We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jana Crenshaw. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jana below.

Jana, appreciate you joining us today. I’m sure there have been days where the challenges of being an artist or creative force you to think about what it would be like to just have a regular job. When’s the last time you felt that way? Did you have any insights from the experience?

This is the current question running through my life and affecting me on a daily basis! Am I happier as an artist? No, not really, though I suspect I could be, and I do know that when I’m not doing anything artistic I feel less like myself. I have been a happy artist in the past, when I was much younger, and performing full time in a show and with a regular schedule and salary. In my current iteration of this profession, I’ve come to feel that being an artist supplies me with a long list of great ideas that I don’t have enough time, skill, or resources to act on, and which often seem to exist only to endlessly frustrate me. Lately I wonder if I gave up being an artist, would I feel more of a sense of peace? Would I be able to actually relax? Do nothing? Read books that aren’t relevant to some project? It sounds peaceful, but I know that every time I’ve given myself that kind of space, I get depressed. I’ve done much self-reflection and soul searching this year and decided to try a new rhythm that gives me some space but isn’t just quitting everything forever like the tantrum my inner 3-year-old would like for me to throw.

So yes, I am pretty happy as an artist, AND I still have a day job, which I feel ok about because it keeps me busy and money flowing when the art is not. I am constantly changing my schedule to maximize my time. I’ve also recently made some decisions to cut back on things I don’t enjoy, and focus on the parts I really do. This current schedule still feels a bit too busy to me, but it makes space for all components of my life, and makes me enough income to cover my expenses….
– I’m keeping social media as an archive, but making a visible statement that I’m not interactive on the platforms and people should visit my website and reach out there to connect.
– I work a corporate massage job 2 days a week. This gives me about the amount of money I need to pay my rent. This is the only money I show the government.
– I work one day of massage in my home for established clients – it’s cash only and pays for other bills and needs.
– I accept all or most of the theater, dance, and songwriting projects that come my way through other artists and organizations, but I quit the hustle of outreach, new gigs, and any other events I have to promote by myself.
– I quit pressuring myself to constantly be creating new work, and instead wait for inspiration when it comes to the work I do for myself.
– I recently signed with a local music licensing company (Marmoset, Portland OR) and so I’m focusing more on creating with that in mind as well, hoping for some sync money and opportunities to flow.

I am also the parent of a sporty 14 year old, so this schedule adjustment is also in service of seeing her through her last years of High School. I’m hoping to move from Portland and be able to work differently after she graduates, but I don’t have a clear vision of what that next step looks like. I’m not sure what that future holds, but I’m grateful to have been able to be flexible enough with my creative and professional pursuits – this has made it possible to parent and continue to be an artist even when it added a lot to my plate.

Jana, 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 general tagline is: Jana Crenshaw is a singer-songwriter and composer of film and theater scores, sad piano songs, and 3rd Grade Musicals. I love this tagline, as it does humorously sum up much of my creative life and work. I have been a musician since I started piano at age 8 and saxophone at age 10. I made an interesting choice to go to a Music Conservatory (we didn’t have the internet then : ) ), which set me back creatively and emotionally for a while, but ultimately led me to self growth and songwriting after quitting school in 1995. In 1996, I auditioned for Squonk Opera, an avante-garde musical theater troupe based in Pittsburgh. I worked with Squonk for 5 years, touring internationally, and landing an off-Broadway run (P.S.122) in 1999, and a Broadway run (Helen Hayes Theater) in 2000.

After Broadway I stopped everything and went to Massage school – I desperately wanted a new life for myself outside of art and performance, but songwriting gradually crept back in. I began writing songs for myself, without restraint, without assignment, exploring what I could do on my own. Years later, I made it back to the theater, courtesy of my former partner and best friend Casi Pacilio-Clark, an award winning sound designer and theater technician of epic proportion. She provided a first collaboration, transition music for a play called “futura” at Portland Center Stage….since then, I’ve composed music for over 40 theatrical productions in Portland!

Along the way, I’ve also been able to meet and collaborate with many dancers who I love working with. I did a lot of modern dance in college and as part of Squonk, so I love these collaborations! I think my strength here is being able to speak dance, strongly visualize the choreographer’s goal, and be flexible (pun intended) enough to make changes as logistics and process come into play. Many projects I’ve worked on with dancers evolve and change over rehearsals, bringing exciting challenges, and new opportunities. Collaboration is my strength and my preference – I love creating with others, always ending up with music and a show I could never have made on my own.

In 2017 I was commissioned to write a musical for 3rd graders?! It was to meet the common core requirements for teaching local history, presenting Portland’s history through a Social Justice lens. I collaborated with the 3rd graders and their teachers at Sunnyside Environmental School, creating 3 songs and curriculum units focusing on different topics and people, with the intention to focus on stories that aren’t often presented. The music grew from there, adding a two new songs, and collaborating with each new class on their final theatrical presentations. I taught this for 4 years at two schools until Covid ended it in 2020. This was some of the hardest work I’ve ever done, but also one of the things I’m most proud of.

Listen: https://janacrenshawmusic.bandcamp.com/album/more-to-the-story-a-3rd-grade-musical-about-portlands-history-through-a-social-justice-lens

Read: https://www.oregonhumanities.org/rll/magazine/claim-summer-2017/more-to-the-story/

Currently, I’m focused on the assignments that come my way, though I have a few songs of my own that will be released soon. I’ve just finished the performance of an excerpt of a larger piece with my friend Laura Cannon and ProLab Dance, (https://prolabdance.com/after-the-anthropocene), and a soundtrack for “The Moors” by Jen Silverman presented at Reed College. Upcoming, I’ve got another play, “The Skriker” by Caryl Churchill in the works, as well as a soundscape for Andrea Parson’s new comedy solo dance piece “The One” (https://www.instagram.com/andreaparson0311/?hl=en). I have three songs that haven’t been released yet, and I’m trying to get some more songs recorded this winter.

I think what I’m best at is being able to sonically produce the right vibe for a project. I’m able to leverage my composition skills to create unique sound designs and soundtracks that uplift the collaborative vision of a piece. I love a writing challenge and appreciate a deadline. Musically I’m a bit of a chameleon, so I love to try and match the needs of a piece, or bring an outlying idea to the mix.

I often feel more like a writer who is also a musician. I think this makes my solo work a bit dense for some – I encourage my listeners to pick one of my songs and listen to it at least three times back to back. I’m curious to see people love a song once they dig in, a song that might not have grabbed them right away, but has a lot to offer under the surface. I’d love it if anyone would accept that assignment and tell me if I’m right! : )

website: https://www.janacrenshaw.com/
listen:
bandcamp: https://janacrenshawmusic.bandcamp.com/music
spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/47srcpYW5YuA1RzDaTF3vI

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 had to unlearn the preciousness of art time. After 37 years as a (mostly) full time artist, I had a baby AND a shocking adjustment to my creative schedule. I struggled to find balance, often only being able to work before my kiddo woke up, or after she was asleep. After a few years of working that way, I was thoroughly frustrated – I couldn’t find a way to accept performance opportunities, and was quickly falling out of practice with things I’d worked so hard to achieve. Then I got an idea – my parents live in rural PA (I live in OR) and would love to spend more time with their granddaughter, and I need more time to work creatively. I decided to plan an extended version of our yearly visit and use the time as a writing retreat. My parents were willing, so I started planning. I decided on a few projects to focus on and began reading relevant books and collecting ideas in short form in a notebook, intending to revisit the ideas and information I’d gathered during the time I set aside. I felt very unsure about this process….hoping for inspiration to strike on a schedule didn’t feel very promising. I had planned a few days of rest to settle in at the beginning of the trip, but when the day came to leave for my “retreat”, I was shocked.

I sat down on the plane and a flood of ideas began. With my 3 year old asleep on my shoulder, I wrote nearly the entire 4 hour flight, stringing together the ideas in the notebook, weaving in research, writing script, and collecting music and lyric ideas too. This flood continued, and I set up a disciplined daily schedule for the duration of the 3 weeks. By the end of my “residency” I had the beginnings of a solo show – 10 pages of script and 2 songs in rough form. When I revisited this draft years later, I found I had only to edit it to produce 30 minutes of performable work.

Since that time, I have continued working this way, and find that I’ve been able to train myself to show up creatively when I have or can schedule time. I continuously collect ideas, and I schedule days when I can, telling myself that’s when I can focus, that’s when I can act on those ideas. I’m not entirely sure why this works for me, but it does. I’m amazed every time.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

Until now, I think my mission has been simply to have art as a practice for my life, to express every idea I’m able to with the intent to put as much positivity and beauty into the world as possible.

With the current state of this country and the world though, I do want to contribute differently. I have a new mission to raise my own consciousness and help others to raise theirs as well. I feel this to be an important time, and an important step in our evolution, and I am curious about how my art and artistic practices might grow to absorb this task. I’ve got plans to grow my meditation practice and training, and will create some guided meditation tracks to share, but I’m wondering how else I can work higher knowledge into my music and other projects.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.janacrenshaw.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/janacrenshawmusic/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/janacrenshawmusic/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpW7xNJt-IztIt1_bh-eHgw
• Other: https://janacrenshawmusic.bandcamp.com/music

Image Credits

Green shirt headshot by Kristin Solomon. All other photos by Celina Flores