We recently connected with Loie Rawding and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Loie, thanks for joining us today. Has your work ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized?
My projects explore the intercontextuality of gender, parenthood, mental illness, and the erotic in the face of global crisis. These issues require nuance, therefore they demand effort — a lot more than the collective seems comfortable giving these days. The easiest path someone can take in relation to another person is so often the path that leads to misunderstanding. I am often assumed to be one thing or one way, because it is easiest to rely on basic appearance and affect. And this almost never takes into account my particular modes of survival, or the constant struggle of personal identity and brain chemistry. I have come to relish the confused wonder that arises when someone accepts the effort that my work requires. Hopefully, the act of searching beyond my mischaracterization changes, if just for a moment, the way a reader experiences their own world. Pushing through this requires asking questions and, to me, there is nothing more important than this. I also think intimacy is a scary thing; exposing a raw self or disobeying outdated codes of conduct is becoming more and more interesting to me as I age and as my creative work evolves. Which is to say, I am finding joy in confronting misconceptions with a firm gentleness, letting the work live for itself, and giving grace as I figure out what feels most true to (and for) myself.
Loie, 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 started my career in the arts as an actor and dancer, with a persistent writing practice on the side; essayettes, plays, and the occasional short story. What this really means is that I worked in the service industry, retail and as a personal assistant for years in order to stay afloat while pursuing roles and publication. In 2013, I grew tired of calling myself an artist when the daily struggle included everything but making art. I left New York for Colorado, in pursuit of an MFA in Fiction. I don’t advocate higher education for everyone, the American collegiate system only grows more problematic in terms of accessibility and necessity. For me, it was worth the financial strain to access the rigor and passion of an academic community. But hell, I’m still paying off student loans one month at a time. After I graduated, I worked as an adjunct professor and became a creative mentor and editor for artists all over the country. I joined the non-profit world as a Teaching Artist for The Porch Writers Collective in Nashville, and published my first novel with an independent press at the height of the pandemic. My approach to creative coaching is holistic in the sense that I let my clients lead while exploring their work through the lens of their lives and environments. I do not presume authority over another’s work. Instead I support each artist’s agency in pursuit of their most honest and open work. I carry with me 20+ years worth of struggle while acknowledging the many privileges I’ve had access to; this duality, and my deep curiosity of the liminal spaces in our existence, demands an explorer’s mind and a body keenly tuned to radical listening and feeling. This life of labor and my commitment to art has spurred in me a desire to pursue actionable change in the world and to prove the importance of art’s role in that change.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
As a kid, my mind would wander and my imagination would over take active memory making. This might be one reason why I have pretty terrible recall of actual life events. It’s not all because of trauma, although that is certainly a part of it. But also, my brain was more interested in focusing on the questions presented by life rather the answers being foisted upon me. I think artists often struggle more under the weight of convention because of this tendency toward deep and radical curiosity. Now in my late 30s, I find this curiosity to be one of the most rewarding parts of giving myself permission to be an artist. Because that’s what is required of being an artist; we must give ourselves permission to pursue forms of expression outside traditional bounds. I feel as though I literally absorb the people and things around me. I am a translator of experience and a pursuer of truth, which should always include the acknowledgment that facts are facts. I get to play with possibility and delight in this disastrous, wondrous world by seeking the universal in our most intimate and unique stories.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?
To non-creatives, so much of what I’m saying probably sounds fucking nuts. It’s pretty wild that my job, or at least a portion of it, is to communicate deeply personal desires, via invented characters, in the context of collective dangers (the when and what of my stories is heavily influenced by our active crises). I do this through language alone, which is fraught with complication and inequity. Mostly, I wish that we could all better understand the difference between authority and agency, as well as who generally gets to have one or the other. It is difficult work, but disruption and dissent is essential to the pursuit of an artist and I wish more non-creatives could apply these modes to their own lives. I had to write my way through two novels, countless stories and poems, essays and criticism, becoming a parent and surviving capitalism to arrive at a place where I don’t care what others think — I write what I need to write and I am actively deprogramming my brain from the belief that the pursuit of money is the most important thing. Again, this is a privileged position that I try to stay mindful of. True humanity requires us to see beyond ourselves and this is what effective art does most efficiently. I guess all of this is to say that being an artist is really hard. I am never not working; my brain is never not divided between my creative work and my present circumstance. So, please bear with us and consider the possibility that we have secrets we’d love to share, you need only ask.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.loierawding.com
- Instagram: @loierawding
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/loie.rawding
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/loie-rawding-68b31a35/
- Twitter: @lalaloie
- Other: https://www.porchtn.org/class/fiction-workshop-for-complete-drafts
Image Credits
Artist photo by @allisongowerphoto