We were lucky to catch up with Richard Page recently and have shared our conversation below.

Richard, appreciate you joining us today. Has your work ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized?

For the most part, people mean well.

“What do you want to do/be when you grow up?” “What career field do you think you’re going to go into?” These are typically seen as fairly innocuous questions. But for someone like myself – a “creative”, or “multi-hyphenate” – it feels like trying to cram a tesseract into an oblong hole. I’ve been called everything from lazy, to underachieving, to unfocused, to naive, to etc, etc. It’s a tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme.

Looking back on my younger self I can see where much of the ‘silent rage’ came from. Not only was I trying to understand myself, but I was also trying to understand myself by way of how others understand me. You already have so many questions about yourself as a human being, and a portion of those can subconsciously cause real existential dread. Throw logs of ‘you have so much more potential than that’, ‘I know you and I don’t think you really want to do that’, and ‘I don’t think you’re ready for this so I’m not going to help you’ into the fire and you’ve got Gehenna itself.

Many people that don’t wear the terms “creative” or “multi-hyphenate” are under the false assumption that people like myself are just living life willy-nilly, in a land of bliss and free thought. What they don’t realize is that, unfortunately, most of our time is spent in a world where we need to scream but have no mouth. We are undervalued, overlooked, overextended, hyper-exploited, and underrepresented. Yet we persist. Somehow.

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

Some find it a little bothersome, but in person-to-person introductions I usually tell people that I’m no one in particular. In my worldview it’s materially true. In my day to day life I go to work, come home, talk to and crack jokes with my wife, play with our cat, visit my parents, call loved ones on the phone, read books about medieval peasants, so on and so forth. That’s what I think about when I think about my life and who I am in the world – and I find it very pleasant. But I know that, for most people, that’s not really what they’re interested in. They want to know what I’ve accomplished, who I know, where I’ve been, and what I plan to achieve. So I’ll crack that book open for a second.

Here’s the answer to basically everything I do, externally: community, opportunity, and literacy. Once you understand that you understand what I do on the outside. I’m a very predictable man. People don’t think so, but I am. At the core of everything I do, one to all three of those things is the reason why.

One of my missions is to make Clarksville economically viable for creatives by the time my sun sets there. Within the past decade I’ve lived there I’ve encountered nothing but excuses and obstructions. There are so many people in positions of authority and resource that could snap a finger and open the flood gates but they don’t. I’ve learned not to bother with them and just go for it. I trust my plan and my process and observe all else as a mere thought experiment. I also cherish every single person and conversation that has ever helped me.

There are several areas of the creative/art space in the city that are already established and ‘supported’. There’s too much resistance in those spaces – everyone is death-gripping their slice of the pie. A moldy and crumbling slice of pie might I add. So I found a community that no one paid any mind to, and that no one ever cared to pay any mind to. Well, at the time, there was no community to even pay any mind to.

That community is film and production. For a number of years, the city’s Parks and Recreation department held a “52 Hour Film Festival”. I was a consecutively three-time, top-three-overall winner in the 52 Hour Film Festival from 2020-2022. In 2021 I started a Facebook group named “Clarksville Film & Production” to serve as a lightning rod for amateurs and/or pros to meet. I did it because I noticed that there was no real place for us. We were overlooked and underutilized. We had no outlet and no means of support. It was a perfect place to break ground.

This year I launched what I internally called the “2023 Clarksville Film & Production Stimulus Campaign” (try to say that three times, fast). Here are some things it caused. Community: 591% Facebook group increase in the past six months; 7 local productions; 8 in-person bi-weekly meetups. Opportunity: 1 public registry has been created with close to 60 entries by locals in the community; 2 monthly short film challenges have been held; 1 local indie film festival has been held (the 1st Annual Clarksville Indie Film Fest); the 1st ever local filmmaker showcase was held; and all events have been open and free. Literacy: 25% of community meetups are educational; 2 new cinematography-based workshops have been given; 7 film and production related programs are in development with an assortment of local organizations.

I dropped an Impact Report with all of this and let the heads roll. People needed to see what can be done by ‘some random guy’ thats been working as a pizza delivery driver. There needs to be a new precedent and this is helping to set it.

There are three unique campaigns I will run over the next few years to close the circuit and complete the film and production ecosystem. It’ll be unrecognizable by that point, which is a beautiful thought. If one man leaves and the community falls apart, was it really a community? My entire architectural approach has been to build toward the day that my ‘load bearing beam’ is removed. I want to build structural integrity such a way that no matter who comes or goes, everyone has a space and a voice.

Back to something I mentioned earlier: literacy. Literacy and education are huge to me. Those two workshops are workshops I taught at the local museum & cultural center. Those 7 programs are programs I’m developing in collaboration with several non-profits. Those all revolve around cinematic principles of some kind because that’s what I’m known for now. Prior to all of this, there was a solid 13 or so years where I was a musician and actually taught lessons. I played jazz guitar for that entire time, wrote songs, played drums for a few of those years, and even played bass in a few bands for the last two or so years. Personal practice, band rehearsals, gigs, recitals, recording sessions – I’ve been there. At a certain point I started developing my own method of teaching and alternative pedagogy. I’ve been waiting for the right time to surface that in a big way, and it looks like an organization might bite. It was pretty random actually. It started with a basic conversation about a building.

A few take aways I hope people get from speaking with me: I’m open; I get things done; I enjoy collaborating with other people that get things done; I’m going to do and be what I want, whether or not that makes sense to anyone else. I like being able to trust people I work with, and I like being able to be ‘no one in particular’. I like doing the work and getting the work done. There’s a lot of work to be done in a lot of places and in a lot of modalities. That is both exciting and sobering to me. Personally, I don’t really care about who knows or doesn’t know about me unless it affects what I’m trying to achieve. And in the specific case of doing the kind of work in the community that I need to do, being known seems fundamental. (A bit to my dismay, honestly.)

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

The external creative things I do are always to try and inspire wonderment and humanity. I want to give people a special feeling, a unique experience. It seems like machines of industry have bankrupted the soul of the arts such that the only way that people are now even learning to create is to do so in a way that appeals to the machines of industry. Everyone is creating in a way that caters to algorithms and ad slots. I’m not an old fashioned guy by any stretch of the imagination. Anyone that’s talked to me for 15 minutes can tell you that. But I am a romantic man. (That was a revelation given to me by my wife. “Romantic” is the literal opposite of any way I would’ve ever described myself. When she’s right she’s right, though.)

I want art to touch people. I want creativity to free people. I want people to let out what’s in their heart. I want people to laugh, I want them to be surprised, I want them to be scared, I want them to be angry. I want them to be human. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t knock any artist or creative that does what they have to do to live and get their creations made. It’s not their fault. I just wish they could do it with their full humanity and without mechanical repression. This is part of my mission. Liberation for the working class, especially the artist and creative.

As to my internal creative drive, I just make things that I like and want to experience in the world. I have hard drives full of music I’ve made that no one’s ever heard before. I listen to it often and just enjoy it. There are a bunch of videos I’ve made that maybe only three people have seen. I have fun watching them from time to time. I’ve got notebooks filled with stories I never plan for anyone to read. I just make things because I want to. Something that many people don’t understand is that I don’t live to create. This strange ‘creative force’ that animates the creative is rather dispassionate and can be a cruel master. It can cause you to miss important things, push away loved ones, pursue dead ends, and self-destruct. I learned that through experience some years ago. After therapy and interrogating my intentions and behaviors, I realized that I care about living life way more than I care about creating. It was an insane revelation. It felt like a heretical revelation.

I don’t owe it to creativity to do anything, the same way that it doesn’t think it owes it to me to make sure I’m cared for. I owe it to myself to be well, though. I owe it to myself to live the peaceful life I’d like to live. I owe it to myself to take care of my marriage which is full of love and enjoyment. I owe it to myself to make time for family and friends. I owe it to myself to defend the defenseless and be the person I wish was there to save me in the past. I owe it to myself to enjoy what I make, and to do so sustainably. I owe it to myself to eat my favorite pizzas. Those are the things I care about. Those are the things I actually can’t do without. This ‘creative force’ will not do any of that for me, and it doesn’t care whether or not I ever get around to them. I create for my own sake, and that is reason enough for me.

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

This is a very complex problem with a number of variables to consider. That being said, I think that there are few simple steps we can take to care for artists and creatives: (1) pay them; (2) pay them; (3) pay them. I know, I know. That’s an incredibly bold and impossible ask but it’s an ask that must be bravely made.

All snark aside, I really do believe that most of the issues stem from the lack of an economic base for the creative and even surrounding the creative. Your high school developed school colors and got a logo and a mascot but they’re defunding all of the arts programs. Your job spent a bunch of money for a “brand kit” with logo variations, a color scheme, and custom type face but they won’t pay you a living wage, so you can’t even buy your own arts materials. You’re trying to make it as a musician but all of the bars and even community gigs put on by the city government only pay this precious resource called “exposure”.

Poverty is littered with creative minds. Many of us go nowhere, and not for a lack of trying to go somewhere. Between scammers, “haters”, detractors, obstructionists, divestors, and gatekeepers, it’s tough to move an inch. You only have so many hours in a day. You only have so much mental, emotional, and physical energy. There’s only so much demoralization and humiliation a person can take. If it’s between rent and food which one are you going to pick? If it’s between getting that used laptop you need to start your business and keeping that beat up car you need for work from getting repossessed, which are you going to choose? How are you ever going to “get ahead”? All of the jobs either pay the same or are a race to the bottom. You spend 50-60 hours working to barely afford to eat, and you’re expected to do the same for your own creative endeavors on top of that. What about sleep? What about love? What about health? What about life?

There’s only so much defeat and shattered dreams a person can withstand before they crack. Different people have different thresholds – but that moment comes for us all. My tolerance is very high, and my resilience is honestly incomprehensible even to me. Yet I have nothing but deep sympathy and love and compassion for those that don’t. They’re always on my mind. I’ve known several to take their lives. I know many that are homeless. I know people that are hollow now, that purged every atom of the arts from their life, that destroyed all of their art, that sold all of their instruments, that cut off the creative community and contacts it took them so long to find.

So many of these problems can be solved by economics. The pressures of food insecurity and lack of affordable housing options drives people away from what they’re good at and where they provide the most “value” into doing whatever they gotta do to stay alive. Which corrodes them. In that state, hope is almost a form of torment and brutality. You are continually crushed yet clinging to the glint of sunshine you see through the crevice in the rubble. Time slips away from you. Age sneaks up on you. Calamity after calamity strikes you. And you have to act like it’s fine. Like it’s normal. Like an artist dying impoverished and having their art make other people money after they die is perfectly sane.

“Just get a better job.” “Just do art as your ‘side hustle’.” “If you really wanted to be successful you’d be successful right now.” Everything but “we’ll just pay you [more money]”. Occam’s Razor.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/richardapage
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therichardapage/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/therichardapage/
• Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-a-page-798b296a
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@therichardapage
• Other: Email: [email protected]

Image Credits
BizVets Connect, Vondell Richmond, Middle Tennessee Film Collective, Sara Perez, Lindsay M. Page, Richard A. Page