me, it’s never abstract. Music always connects me to other spirits, to art, to storytelling, to nature, and to the world.
More than once I’ve been told by former students that one of the things they learned the most from me was how a moment of music leads outward to other realms—to stories.
Most of my music is directly interactive with other art forms, almost always words and stories. I’ve made videos of my music illustrated with paintings, photography, and live video.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
I am by nature a loner. Going it alone led me down many fruitless paths. There was a lot of reinventing the wheel. I tried to start my own non-profit…all by myself. I think the key advice I would give is “find collaborators.” Seek true partners, including other composers and performers, to build a collective, put on concerts, mount gallery exhibits, write grants, or run a theatre. Join a successful organization where you can learn the ropes, learn what works and what you would do differently.
What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?
Every neighborhood/village/town needs an affordable “public” theatre: a meeting place for artists, for gallery shows, concerts, film showings. In my city of Brooklyn, a church might charge many hundreds of dollars just to rent for a few hours…way too much for an emerging artist. I imagine every neighborhood having a 24/7 subsidized artist-run multi-use cooperative space that is available to emerging artists at minimal cost. A place where an artist can take a chance, make a debut, and collaborate with other artists, young or experienced.
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