The Interview-Darden Smith
RSSAmy Cheney, Alameda County (CA) Library, Write to Read/Juvenile Hall Literacy
As librarians, we're aware of how much an author and artist can influence students both individually and collectively, so I wanted to hear more from Smith himself about his experiences. Tell us about your passion. I started the Be An Artist program in 2003 Working with students is a true passion of mine. A lot of my time on the road is spent at schools all over the United States-and in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany-using songwriting to encourage and help students realize their innate creativity. Arts organizations and theater groups have embraced the program too, and I've adapted an adult version of the program for corporations and conflict-resolution seminars. We're all born artists; we don't need to follow any special route to become artists. We just need to pay attention and discover what it is we truly enjoy doing. Many of us have had an experience that's separated us from our inherent creativity. Did that ever happen to you? I started writing poetry when I was eight, and when I found out that songs were poetry, it seemed a pretty easy transition. I felt a little different from the other kids I knew: more dreamy, very emotional, moved by the natural world, etc. Music and songs seemed to come from that same place. When I was about 16, I wrote a song that came from somewhere else, was bigger than me, and I didn't understand how it happened. That was the first time I had enough craft to let the song just happen. Now I just keep pursuing that 'getting out of the way' thing. I don't really question it anymore. It's inherent to all of us, and some are lucky to have been shown or found a path directly to it. Some people definitely are separated from their creativity, usually by people around them that are full of fear. That's one of the things that I hope to do with the Be An Artist Program, to give the message at every possible opportunity that, actually, yes, you can do that crazy dream inside of your head. What are some of the other things you hope students learn from your program? Creativity and successful business are integral. Money flows from inspiration. My father always told me to love what I do for my job, no matter what it is, love it. This year I'm the Arts Entrepreneur in Residence in the Oklahoma State University School of Entrepreneurship (long title there). If these students don't truly love what they're getting into, eventually it's going to fail in some way. It might be failure of the business or boredom or burnout. Love will pull them through the dark times, which is an inevitable part of any business. There's no difference between writing a song, putting together a legal brief, setting a broken bone, running a successful meeting, or pouring a concrete foundation. It's all the same thing. How much of yourself do you bring to your work? When you do that, there's a direct relationship between business and creativity. Talk about the impact of the loss of school art programs on our nation's psyche and future. I like the message from Winston Churchill. When someone asked him during WWII if Britain should cut back on arts funding, he replied something to the effect of "No, that's what we're fighting for!" You travel all around the world. What have you discovered about creativity? There are creative people everywhere you go, and there are people trying their hardest to stamp it out! Recently, I've become fascinated with the creativity that happens in the less prosperous areas. I remember going to Dresden, Germany, shortly after the unification. Here we were, surrounded by bleak scenes, and I was completely blown away by the creative energy-street fashion, jewelry, graffiti, music. When you write a song, do you hear the words and music together or is one more prominent than the other? Lately, the idea for a song comes first, maybe a title. Then the music idea, a chord pattern. Somehow the song happens after that. It's still very mysterious to me. Did you read as a child? I read all the time, books way over my age range. I got deep into books about gangsters when I was in the fifth and sixth grades. I remember reading Serpico in the fifth grade and my mother freaking out when she read a couple of pages. I read The Godfather that same year. There was a book on Crazy Joe Gallo that, for some reason, sticks in my mind. It was probably my favorite for the way he got gunned down in the clam bar. I'll always remember that story. When Dylan wrote "Joey" on the Desire album, I recognized the story right away. Eventually, the guy at the bookstore, where I used to hang out after school in my little town, told me that I couldn't read any more of those books until I was older. I moved on to something else, but I loved those gangster books. What's the best thing about music? Getting lost. There's always this moment in writing, or on stage, which are very different of course, where magic happens, and it's all perfection. I love striving for that moment. With songs, there's something crazy about the combination of the words and melody that create this thing that's bigger than the parts. That's what keeps me going. You've been likened to songwriters such as Nick Drake, John Hiatt, Leonard Cohen, and Elvis Costello, yet many people may not have heard of you. What's your take on fame? Find out more about Smith's program at: http://www.thebeanartistprogram.com/ This article originally appeared in School Library Journal's enewsletter SLJTeen. Subscribe here.
Darden Smith wrote his first song when he was 10. These days, Smith is a singer-songwriter and a dad. Back in 2001, when his daughter was in preschool, he helped her classmates write a song. The next day he overheard kids on the playground singing it and making up new verses. Then, a few years later, as he walked across a schoolyard in Glasgow, Scotland, students came up to him and started singing the song they'd written the year before with Smith's help. That's when he really started to take his work in schools seriously.
Years ago, someone who was quite famous gave me a golden nugget of knowledge: fame is a tool, and a burden. When I was younger, fame was a prime motivator, but these days I'm more fascinated with pushing the boundaries of what I can do with songs. The Be An Artist Program has been key to this. Sitting in a room with a group of kids in a homeless shelter, what I may have done for 20 years is completely irrelevant. Can I completely be there, in that moment, and turn their story into a song that they can then carry with them? Can we create a moment that may have an immediate effect on their life? To me, that's way more interesting than fame.
