Art in Conversation with Jax Anderson
Finding ways to reconnect with ourselves can feel damn near impossible during a time where nothing feels certain or clear. Despite this slow dissolving of our concept of time, learning and unlearning the habits of our past in order to move forward has led us to discover more of ourselves, giving us the strength to reframe our relationships and our art as more than just connections, but as conversations to be had and potential waiting to be unlocked.
In order to gain more clarity for ourselves on how this can be done, we gave Jax Anderson, a multidisciplinary artist from Detroit, a call to unearth how she has seized control over her world in the form of voluntary confines and Instagram Live sessions to assemble her most recent project. Released October 16, 2020, Bedroom B Sides: Volume 1 offers us a break from the mundane — 12 breaks, to be exact — clearing away the cobwebs in the forgotten corners of our mind with genuine candor and a healthy dose of positive energy, something that seems harder to come by these days.
Using art as a conduit for self-reflection and human connection, Anderson has shown us the power of perspective. “I feel like a completely different person than I was in March when everything started,” Anderson begins to reflect, “this was the first time in probably ten years that I wasn't touring and I was home for more than two months. And initially it was a head fuck, man. It was a difficult time. And I think doing this project really helped me get through that. It definitely changed my perspective of art. I think I viewed my art a lot of the time as my self worth, so if I released a song and it didn't do well numbers-wise or it didn't do what I thought it was supposed to do, I would think it would affect my self worth.”
This direct relationship between self-worth and art is hard to refute. For so many of us, art has been taught to us, or shown to us, to exist as an explicit expression of the self, stemming from the innermost places we, as artists, dare to go. To then share it outside of ourselves is a daunting task, to see ourselves reflected in front of us, and in front of others to judge us via our art, can be shocking and unimaginable even. With this already so deeply ingrained in our minds, how do we separate ourselves from our art when our lives are our art? But that’s the thing, according to Anderson — it’s just a part of who we are, not all of who we are.
“This process taught me that my art is a thing — it's an extension of who I am, it's not who I am. And I think a lot of the time artists find their identity in their art. There's still part of me that finds some of my identity in being an artist, but it's not nearly as heavy as it once was,” she shares, “so, I feel a lot more comfortable with being able to release … [before] I would overthink everything and I was too scared to do anything. I just kind of view art as like, ‘You put it out. If it does well, it does well. If not, you just keep going.’ It really has changed my perspective. The only way for me to fail as an artist is if I stopped doing art.”
The trick is to not let your art determine who you are and how you see yourself (which arguably is much easier said than done). Keep in mind: it’s not about finding a way of separating yourself from your art, but rather finding a way for you to exist alongside it. It’s about standing tall next to what you create, allowing it to support you and guide you, but not overshadow you so that your own voice isn’t being heard. Refusing to sit still, Anderson has worked hand-in-hand with her art, from video production and direction to revisiting old harddrives full of unfinished demos, and has presented to us Bedroom B Sides: Volume 1. The mixtape is Anderson’s first full-length release since her 2017 debut album Broke Royalty, with two EP’s and a handful of singles to sustain us in the meantime. Feeling clouded by the untapped potential and opportunity of these dusty demos, while carrying an uncontrollable need to always be creating something, Anderson decided to clear the air.
“I got to a point where I just had a massive amount of writer's block because I was holding on to too many songs. I'm the type where, if I have a song that's unreleased, the potential of the song is always in my mind like, ‘Well, I could change this thing or do this or I can do this and this,” Anderson shares, “I've always written a lot of songs — I have hundreds, almost a thousand songs that I've written — and it had just gotten to a point that I've gotta release in order to create new stuff. This whole project was kind of a practice of teaching myself not to overthink. I gave myself the parameters of: I'm going to do a live stream, I'm going to play some songs, I'm going to let the listeners decide what song I release, I have to finish the song in a week, and I have to do a video for the song, and then release [that video] the following week. So, I did that for six weeks and it was great. I feel like I learned so much. It opened up this portal of, ‘Oh, art can be this smooth, quick process if I want it to be.’ ‘Cause that's my ultimate goal in life, is to create and release a lot of art with my friends — that's the reason for me being an artist. And so with this collection of songs, it's the six songs that people voted on and then there are additional six songs that I chose to be on the release that nobody has heard before.”
Bedroom B Sides: Volume 1 consists of a dozen assorted treats, brought to us by Anderson’s love of writing, rambling, overthinking, and unique ability to paint a word picture unlike any other. Six sweet voted-on-by-listeners and six savory from-the-Anderson-Archive tracks offer us a fresh departure from Anderson’s usual pop sound, proving to be a more experimental offering that you can’t wait to sink your teeth into again and again. While some tracks remain true to the get-up-and-dance standard already set by Anderson (see: “In The Morning”), others offer sounds we haven’t heard from her yet, boasting more acoustic guitar, organ and piano treatments. Our favorite tracks include “Baptize”, “The Train” (showcasing yearning like no other) and “Postman” — the latter deserving of an honorable mention for use of props and a cameo made by her cat, Pancake, in the video.
“These songs were like little tiny voices in my head that were just weighing down on me. Once they're out, they're out. It's been really nice to kind of wrap it up, like a present with a bow on top and just call it a day on all these songs,” Anderson says. Learning to take those voices, send them into the world, and allow momentum to carry her forward is a lesson we could all take from Anderson. Akin to finally getting through a hard conversation with a loved one, finishing a long written piece after not writing for months, or submitting a project you’d been putting off because you thought it difficult, that final release gives us space to breathe again and reminds us of our own strength to carry on. We are finally free to move on and explore something else — our ever-shifting minds can let other things in or let us return to something we’ve been missing and wanting.
“I think for this specific season of my life, because the world felt so out of control, being able to have this box that I have my art in, that is this world that I've created, and I understand where the limits are, was extremely helpful,” Anderson starts, “And having something to look forward to in lockdown. ‘Cause after a while it just feels like an endless array of just purgatory, you know? And so it was really nice to have something that felt like a routine and felt like the same energy of tour, almost. Touring is very much the same thing over and over again, but like, with a different t-shirt on. You're kind of repeating the same actions, but it's different cities and different crowds, all the time. And so with this, it felt like that kind of routine where I'm doing the same thing, but it's a completely different song, it's a completely different video. It was a routine, it was nice. It honestly gave me a lot of freedom.”
While some may argue that having a routine is the antithesis of having freedom, routines can also act as a grounding force, allowing us to push boundaries as much as we can. This challenge can lead us to find potential within ourselves and the art we wish to create — and then growth happens. These parameters are also never fixed; you have the power to change them and create a space for yourself to feel uninhibited and free.
“Sometimes I think about all the art that will never see the light of day and that could change people's lives and change people's perceptions and it won't ever have that effect just because it wasn't released. So I've been a huge advocate, especially this year, of just like, ‘release everything!” Anderson says excitedly, “Like ‘what does it matter?!’ I think sometimes, at least for me personally, I've put a lot of emphasis on that a lot of art was always incredibly sacred, and I think it still is very sacred to me, but I think I held on too tight. I think before I used to see art as this storybook that had a beginning, middle, and end, and there are different characters and it had to be this grand thing, and this grand jury, that had an outcome, but now I view art as a conversation. There are different talking points, but ultimately, we're just continuing to talk. It doesn't matter what we're talking about, it’s just that we're continuing to talk. I do think that for me as an artist, the only way for me to fail is to stop creating art. And so this was a challenge to myself to continue to create art in a time that wasn't necessarily conducive for creating art.”
Anderson reminds us that challenging the ways we used to do things is key to continue dialogue and spark conversations with each other where there were none before. With a pandemic keeping us apart, some believe we’ve lost community, but perhaps our community has been thriving all along, just in new ways, making us stronger than we were before. We are finding ways to connect with those we’ve been meaning to connect with and discovering who truly brings joy and light into our lives, and those that keep our passions lit and burning. For Anderson, having this connection with friends and fans throughout quarantine while working on Bedroom B Sides meant everything.
“I'm such an extrovert — I’m such an extrovert. [And] I didn't have touring. I didn't have all my friends, I didn't have that human connection and it was driving me insane. So it was nice to have the process feel more like a community thing than just like a ‘me’ thing, because I think art can sometimes feel a little selfish and can feel like a diary entry, whereas this felt more like a group celebration,” Anderson explains, “I've always been a huge fan of getting as many people involved in my art as possible. I think it's really beautiful when art can do that, when it can bring people together.”
If you’ve ever been in the same room as Jax Anderson, you probably remember every moment in vivid detail. At a single glance, you can see her energy radiate, lighting up the room. She makes everyone feel welcome and connected, bouncing around the floor pulling friends together, manifesting some scheme she’s cooked up for another project, talking enthusiastically with her hands. Bringing as many people as she can into everything she does keeps her art as an all-hands-on-deck experience, especially when it comes to experimenting with new techniques or expanding outside of her own comfort zone. “With this specifically, it was fantastic because I got to work with a lot of friends that I typically wouldn’t work with,” Anderson shares, “There's an artist out of Michigan named Hala that I got to write one of the songs with. And he's more of like a late sixties, early seventies, retro-pop artist and he uses all real instrumentation and it's very opposite of what I usually do. And like, I was able to write a song with him and finish it and it was able to be released. I was able to work with so many people that I’ve wanted to work with, and it was just really nice to get other people's feedback as it was happening, like the listeners' feedback, while it was happening. It made the whole experience so much less isolated at a time that everyone was isolated — the power of the internet!”
Now that we’re even more connected, we have new opportunities to pull together and learn from what has happened and attempt to make sense of this new world we’re living in. We’ve all been asked to let go of what we already knew, leaving us left to uncover what we are working towards next. What are the positives we can celebrate and what are the negatives we need to acknowledge? In what ways are we framing the pandemic, what has come from it? Anderson has learned to accept the current state of the world, without letting it stop her from doing what needs to be done.
“It is what it is,” Anderson states. “I don't necessarily view it as a bad thing, because there have been amazing things that have come out of it. I feel that, because we had the time to sit and think, we were able to have movements happen,” she continues, “I feel like the entire Black Lives Matter movement happened because we had the time to stop and think and be like, ‘This shit is fucked up.’ I think that there've been amazing strides in taking steps forward. Because we slowed down, I've had more deep conversations with my friends than I have in years and I've been able to spend more time with my family because I'm not touring. And I'm able to do all these sessions with artists that I love because they actually have the time to do it. So it's like, I don't view lock down as a good thing or bad thing. Again, it is what it is. And with anything in life, you just have to take it in strides and you have to know you have to adapt to the situation.”
“I always view, in every single circumstance, as there's equal amounts of good and bad. And you have to be able to acknowledge both, but you also have to weigh it as far as what's going to be productive. And what is, in the way that I view it, going to be productive for me? What's going to move me forward as a person? That's kind of how I'm doing everything. ‘Cause it's, you know, a weird situation. It's a situation that no one has ever been in,” Anderson offers as a change in perspective. We seem to forget that we are all experiencing something we’ve never experienced before, and that everyone deals with change differently, with grief differently, with everything differently. But that doesn’t mean we can’t all find a way to readjust and make our current situation work for us.
This rapid change in life has allowed for reinvestment, says Anderson, “it might not be as good in the areas that we had invested in before, but there's still other areas that we can invest in.” Change is hard, nobody said it was easy — there are some that find comfort in change being the consistent thing in life, others find change to be scary and hard to handle. Now is the time to take a step back and adapt to our environments. We need to open ourselves a little in order to ask: What changes are we okay with? Where do we draw the line? These questions are for ourselves to answer and uncover, and only for ourselves. Having an outlet for self-expression and contemplation, is important. Doing these things without allowing others to shake us or remove that core element from our lives, whatever it may be, will give us the room we need to move. Our parameters have been set. Now, onto finding a way to balance our own mental health with the things we love.
“I get my most angsty when I don't make art,” Anderson feverishly starts. “Now, I do it because there's just this inherent need inside of me that I have to make something. And I'm to the point in my life where I'm not making it for other people, I'm not making it so I can be this super successful artist. The only reason I'm making art is because when I don’t my mental health just declines. I think every person is trying to understand themselves and I think a lot of mental health, at least for me, is centered around me understanding myself. And so, the more that I create art, the more I understand myself,” she explains.
When asked how music impacts her mental health and overall well-being, Anderson answered: "Music keeps me sane." No longer making compromises on her emotional well being, nor her art, Anderson suggests doing the same for yourself.
“Oh my God, go see a therapist if you need to. That's my biggest advice, man, shit,” Anderson says loudly through the phone and adds, “I started seeing an actual therapist during lockdown. It's changed my life in the best way possible. And I highly suggest any person that's creative, do it. For me that’s what has been the biggest game changer, and I know therapy is not accessible to everybody, but in almost every major city there are different organizations. I went through a group called The Imagine Center in Detroit. It was when I didn't have insurance and they work with what you got, basically. There are centers like that all over the country. I think just paying attention to yourself like, what makes you feel good? What makes you feel bad? Avoid the things that make you feel bad and embrace the things that make you feel good. Learn to say ‘Yes’ to the right things by learning to say ‘No.’ That has been a huge, huge thing because anytime you say no to something, you're saying yes to something else.”
Take this note: Pay attention to where you’re giving your energy and by the same token, where you are taking it from, too. As we all continue to get our footing and uncover more of ourselves, taking care of our energy and where it’s directed can mean even the smallest drops of motivation can be captured and sustained. At a time where the majority of creatives are struggling with finding a way to make use of our time, and not get caught up in the pressure of creating right now, now that we have “all this time on our hands,” Anderson reminds us that the best way to serve yourself, as a creative, is to just make art.
“I read a book in lockdown that addressed this situation and basically it was like, as an artist, you need to make art every day. Not because it's monetarily really what you need to do or [because] you have any pressure and expectation from society. You don't do it for that. You just do it because you need it to survive. You do it for yourself. It's like, when things are going really well, if you win an award, you win a Grammy, or you've done the thing that you’ve wanted to do, the next day you still wake up and make art. When you release a song and the entire internet hates it and thinks that you’re the worst artist ever, you wake up the next day and you still make art. No matter what, make art. Just don't stop making art,” Anderson shares.
“I think that there's a lot of pressure in that way, whenever art feels overwhelming is when there's an expectation assigned to it,” she adds, “When you can create without the expectation, it becomes a routine for you, then it becomes a language for you. And it doesn't feel as heavy. I think the only way to survive as an artist through this is to make art. And if you feel like releasing it, then release it. If you don't feel like releasing it, don't release it. But like, again, for me, the only way I fail as an artist is if I don't make art. Obviously take care of your mental health and things like that, but if art becomes something that's so heavy that you can't do it, at least for me, the times the art has felt so heavy that I can't do it [was] just because there's an outside source that's tainting it. It's either expectation or it's pressure I'm putting on it or I'm trying to do the wrong thing or I'm trying to reach beyond my means. It doesn't have to be anything.”
Pulling away the expectation, removing that element is a powerful step; it's your art — you don’t have to share that with anyone else unless you are ready to. There’s no need to play catch-up with anyone around you or the rest of the world. We so often forget it’s alright to go at your own pace and take your time figuring it out. Even so, there are days when it’s hard to find inspiration or the motivation to revisit those things we love, so when we’re struggling to create, what do we do? Anderson starts with coffee.
“Well, first of all, I try to get a damn good cup of coffee. That's important,” Anderson pauses briefly and continues, “I usually try to call a friend and talk to them for a little bit, so I have human contact. I do think that it's important that an artist practice whatever it is they do every single day, but every day you're not going to have inspiration and everyday you're not going to want to do it. And so for me, what helps [next] is switching my mindset. Instead of being like, ‘I have no inspiration’ I change it to ‘What can I learn today?’ Because there's always something that you can learn and whenever you approach something in a way of like, ‘I'm going to learn something,’ it’s like there's zero pressure on inspiration, at all. You don't have to make something inspired every single day. The purpose of doing it, of doing your art every day, is to be so well practiced to where, when the inspiration hits, you have the abilities to do what you envisioned doing. So the days that I feel I'm not inspired, I just switch my mindset. It’s like, ‘I'm not going to write something inspiring, I'm just going to learn to do something.”
So, what are you going to learn next?
About the Author
Geordon Wollner (she/her/hers) is a curious creative and avid daydreamer. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a BS in Retailing & Consumer Behavior, with Certificates in Studio Art and Entrepreneurship. She enjoys working by candlelight, print media, mid-century modern chairs, has made several successful macrame plant hangers, and prefers film photography over everything else. “I’m visual” is her most used phrase.
