A repost of an e-mail conversation today between me and Girl Clumsy – partly cos I’m always forgetting to address the damn obvious on this blog (i.e. I assume I’ve filled you in on all the nitty gritty details but then realise later there are more holes in the story than a bunny-infested golf course) and partly cos I’m just lazy.
Girl Clumsy wrote:
Hey there! Hope everything’s going well in Canuck-land… I must say that Banff Centre looks lovely. My parents have been to Banff, but I’ve yet to get to Canada. May I ask what is the nature of your residency at the centre? How did you apply, and do you have to pay, or did you get a grant for that as well? It makes me wish I was actually a proper writer so I could do something like that! Cheers, Natalie. Well hello hon!
Great to hear from you! Everything’s going beautifully thus far, makes all the agony of getting here totally worth it, I’m very happy to say. I couldn’t recommend visiting this place enough – it’s honestly the most beautiful and magical place I’ve ever been in my entire life, not that I’ve travelled that extensively overseas, but I’ve seen quite a lot of Oz which are pretty awesome.
The residency I’m doing is an independent one at the Leighton Studios, there are about 8 (I think?) of these studios on site that artists can apply to use for however long, for whatever purposes they desire. I’m using the time to work on developing a new show (specifically focusing on incorporating more multimedia into what I do, taking advantage of the awesome New Media Centre here) plus honing my performance techniques, practising lots of piano and voicework, plus I’ll do whatever relevant workshops are going on at the time. I’m hoping to organise for one of my mentors from last year’s trip to join me for some of the time too, but obviously that will depend on availability and funds!
I do have to pay for it, but thankfully they’ve subsidised me 50% – I’m waiting to hear back on a couple of different grants to help me out ,but worst case it’s going on the credit card!!
Of course you can do something like this!!! You don’t have to wait for someone to tell you you’re a proper writer or anything – just go for it. I have to say I think I applied for about a gazillion grants (wwwaaaaaay before I was even closer to ‘proper’ or whatever that even means) before I got one. So I would say just check out anything and everything that interests you and put in for it – as my grandma always said to me ‘you’ve gotta be in it to win it!’
Wow, what a rant. That’s longer than my blog entries! Actually, I might even just repost this reply for today’s one. 😉
Take care honey and great to stay in touch. Jen. x
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