More Devotedly

Amidst the struggles of the pandemic and racial justice protests in Portland, Onry has taken the opportunity to clarify his priorities, taking his creative future in his own hands. Onry is a singer, dancer, actor, and pianist based in Portland, Oregon. He’s one of very few Black professional classical singers here. When the pandemic hit, Onry went outside to find places to sing, to keep his voice strong, and that led to some experiences that inspired his new project, a documentary and studio recording project called Livin’ in the Light. You can see a beautiful music video that’s part of the project at moredevotedly.com, as well as a link to a fundraiser that’s still in progress. We talk about how the experiences he’s had during this time showed Onry that it was time to step into his own light, and to show how others can do the same in their own way.

Subashini Ganesan is a dancer and choreographer, the founder and Executive Director of New Expressive Works, and Portland, Oregon’s Creative Laureate since 2018. Suba is a humble, even bashful leader. She made it clear many times that she doesn’t see herself as a hero, but I’ll say that she’s a hero of mine because of her swift and compassionate action during this crisis, and several years of deft and authentic leadership she's provided to the Portland arts community. We talked about her role as Creative Laureate, the process of distributing this aid money from the Oregon State Legislature, and about the social justice movement taking place in Portland right now.

Andre Middleton is Executive Director of Friends of Noise, a nonprofit seeking to foster healing and growth for the creative youth in our community via the arts. They do so by creating opportunities for young people not just to perform, but also to learn the technical and business side of music, with a focus on creating a safe space for BIPOC youth. Andre talks about Friends of Noise and how the pandemic and protests in Portland have changed how that organization is approaching its work.

The Oregon state legislature recently made a huge investment in the Oregon arts community—$50 Million dollars from the federal CARES act will be designated to keep arts businesses and organizations afloat through December 2020 as public health restrictions keep venues and organizations shuttered. Arts advocate and consultant Jeff Hawthorne talks about how this monumental investment came to be, and how arts advocacy works, and his view of how Portland responded to the presence of federal agents at racial justice protests here.

Jeff Hawthorne

Links mentioned in this episode.

Jeff Hawthorne’s website.

Americans for the Arts Action Fund.

Oregon’s Cultural Advocacy Coalition.

Portland’s Regional Arts & Culture Council.

“Oregon lawmakers approve $50 million lifeline for struggling arts and culture organizations” from the Oregonian, July 14, 2020.

Black Resilience Fund – an emergency fund dedicated to healing and resilience by providing immediate resources to Black Portlanders.

Episode Transcript

Douglas Detrick: Welcome to More Devotedly. This is Volume IV, episode 1.

Someone else is focused on Portland as well, the President of the United States. Just a few days ago, a caravan of trucks full of Pro-Trump demonstrators drove through downtown Portland, firing paintball guns and spraying mace on BLM protesters. By the end of the night, one of them was killed.

This was just a few days after a 17 year-old shot and killed two people in Kenosha, WI who were protesting for justice for Jacob Blake, a black man who was shot seven times in the back by Kenosha police just days before that.

I want to be absolutely clear that the violence we are seeing in Kenosha and Portland is not acceptable. I condemn these killings absolutely. This is a time when we need calm, steady leadership focused on de-escalating tensions, but the President is actually encouraging his supporters in this behavior along with a chorus of voices from right-wing media because he thinks it will help him win reelection.

For all of you that are concerned about the situation here in Portland—and you’re right to be concerned—please don’t be fooled. This situation is not a result of the largely peaceful protests that have been going on for more than three months here. Rather, it is the result of a small minority of extremists who are trying to push the situation out of control. Portlanders want peace, of course, but we also want an end to police brutality, we want to make life better for our Black and Brown residents, and we want our city to be a place where peaceful demonstrations can take place without fear of being physically attacked.

As I launch Volume IV with this episode, here’s what I’m trying to achieve. 

As the president tries to push a false narrative about Portland and then some of his followers storm the city and try to make that narrative into reality, I want to talk with as many artists here to show what this city is really like. We have a beautiful, diverse, and thriving arts scene here that makes our city a great place to be. I want you to meet some of the artists and organizers that make that possible.

My guest is Jeff Hawthorne, a freelance arts advocate and consultant. We talked about how the Oregon state legislature recently made a huge investment in the Oregon arts community—$50 Million dollars from the federal CARES act will be designated to keep arts businesses and organizations afloat during this time of struggle. Jeff told me about how this monumental investment came to be, and how advocacy works in a crisis situation like this one, and in more normal times as well. He also weighs in what’s happening in Portland right now, though this interview was recorded about two weeks ago. 

At a moment when government at the local and federal level is struggling to meet the challenges of this moment, or depending on who you ask, isn’t even trying to do the right

A sound-rich essay with original music by Douglas Detrick about how building with stone is like building a society where all Americans have the opportunity to create resilient communities.

Taiko artist and co-director of Unit Souzou Michelle Fujii's "Constant State of Otherness" was set to tour the country and then was delayed due to the coronavirus outbreak. She talks with Douglas Detrick about "otherness" in American culture and what she learned by exploring this concept in a large-scale work for her taiko company. This episode was sponsored by Vanport Mosaic.

In this short story by Megan Savage, The Seamstress asks her fiance The Wolfboy for a big favor, and has to accept the consequences that result. As people all over the world are forced to make choices with profound consequences during the COVID-19 pandemic, The Seamstress Loves The Wolfboy is a opportunity to consider the choices we make for love. This is the first audio fiction episode from More Devotedly podcast. Narration by Rosalie Purvis, music, sound design, and production by Douglas Detrick, illustration by Lettie Jane Rennekamp.

Margaret Bullock's new book "New Deal Art in the Northwest: The WPA and Beyond" is the first comprehensive study of this chapter of United States political and arts history. She and Douglas Detrick talked about how the programs worked and what they produced, how they affected communities, and how our community's response to the COVID-19 crisis will be similar, and how it could be different.

As medical personnel and other essential workers continue on despite the risks to their health, families with kids are staying home, like my family has been doing for four weeks now. On this episode, I share my family's experiences and some audio I created with my kids on this lighthearted episode of More Devotedly.

Sam and Lisa Adams, of the band Sama Dams, were about to embark on a five-week tour in Europe as the coronavirus outbreak took hold there and here at home in the United States. Meara McLoughlin, Executive Director of Music Portland, collected data on lost income from nearly one thousand musicians that helped to quantify the economic damage the outbreak was doing to musicians in Oregon helped to shape the response of Oregon’s congressional delegation. Hear their responses to this tragedy, and what they’re doing to help their communities move forward.

Episode Transcript

Welcome to More Devotedly, a podcast for people who see the arts as a force for positive, progressive change. I’m Douglas Detrick.

The COVID-19 pandemic has turned lives upside down all over the world, and if it hasn’t touched your life yet, it probably will soon. We’ve seen hospitals overwhelmed, thousands of deaths, and here in the United States we’ve exceeded 150,000 confirmed infections, with that number sure to grow.

The first real data about the economic fallout from the virus in the US came in last week. Unemployment claims in just one week numbered over three million, dwarfing the previous record by orders of magnitude. 

In that context, what can artists do? At first, we cancelled everything. But that’s not a solution. The real questions are, how do we recover from this? How do we emerge stronger as a community? And how can artists contribute to their communities?

We addressed the idea of belonging in Volume I, and climate change in Volume II. Now, in Volume III, because it’s hard to talk about anything else right now, we’re going to look deeply at the arts and artists during a pandemic. I’ll share what I’ve learned about how artists and arts organizations are taking action to help each other and their neighbors and families, how they’ve responded to public health emergencies in the past, and how we can respond to emergencies in the future. 

I know that everyone is feeling very weary of hearing bad news over and over again, I am too. So, I’ll be looking for ways to see this crisis from unexpected angles. I won’t be sugarcoating it, because I know you’re weary of that too. But since many of us have a little more time on our hands than usual, let’s use it to take stock of where we’ve been, where we are, and where we could be as a community of artists and arts supporters.

My guests in this episode, Sam and Lisa Adams and Meara McLoughlin, offer some ideas about how artists can affect their communities and ways they can influence the way that government responds.

This Volume III, episode 1.

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Sam and Lisa Adams, along with drummer Micah Hummel, are Sama Dams, one of my favorite rock bands from the Portland, Oregon community. I talked to Lisa and Sam about the tour they had planned in Europe for March and April. Yup, they cancelled it. We talked over the phone about how this crisis hit them, and what they’re doing to do next.

Sam and Lisa Adams of Sama Dams

Not Gonna Lie by Sama Dams

Doug: You guys had to cancel your tour to Europe.  tell me what has happened and what did you have planned?

Sam: Well, we were going to go on a five week tour of Europe. we were going to go to Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. we had promotion paid for a van, airplane tickets, and we had paid for a lot of  merchandise to sell as well.

Once this Corona virus thing kind of started, we were watching it sort of develop in Italy and we started having a bad feeling that this is not going to go away. my mom had called me worried that I was still going to go to Germany and, you know, within the hour, Trump issued his, uh, travel ban on Europe pretty much. So, that kind of sealed the deal. 

Lisa: We were actually about to play a show. We were there for loading. I think it was what, Wednesday, the 11th of March when the travel ban went into effect and it just kind of felt like all the plans that we had