I didn't care about disability rights until I needed them.

Did you know that anyone at anytime can become disabled? I really want you to sit with this idea, because it’s an important one. You (yes you reading this) can become disabled at anytime because of an infinite number of phenomena out of your or anyone else’s control.

How I used to PERCEIVE Disability

Before my Autism diagnosis (which you can read more about here) the thought that 1) I could become disabled at anytime or 2) that I already was disabled and I didn’t know it quite literally never crossed my mind. My body and mind were typically functional on a surface level, and I was healthy enough to not require much external medical support. A majority of my peers shared this “non disabled” category too. With tunnel vision constructed from a life surrounded by “typically functioning humans” Why would I EVER think about disability?

Disabled people have always been around.

Some are born with their disabilities and some acquire disabilities as they age. From my limited anecdotal knowledge of disability history, disabled humans have had an issue with visibility in the community. When people aren’t visible it’s really easy to exclude their needs in the design of spaces, equipment, social norms etc. This lack of visibility leads to an unintentional and culturally normalised cycle of ableism - a lack of visibility creates a world that doesn’t accomodate disability, making disabled people more invisible to broader society, further intrenching socially acceptable ableism into our society.

Looking back I know I never considered disability because a majority of disabled representation I’d interacted with was paralympians with limb differences. Even then, these disabled humans with a “platform” weren’t a part of real life. They lived in TV land, appearing once every 4 years in another country showing mastery of superhuman skills.

The representation of so called “invisible disabilities” was also lacking. I’m entirely sure I’d never considered a disability could be invisible until just a few years ago when Former Youtuber, Sewist, Scientist and Activist Annika Victoria started sharing openly about their lived experience.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: The only reason I was able to pursue an Autism diagnosis is because of the disability visibility the internet has facilitated. More importantly the only reason I’ve been able to access the NDIS and finally begin to stitch together appropriate supports is because of disabled folk who came before me and fought for the rights and freedoms we have today.

Disability Rights Still have a long way to go

In Australia, we’re in a way better place to accomodate disabilities than we have been, however we still have a long way to go. The disability support pension is inaccessible to many disabled people, especially if they live with a partner that works full time. This payment can be cut or discontinued if a partner earns too much. (let’s not even start on how the rate needs to be raised…)
The NDIS is difficult to join. If one manages to get on it, it can be a nightmare to navigate. Staying in this system and being provided with appropriate supports also requires one to proove their disability over and over again.
Most architecture still isn’t accessible. Lack of ramps, difficult to open doors, toilets that are accessible only by name and difficult to navigate neglected outdoor terrain all contribute to disabled people being unable to participate in all spaces.
The above is just the tip of the iceburg!

Properly implemented accomodations can make everyone’s life better. The one that springs to mind are those little ramps on footpaths that provide a smooth descent onto the road. They’re called curb cuts, and until listening to this episode of 99% invisible I’d never thought twice about them. The very abridged, super catchy version of the story is a group of disabled students who used wheelchairs in America were having difficulty navigating their campus and the town because there were no curb cuts. They got tired of the situation, so in the middle of the night along with their aids, they cut ramps into the curbs. Turns out, a bunch of other people benefited from the rouge ramps (including parents with prams and the elderly), the cuts caught on and now they’re everywhere!

I really hope the increasing visibility of disabled voices continues as it has. If disability accomodations had been available to me pre diagnosis, my life would look very different, probably for the better. I personally would love to see a world where accomodations aren’t considered accomodations, because they’re just normal everyday things that blend into the fabric of society. We have a long way to go, but I am hopeful.

Other Disabled Creators making cool stuff

If you have a moment, I’d love to draw your attention to some other disabled creatives who are making loud sounds about disability, life and other things on the internet.
Eliza Hull (musician, speaker, writer, activist): https://www.elizahull.com
Liel K Bridgford (writer, poet, activist, podcaster): https://lkbridgford.com and their podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/un-marginalised/id1561559981
Imani Barbarin (Writer, Speaker, Blogger, Content Creator, Model, Actress): https://www.instagram.com/crutches_and_spice
Carly Findlay (writer, speaker, activist, fashion icon): https://carlyfindlay.com.au and their book https://carlyfindlay.com.au/growing-up-disabled-in-australia/
Peta Hooke (speaker, content creator, podcaster, activist): https://www.icantstandpodcast.com

This is absolutely a non exhaustive list, these are just the people who came to mind whilst I was writing this here post. I have learned so much from these humans, and I hope you can too!

ABOUT THE OUTFIT

I’ve had these photos sitting on my computer since August last year? Definitely a while at least! This is my first go at cottage core does lobsters. I’ve really been enjoying genre bending cottage core stylings recently (keep your eyes peeled on my instagram for the rainbow cat dress…). The dress itself is home made using a self drafted pattern, copious amounts of lace and contrasting buttons. The magnificent pearl details come from the thrifted blouse I’m wearing under the dress. I’ve popped on some white tights to reflect the lace and blouse, and finished the look off with my orange Frances island beret and pink Dr Martens.

FINANCIAL REALISM SEGMENT!

I’m trying to be more open about my finances/the time/money and energy that goes into this creative work. I’ve reached a point where I no longer have the energy to work creatively and work a day job. Many hours of labour go into a post like this - I sewed the pants, which took me a day, the photos took 1 hour to shoot, 3 hours to edit/upload.

Writing this post in particular took 1 hour, and the social media management and promotion takes an additional hour. my website is with Squarespace which also costs $$

If you’d like to support my endeavour to make this sort of work my “real job” (this includes my music and upcoming sewing videos) you can do so for the price of a coffee by using the form to your left. If you’d like to support me AND get a thing in return for your $$, consider buying my music on BANDCAMP or hopping over to my ONLINE STORE and buying a print, bow, music ETC :)

Big thanks to my regular Ko-Fi Supporter Gemma! If you’d like to join her in my super exclusive community and support my art for $5 a month, click over to my Ko Fi Page! You’ll get access to videos and blog posts early, and I’ll thankyou (like this!) when I release the things.

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A Recent Video you May Enjoy

Vague Advice

I have spent approximately 95% of my career feeling stuck. Sometimes I deal with this feeling of “being stuck” by overworking, which ultimately leads to burnout. Sometimes I deal with this feeling by researching my situation endlessly, as if a career is going to manifest itself by finding the right google search term. Through this research I have realised that most advice about advancing ones career as a musician/artist/content creator is vague and unhelpful. I’m going to deconstruct some of the vague advice I’ve seen/been given and hopefully we’ll all feel a lovely feeling of solidarity.

Know Your Audience and Market Yourself to them.

Sounds simple right? Figure out what your target demographic is by observing who comes to your shows, who turns up on your social media and engages with your content, then spend time and money making things for those people.

The issue? When your audience is primarily made up of friends and family, your stats don’t reflect what your actual target demographic may be. When you don’t have a pool of random people to poll/the money to make that happen, you can’t brute force a target demographic. Guessing what your target demographic might work for you, but I’ve put money behind my guesses and it’s made 0 difference.

This advice also assumes the shows you’re playing places you 1) in front of new audiences who will 2) continue to engage with your work after the show. This is a rare combination that cannot be counted on in many situations, and I’m really tired of those who survived the “emerging artist” stage handing out this advice as if it’s a guaranteed path to success.

Network

Go to gigs! Go to events! Go to things that so called “industry professionals” will be present at. Talk to people! Network and build connections! As a geographically challenged disabled Autistic human I dread this advice.

Let’s talk about the geographical challenges first. When you live more than 30 mins away from “the things” which are either scheduled during the work day or past 8pm, finishing at 11pm/12pm and your method of paying rent requires you to wake up at a decent hour and has nothing to do with attending “the things”, being able to attend “the things” regularly enough to become a familiar face in “the scene” and have any semblance of work life balance becomes incredibly difficult.

Ok, so you’ve accepted that you need to attend “the things”. How are you going to get there? Car? That’s not always an option for me because of the regular debilitating fatigue I experience. I try not to drive for more than 10mins after 9pm, otherwise I run the risk of micro-sleeps. The older I get, the less sure I am of my ability to drive late and not fall asleep behind the wheel. Sure, booking accomodation is possible, but it’s too expensive to do as often as I would need to in order to attend an “appropriate amount of things” to “build a network”.

Lets add my particular neurodiverse struggles on top of this and it’s a whole other level of fun. It doesn’t matter how energised I am at the beginning of the event, by the time it’s time for bands to mingle post show, I’m exhausted and in no state to pretend to be human enough to piece together a conversation. I usually either panic, talk to no one and slip out silently, or end up exhausted to the point I no longer feel human/can string a sentence together, talk to no one and slip out silently. What about daytime events? I think I could probably manage those, but they’re always held at least 1.5 hours away from my place of residence on a weekday when I’m working to pay the rent. They also cost money. I can’t afford the time off, and if there’s an entry fee, I certainly can’t afford that on top.

Advice givers really need to stop acting as if “Networking” is a simple solution that’s equally easy and accessible for everyone.

Grow Your Social Media Following

Have an “online presence”, post “consistently”, engage and interact with your “audience”, engage and interact with other creators, and if that doesn’t work for you, well, your content is either “low quality” or your not “working hard enough”.

I (and so many others) have been excluded from Great Southern Nights. Here's how to fix it.

PREFACE: Please note, I’m not looking for advice or suggestions. I am talking about how Great Southern Nights has perpetuated the music industries status quo of opportunities and career growth paths hidden behind opaque systems, combined with vague advice about how to navigate those systems.

Have you seen the artist and venue lineups that are gradually being released for the 2022 Great Southern Nights Concert Series? There are so many cool people playing in so many cool places! I would love to participate in the concert series, but for the second time I’ve been unintentionally excluded from this opportunity due to systemic reasons and honestly? it’s not good enough.

For those of you who don’t know, Great Southern Nights is a NSW music series created in response to the pandemic to “reinvigorate the music industry” after we (every musician) lost every gig overnight to the ongoing pandemic. This initiative has brought some much needed work and income to venues and musicians but like many “big official productions” it’s fallen into some systemic traps that have kept musicians like me from participating.

So, what do I mean by musicians like me? I’m an “emerging artist”* who’s professional contacts mostly comprise of other emerging artists. I get most of my gigs and opportunities via the tedious process of cold emailing and an unhealthy amount of hope. I’ve invested time and money in learning how to be my own photographer, videographer, video editor, graphic designer and copy writer because I can’t afford to pay someone else to do it to the standard the industry requires. I have a small team (a manager/career coach) helping me behind the scenes with booking and grants, but I still do a lot of my own admin/negotiating. I am also disabled with limited capacity, which adds further complications to my career.

*I really dislike this term, but it’s the best one I’ve got.

The first year of Great Southern Nights left me confused. They popped up the first version of their webpage inviting both artists and venues to submit expressions of interest, which I did, then I waited patiently to hear more information about how I could get involved as a performer. Suddenly there was an influx of gig announcements, which didn’t make sense because I was still waiting to hear about the process for performer consideration?
This second year has left me feeling defeated. When I heard they were running this again, I got in early asking how I could get involved as an artist. This is the reply I got “The Venue Call Out available on the Great Southern Nights' website does not include an artist EOI. As the list of participating venues will be announced at a later date* - we encourage you to contact your local (or favoured) venue to enquire if they are applying to host a Great Southern Nights gig. Venues will be programming their own live music gigs as per their usual operations – in line with any COVID-19 restrictions of course. ”

I’m still trying to pinpoint why this email upset me. Perhaps it was the very professional acknowledgment dealing with artists seems to have been put in the too hard basket. Perhaps it was the acknowledgement that the process of performing in Great Southern Nights would happen in the secret network of inboxes I’ve been excluded from for 10 years. Or perhaps it was the assumption that I’m in the know enough to know which venues were planing on participating, and I wouldn’t have to send a hundred emails to figure it out.

From a logistical standpoint I get it. There are an overwhelming amount of musicians vying for not enough resources. It’s why I accidentally took 6 months off my music blog. If the Great Souther Nights team were going to deal with all the musicians it would be an immense undertaking, however, running an event series to “reinvigorate the music industry” needs to actively include ALL musicians. By making the participation process opaque, they have excluded any musician that doesn’t already have access.

Here are 3 things Great Southern Nights could do to better include Emerging artists:

1) Include a process that gives artists with few contacts a pathway to connect with eligible venues. This could be done by publicly releasing the venue list, so artists can contact participating venues directly.

2) Create and enforce quota’s that increase the prevalence of emerging artists and artists of marginalised identities* in the concert series. (*there may have already been a movement behind the scenes to make sure those who are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, culturally and linguistically diverse, LGBTQIA+ are appropriately represented. I don’t have the capacity to analyse the lineup)

3) Work with venues to create shows that specifically highlight and include emerging artists (and preferably do this via a really accessible and obvious application process). Provide these shows with extra resources and marketing support? You could literally change someone’s career overnight.

Great Southern Nights could set themselves up as a concert series that launches careers and mentors those who have drive, passion and talent but have found themselves forever lost in a career based wild goose chase. Great Southern Nights have the option to set a new status quo and actively include all musicians. If they do this again, I really hope they do better, because emerging Australian Musicians deserve it.

About the outfit: Well, this is a change from my regular old outfit posts! These are actually my new music artist photos! I built the set from scratch in a panic one afternoon when an outdoor music video shoot was almost moved indoors due to weather. We didn’t need it, but now I have this awesome set!
I built the backdrop using a 5x2 meter curtain, painted to vaguely look like sunset clouds. I built the cloud lamps out of baking paper, sticky tape, toy stuffing, led fairy lights, macrame rope and white thread.
I did my own makeup and wore a dress I bought 10 years ago from an indie designer.
I think these are some of the best photos I’ve ever taken!

A VIDEO YOU MAY ENJOY

FINANCIAL REALISM SEGMENT!

I’m trying to be more open about my finances/the time/money and energy that goes into this creative work. I’ve reached a point where I no longer have the energy to work creatively and work a day job. Many hours of labour go into a post like this - I sewed the pants, which took me a day, the photos took 1 hour to shoot, 3 hours to edit/upload.

Writing this post in particular took 1 hour, and the social media management and promotion takes an additional hour. my website is with Squarespace which also costs $$

If you’d like to support my endeavour to make this sort of work my “real job” (this includes my music and upcoming sewing videos) you can do so for the price of a coffee by using the form to your left. If you’d like to support me AND get a thing in return for your $$, consider buying my music on BANDCAMP or hopping over to my ONLINE STORE and buying a print, bow, music ETC :)

Big thanks to my regular Ko-Fi Supporter Gemma! If you’d like to join her in my super exclusive community and support my art for $5 a month, click over to my Ko Fi Page! You’ll get access to videos and blog posts early, and I’ll thankyou (like this!) when I release the things.