The Passionistas Project Podcast

Lori Lynn Is Creating Quality Music Content for Children and the People Who Love Them

Lori Lynn of Overall Buddies is a national early childhood specialist, an international speaker and an award-winning children’s singer/songwriter. She is the creator of Overall Buddies a series of original songs and videos for young children and the grown-ups who care for and love them. Recently she expanded her business to create her first children's book.

Read more about Overall Buddies.

Learn more about The Passionistas Project.

Full Transcript:

Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to the Passionistas Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and today we're talking with Lori Lynn of Overall Buddies. Laurie is a national early childhood specialist and international speaker and an award-winning children's singer song. She's the creator of Overall Buddies a series of original songs and videos for young children and the grownups who care for them and love them recently. She expanded her business to create her first children's book. So please welcome to the show. Lori Lynn.

Lori Lynn: Thank you so much. I'm honored to be.

Passionistas: We're really excited to have you. What's the one thing you're most passionate about?

Lori Lynn: I am most passionate about early childhood, so everything and anybody that has to do with early childhood, that's my number one passion. And that includes teachers, or of course, young children, zero to five is my expertise. So anything having to do with that teachers and librarians and families.

And quality programs that serve early childhood children. And then second to that in a very close second is my music. So right now, in this last act of my life, as I've heard of your, you hit a certain age you're in your last act. It was my mother's last wish that I follow this dream finally. And I am using both of those passions early childhood in music.

Passionistas: How are you combining those two?

Lori Lynn: I combine those two things with the brand that I created, the business that I've created is overall buddies. And I create quality content, um, for children and the people who love them, like you said, and that's the biggest part of my mission is that it's going to be quality content and number one, Is the social, emotional connection that music can have for young children and those around them, their families, their classmates, their teachers, um, just feeling connected through the music.

Passionistas: So now you mentioned your mom, so let's take a step back a little bit. Where did you grow up? What was your childhood like? And when did you discover your love of music?

Lori Lynn: I grew up in a small, small town in Iowa. I'm an Iowa farm girl and it's called prim guard. It's the only prim guard in the world. We had a big whopping number of 900 people in our down.

Yes. I had like 30 people in my classroom and we were one of the biggest classrooms. I knew I loved music. From the earliest earliest age. My first song I wrote was when I was five years old and it was about my brother's motorcycle. Cause everybody was excited about this motorcycle. So I went around singing this song about how he loves this motorcycle.

And, um, it was kind of a cute little song and it was about, I love my Yamaha. And now I live by Omaha. And so I'm writing a song about how I love my Omaha. And so it's the same tune since I was five years old. So it stuck in my head. And so I've always written these really ear wormy songs. You know, that, that my brothers will say, I remember that song and it sticks in my head.

Darn you, you know, those kinds of things. So I always loved music. It was something that saved me. My, um, Father was had real angry trouble and took it out on us. Sometimes it was somewhat of an abusive childhood. Um, it wasn't every day it was very sporadic, but he died when I was 12 and my life after 12 was just blissful with my mom and those of us that were left and.

You know, my dad, bill loved music and music was always allowed in my house. And my mom was 16 when she got married. So she grew up really with all these children and she grew up, I mean, she was 16 and got married. It was like the late fifties. So she was in her early twenties when the Beatles came out and the rolling stones and you know, my brothers are 10 years older than me, so I grew up.

Tons of music in my house. And you know, my mom was a young woman and so she had all these albums and music. So my life was surrounded by music and I always, um, it was always tugging at me. I, I would say to people, okay. I don't know what God wants me to do with this. It's either a curse or a blessing. I don't know.

But the songs keep coming to me and I'm like, okay, I'll write it down. Or I'll record it on a Dictaphone is what I used to use. You know, it was a cassette recorder and then I had a Dictaphone and now I use my voice memo on my, on my phone, but it's like, the songs will come to me and I'm like, it's either really a curse or they're going to blow.

Me or other people someday, I just kept answering to it and capturing them. So now I'm trying to figure out if it's supposed to be what I was supposed to do all along. Right. Did you ever perform. Oh, yeah. I sang at church from the time I was, I think second grade I was singing in the little choir and singing solos and I loved singing in front of people.

And I got a guitar at fifth grade and I was always singing at church. And then I was singing in school and I was a music major, a voice major for two years and then at college. So yeah, I didn't know what to do with music. I just knew it was going to be in my life. I kind of struggled in college, like. I don't think I want to be a music teacher and I didn't really know what else to do.

So I just went to elementary education. I thought I can use music in my classroom all the time and which was true. And so that's kind of how that happened.

Passionistas: So then tell us about that progression. You studied education, you got your Master's and then you started teaching. So tell us a little bit about that.

[00:05:49] Lori Lynn: Well, I'm glad you asked because it's really a funny story, actually, that I became a teacher because when I was little and people asked you that question, what do you want to be when you grow up? I had no idea, but I would say this is my standard answer. When I was little. I don't know what I want to be, but I know I'm not going to be at.

That's what I said to everybody. Not going to be a teacher. That's all I know. And why did I say that? Because I was one of those little children who had what they would probably call add. Right now. I was busy. I was answering my brain was always working and, you know, I told you I came from somewhat of an abusive childhood, so I kind of needed attention and I wasn't mean to kids, but I was an annoyance to my teachers.

I'm sure. But, and I could feel it from. Right. And I learned at a very young age school was very easy for me. And if I got a paper and I got done quickly, I got more work to do. So I learned to not finish that last question just, but my brain was going, going, going, and I would think things like, can I throw this big eraser out that window?

How, how high of a velocity do I have to get it? Cause a window opens this way. I was always thinking. Right. And so I knew. But it wasn't fun for teachers to teach. I could feel it, but the transition happened when I knew I didn't want. Probably finished my music degree and I didn't know what I wanted to do.

I went home and I taught Bible school at church and there was this fifth grade boy who was really antsy and just kind of difficult. And I just knew what he did. He needed something hands-on he needed all those things we know now. And I just got it. And this person at my church said, you really have a gift for this, for healing.

You need to be a teacher. So I went back and that's what I did. And I always say that teaching found me I did not pursue it because that was the last thing I was going to do, but it has been the biggest blessing for me. And I do think that. Those of us who struggle in school, especially young ages probably make some of the better teachers because we get it right. Then we kind of know what they need. Yeah.

Passionistas: Was music always a part of your teaching process?

Lori Lynn: Oh yeah. Always, always, always. It was because I didn't know it then, but early on, I just knew that music connected us and music made the atmosphere and atmosphere. Collective consciousness almost right. I didn't know those words, my first years of teaching, but I just knew it changed the atmosphere when I utilize music to transition or I use utilize music to teach something.

Right. Cause the power of music we know most, so much now. And I love to train on this cause I train teachers as well. What music does to our brain and how it lights up our brain and gets us so ready to learn. So it's so powerful. And so, yeah, I always used it just natural instincts and also it was a great place to try out my songs that I had written.

Like, let's just have some fun singing and just bond. Right. And so I always knew what songs really worked and they would give me ideas sometimes of songs. And so, yeah, it's always been a part of who I am and where I go. Are your songs always geared towards children? They are now. They weren't, as I grew up.

When I was growing up, I just kind of, you know, you start realizing, you know, about three or four chords, you can write some songs. And I wrote the most horrific, awful stuff in seventh grade about may Evie and Louie were happy and free. Something bad happened and it broke them up. You see, I mean, it was just horrific, right.

They ended up, you know, it's a Romeo and Juliet thing where they ended up killing themselves as awful. And, but so, no, I, I mean, you experiment, you know, I was like sixth grade or seventh grade and my mom even said, well, that's an interesting. But I also wrote a song that's about can't do nothing and it it's on my CD.

It ended up sticking. It was just kind of a silly little song about how you go about your day and everything bad goes wrong. And that one was something that we put on the CD. Producer really liked. And he goes, put that on there. It's fun. So it's, yeah, it's always been part of it. And then I went through a country Western stage, and most of those songs will never see the light of day or no one will ever hear it, but there's a couple that have some, have some, some legs I think.

And I would like to show them to somebody someday. I don't have a voice for that. But that was kind of a long stage, actually, that I wrote a lot of country Western songs. I like to tell stories and songs, but it was when I had my own children. That's when my pastor had the best saying, and I wrote it down and I've never forgotten it.

He said, when you find your purpose in life, it is the most peaceful place to live. That's where you live is in your purpose. It's not just be, it's not just fine. You live in it. Right. And when I started writing songs for my boys, the little buys and the fun songs, I'm like, this is what all this has been for.

And I knew that it was something for my boys and I, but. There was always something pulling at me. Like that's not, it, there's more, you're supposed to be sharing this with other children. And I always wanted to, I just never had the money right. To do it or the know-how to know where to go and how to start.

And, um, I just got started really seriously recording it like about eight years ago and I was going very slowly saving money and going into the studio with my mom would have. Every story and she just I'd get done at the studio and she goes, come and tell me what happened. And do you have anything recorded and can I hear your bits and how far are you?

And she just, she listened to all my dreams. She was a quiet, quiet lady and I am not. And so I have moments. I love to be quiet too, but when I talk about my passion, Talk a mile a minute and go on forever. Right? I think a lot of us that have passions and dreams, it's it's, uh, you can talk somebody's ears off unless they stopped you. And that was my mom.

Passionistas: Tell us about her. What was she like?

Lori Lynn: I said, they, um, got married young, um, 16, 17 that right around there. And she was a housewife. We were, um, farmers and farm wives work hard. Um, especially my dad was an only child, so there were no brothers around to help with the farm work and.

And so mom, we had, she had eight children, so she did all the house stuff, the cooking, and worked in the field and never did I hear her complain ever. She just did it. You know, that's just, she always says, this is what I do. You just get up and you do. And so it was the true, true farm model, really. Right.

You just pull up your bootstraps. Um, you know, you have a storm and things are, you know, falling apart, you just go figure it out and fix it. Right. So you kind of get that growing up on a farm. I think. How did her life change after your father passed? There were four of us left at home and she was only 39 because my dad died at 49.

He was 10 years older. And so I think of that now. And I think, wow, how did she, she, she had finished her GED a couple of years before my dad died. He kind of knew it was his third heart attack. So he said, you need to finish your GED. So you have more options if I go. And, um, she started working. At the school, which I loved, she was a cook at the school.

And so I got to see her every lunchtime and she'd always give me extra vegetables, you know, that you need a little more of those. That's so funny. And so I was like seeing her, but it didn't pay enough. So she had to. Changed jobs after a couple of years, she, that was something nice for her to do, to keep close to us.

And, um, then she started working in a factory about 30 miles away. So she was gone every morning, about six. And so my older sister had graduated, so it was kind of just me and my little brothers and I. You know, if they were sick, I wrote the notes for them and I was just kind of got 'em up in the morning and fed them breakfast.

And, you know, it was just, I always, it was just the three of us. It was kind of nice. And mom got home, you know, and she worked at the factory for a long, long time, like most of her life. And she really kind of liked it. She, she was the type, she was so laid back and she was happy to go and do the same thing every day and just kind of have her friends and she just did not complain.

Passionistas: What do you think you learned about women's roles in society from her?

Lori Lynn: I've learned things that I mimic from her. And I've also learned things. About boundaries and standing up for, for things like I remember when I was little, I didn't say it so nice. I said, I am not going to be a pushover, you know?

Cause I saw her that way. But as you grow and you learn about what women's choices were back then, what they were dealt and how they dealt with that, what kind of supports were available for a woman that had eight children and no high school education? Her husband was not particularly kind to the children, but if she had left or done something else, would it be worse?

I mean, I think it was, she kept the peace more than I realize, you know, and stepped in when she had to step in, but it was, it's been a process for me to, to try to. To come to terms with my sadness for her life, my, my pride for her life, my love of what she sacrificed for us, you know? Um, so it's a very different choice.

We're very different choices and, but I've learned that. No matter when you're born or what era you live, women have those choices and they can make that choice to stay, or they can make that choice to live. Now, if it, if you're in an abusive situation, please, please get help. And I hope you go, right. Um, because now we have much more support for that.

So I think I've learned a lot and, and we got really close her last few years. She came down to live by me because she was very sick and I had four. Five years with her down here and saw every single day. And it was pretty amazing.

Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington, and you're listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Lori Lynn of Overall Buddies. To learn more about her original songs and videos for young children and the grownups who care for and love them visit OverallBuddies.com.

If you're enjoying this interview and would like to help us to continue creating inspiring content, please consider becoming a patron by visiting the PassionistasProject.com/Podcast and clicking on the patron button. Even $1 a month can help us continue our mission of inspiring women to follow their passions.

Now here's more of our interview with Lori Lynn.

So tell us more about overall buddies. How can people see the content and hear the music?

Lori Lynn: Well, I knew, I, I thought, okay, I want to make a CD, but I thought I'm kind of a miss, a plus person. Like, I'm like, if you, you know, I'm like, I want to know how do I make this more than just a CD?

What do people doing? So just like you, we met through a class, right? So I signed up for independent musician class with Rick Barker. And, you know, I just learned about the business side of it and how musicians nowadays we have to have, they say seven different ways to make money because. Basically our music's free.

Right. So I thought, okay, how can I do this? So I thought let's create a brand and make some videos and have some storylines maybe going, and that's coming and maybe get a book, um, series going. So I had this big picture in mind. And so I just started with the little steps, but. I think I'm the type of person.

Not everybody has to be this way. I have to know what the big pictures. So it looked like I was stalled, but I knew that in my brain, I had to know where am I going with this? So I knew what steps. And I knew I needed to come up with a name and I was trying to find a name that nobody had on the internet.

So I had other names that I tried and I'm like, darn somebody got the.com and I wanted the.com. Right? You want to own that SEO? And so I, I just knew overalls have a meaning for me because my dad, you know, we grew up on the farm and there was. Uh, time, like in the spring and fall, there were these big jobs to do in the, in the farms and the neighbors would help each other.

Like whether you were bailing hay, for instance, that's a big job and you need other hands, so, or shelling, corn, that kind of stuff. Well, the neighbors would show up and help and I'd see this. Big neighbor guys in their overalls come and they were ready to work. Right. It's like overalls, mint, friendship, and we're here to work and cooperate and get things done.

So I just, overall it's kind of silly that I have. It's such a deep meaning for overalls, but it was just such a visual for me as a little girl to see these neighbors coming together. And, and then my dad and my brothers would have their turn to help the neighbors and put on your overalls and go help your neighbors, you know, so I loved the whole idea of overalls.

I was doing overall friends and I was doing, trying different things and buddies came up and I'm like, oh gosh, that's fun to say. And there was nobody that I owned everything. There was nothing, nobody had.com.net.org. And I bought them. All right. So, and it's cheap if nobody has them, it doesn't cost much to get them.

And so now if people just. Search Overall Buddies, you're going to come up with my stuff and that's really nice to have. Right. So I'm really fortunate that I found that name and saved it early. I saved that name probably eight years ago when I first started. I'm like, I'm going to save all that, even though I don't know what I'm going to really get to.

Using it, um, cause I've had a couple of different ideas stolen because I wasn't careful. So I thought this time I'm going to be really careful. And so that's kind of how that name came about and, um, the overall buddies and I love the whole double meaning of overall after all an overall we're all overall buddies.

Right? So. Excited about that name. It's been catchy and it's been a happy and I'm happy about that. So I had three missions really when I started over all buddies. Um, cause you gotta really figure out what is your, why, what is your purpose? And so my, why. Was, why do you want to do this? I read this book by Wayne Dyer wishes fulfilled.

If you have not read that book, anybody that's listening, it's so marvelous, especially if you're going to be an entrepreneur, which is, you know, and encourage people. It's he quotes all kinds of religions and, and he talks about the collective consciousness and. Just connecting to the energy and things, but I'm a Christian.

And so he also uses that. And so I think we're all connected, no matter all of those things. And so he said, you have to know your why, and I've heard this more and more now, but that was the first time I'd really heard it. And I read this book probably seven years ago and I still go back to it because I'm like, what is my why?

And it's really pretty easy when I get caught up in. Can I make money at this all my goodness. Was I crazy to quit my job early and take lists, you know? And like, I just have to go back to why are you doing this? And it's those days, like my lullabies, when I sat with my children, On those wee hours of the morning, and there's no light except that little nightlight and you're feeding your child and you make up this lullaby and you sing to them.

Right. And there's, it's like nothing else exists. And it's so marvelous. And I just, that is my why for my lullabies is. When I picture mothers singing that to their children, or a friend of mine sent me a picture of her three-year-old daughter singing one of my lullabies to their new baby. And I just started crying.

I'm like, if I never make a cent, that is so worth my time, you know, to know that she's sharing that love like that. And then my funny songs, the same thing when I would write I'm a pig, for instance, um, which seems to be a favorite. And that's the book I'm going to be. My boys would help me with ideas because pig goes, shows up at this little girl's in her town at different places.

And we lived in a small town at that time. They're like, mom, the pig needs to show up at the library and the pig needs to show up here. And I said, well, the song can't be an hour long, but these are great ideas. Let's choose four, four places, you know? And so, but we would sing it with the, you know, how you sing in the van with the windows down and then their friends get in the van and you're like, you want to sing my mom's song?

And we would laugh. And. So when I can picture. My mom's doing that. And our family's doing that. I don't care if they know it's me. I don't care. I said, one of my visions, I told my boys, I said, someday, I think it'd be so cool if I was at an airport somewhere in a different state or different country. And I hear somebody singing my song and they have no idea it's me that wrote it.

You know what I mean? Just saying, oh, my songs in the world. And it's making somebody happy. So when I get lost in all the other stuff, I'm like, okay, you're leaving something behind and that's good.

Passionistas: How old are your sons now?

Lori Lynn: They're 30 and 31. I have a grandson now he's 16 months old and it's amazing. And he's helped me.

Right? Well, his daycare closed during COVID. And so I said, you know what? I lost all my gigs. I was just starting to get up and go. 'cause my first CD just came out in 2019, the spring, and I was doing some free stuff, getting myself known. And then I was just starting to get really nice paid gigs and had like 30 things lined up for the summer of 2020 womp like, well, darn, hopefully that comes back.

It's not coming back yet for children. Stuff. People are still tentative, but I have a few libraries and schools lined up, but it'll come back and I'll do other things. Right. That's why we're supposed to have other, other branches on our business tree is what I call it. But yeah. So he's been here since June, every day and now.

We're starting part-time, but we've written like six songs together with him sitting out in the front room and, and he just loves hearing me play guitar and, and every now and again, he'll hit the guitar and point to the stand. Like I'm done. I put it back now. Okay. You're done. Okay. But yeah, we've written some songs together, so it's kind of fun to kind of like what?

Well, we wrote a fishing song. And we wrote a back time song because his mom said, I need a song for bath time. And it goes, it's my bath time, skinny to dial back. Whoa.

So it's just kind of cute. And it talks about. You know, getting in the bath and I'm thinking, what would help a parent? You know, I need it to be long enough, like, okay, we gotta take her shirt off. And, but also being careful about don't make it so somebody can use it the wrong way. Right. You know? Cause you gotta be aware of these things.

So I said, you're just gonna step in. And then you got to wash your face, wash your hair. And so it just kind of goes through that and it's pretty cute. I haven't recorded it yet. It's just, I've got about six songs that we've written. And one's a dance song that I think is going to be really fun, but I need to just, uh, all the income stopped so well, we got kind of back at that.

Okay. Let's get some things going where I can get back in the studio. Right. So yeah, you know, I was talking about my mission statements and one of them is to create quality content for young children and the people who love them to help them connect. To those people around them. And so, and to help parents, like songs can help.

Right. And so there's all these different things that I think about my songs like this, one's going to maybe be a helpful song. And at the beginning it goes bath time. Like you're calling him in right. And the, the, the, the, the, that time. So it's kind of like, Hey, cause that's the, um, Well, they called it that's the universal is a universal through the world.

Is those that interval. So I use that time. It's a universal interval. I don't know if you knew that, but now, now, you know, you mentioned your upcoming book. Tell us a little bit more about it. The book is I'm a pig. It's my song. Put into it. And if you're familiar with Rafi or Lori Bergner some of the gurus of children's singing.

They have books based on their songs as well. And the reason that is. Really important is that music and literacy connection, right? If a child knows a poem like itsy bitsy spider, right? And then there's a book there's so many books made on itsy bitsy spider. And there's a reason because when children are so familiar with the words, they're going to be really feel like they're confident in looking at the book and going, oh, I already know what that looks supposed to say.

Right? So they start thinking, oh, these words are what I've been saying. And so that connection is strong. And so it's not just, Hey, I want to make a book on my song. There's real research behind why to do it. And so I've always wanted to make a book out of that song plus other ones. And then I have a series of my puppets and, and characters I want to make eventually, but I thought let's start with this one because teachers and librarians have been asking they're like that make a great song.

And the other thing about this book is there's some really great extension activities with it. And, their story elements that you can teach children with it. And I want, I want to be able to teach that to families and parents, like, you know, there's settings because they go to different places. So you can start using those story element vocabulary with.

But it's in a fun way. So it's going to be, and I'm going to make the words very interesting on the page. So that's another strategy to motivate children, to look at print and be excited about talking about the print. So there's a lot of really purposeful, intentional teaching things that go in it, but it's going to be really.

Passionistas: Did you do the illustrations?

Lori Lynn: I cannot draw at all. I have. If you have back my kickstart, I put something on there, but this is why I have an illustrator because I kind of mocked up the, the, um, The title page. And I just have no sense. I don't like the legs are just like, they don't even connect. I don't know.

I have no sense of space of how to draw, so no I've hired an illustrator and that's one of my other mission statements is to, um, utilize local artists in the Omaha council Bluffs, Iowa was where I live and it's right across the river from Omaha. So to utilize the Omaha Metro area, artists, as much as I can and, um, pay them for it.

That's so, um, my mom's last wish for me was to use anything. She left for me to do this CD and that's how I was able to get it done quicker than I would've. So I paid people fairly even children. And so the money went faster, but I feel good about that because I did the right. I think too often artists are, oh, you'll get exposure and no such a cute story.

I have to tell you, there was this little boy who came and sang at the studio and we were in Christmas Carol together. So I've done theater, um, quite a bit. I do a lot of theater and we were both in Christmas Carol at the Omaha community Playhouse. And I used, there were like 24 children or something. I can't remember 18 children.

And I asked them all to come to the studio and my producer. Oh, Lori Lynn. I said they won't all be able to come, but I can't just choose some. I just can't. I said, we'll do them and it's my money. We'll do them in sections. We'll just prove six at a time. And it's, you know, and 12 could come, so we did six and six, but anyway, he came and did that and then I paid him just, it was 30 minutes and they were done, you know, so I gave him a little bit and he came to the.

Dressing room the next night. And he knocks on the door and he goes, Lori Lynn, I need to talk to you about somebody said, what is it? And he said, he had the money in his hand and it was so cute. He grabbed my hands and he said, I need you to take this back because I was so honored to get to sing on your CD.

It meant so much to me. And I really don't need you to pay me. And I thought about this and I said, this quick little prayer. And I'm like, I want to say the right thing. Do I take it and honor what he's asking or. Do I tell him what I'm really thinking. So I said, okay, I'm going to say something to him. I said, listen, you have a gift, you have a talent, and that talent is worth something.

And there's going to be so many times in your life that people are going to take advantage of that and, and want you to do it for just experience. And I said, I want you to take this and remember that you are. Yes. And so he said, okay. And then he kinda got a tear in his eye and I'm like, I got a tear in my eye.

I'm like, I need it. You know? And so I think it was the right thing. I really debated like, gosh, you know, but I wanted him to hear that, you know, We're in a small, it's a, it, Alma has a big city, but it's a small city and there's not a lot of work paid work for artists as much as there probably should be.

Right. And we just need to get that pendulum swung the other way that we need to pay people what they're worth. Right.

Passionistas: What's been the most rewarding part of your career?

Lori Lynn: Seeing the things I've envisioned for so long. Actually happened. Like my mom, when I talked about precious baby, the first lullaby I wrote for my first child and.

I told she goes, are you going to put precious baby on your CD? And I said, mom, I just don't know if I can, because what I hear in precious baby is at least a string quartet. It just, I hear it. I hear it. And the video I want to make with it has a ballerina and she's orchestrating this rest time and the orchestras there.

And then she goes and orchestrates the rest time. I just envision it and that's going to take money. I said, I think I need to make my first CD and then make some money. And then, you know, that'll be. So my mom was never the kind, she was this tough farm life and she, she did not give advice. It just wasn't what she did.

Right. It's like, you got it. You're capable. Right. So when she did this, it was not typical. And it was the day before she lost the ability to speak when she was dying and she grabbed my hand, I was going to go and I said, I'll be back tomorrow, mom. And she grabbed my hand. So weak. Right. And she looked me in her, uh, in my eye and she said, you take the money that you're getting from me and you finish those songs and that video the way you want it to be.

And I just kinda went okay, mom. And she just kept holding my hand until I looked her dead in the high. Right. And I said, I promise. And she just relaxed. And she lost her ability to speak the next day. So I'm telling you that day that we recorded that video. Cause I had the money to do it. I flew up above when the ballerina started dancing my body rose above everybody.

I can't even explain it. I was above everybody watching it. And it was like, my father was saying, look, you did it. And it was just the most rewarding, wonderful thing. And I just can't even. I couldn't believe that that was happening. And then I'm like, oh geez, I got to pretend to sing. Now I'd better get back down to earth, you know, stand in my spot.

And it's funny because when I went and saw Elton John's movie and his vision, he wanted to go to the Hollywood Bowl. And when he got there, he rose above and I'm like, oh my God, this is a thing. This happens to people when they see their dreams manifested. Right. And so. I kind of feeling the same way about the book.

Like when I first saw the cover, it was like I wasn't in my body. And so I think that is just the best answer to that question, because whether anything comes from this, I hope to make a living off of. But to know that some of these things that were given to me from God, the songs themselves in this vision, that I was able to just leave it on the earth is pretty amazing, I guess.

Passionistas: Thanks for listening to our interview with Lori Lynn of Overall Buddies to learn more about her original songs and videos for young children and the grownups who care for and love them. Visit Overall Buddies.com.

Please visit the Passionistas Project dot com to learn more about our Podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. Get a free mystery box with a one-year subscription using the code FALLMYSTERY. And be sure to subscribe to the Passionistas Project Podcast. So you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests. Until next time stay well and stay passionate.

Lynn Harris Is Bringing the Power of Comedy to Women and Non-Binary People

Lynn Harris is the CEO and founder of GOLD Comedy — the online comedy world for young women and non-binary folks who want to nerd out about comedy together. Lynn is also a creative partner to select brands, organizations and individuals, blending her experience in writing, communications, advocacy and entertainment to create strategic content that brings maximum fun to serious issues, for maximum impact.

Read more about Lynn Harris.

Learn more about The Passionistas Project.

Full Transcript:

Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to the Passionistas Project podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And today we're talking with Lynn Harris, the CEO and founder of Gold Comedy, the online comedy worlds for young women and nonbinary folks who want to nerd out about comedy together, but is also a creative partner to select brands, organizations, and industry.

Blending her experience in writing communications, advocacy, and entertainment to create strategic content that brings maximum fun to serious issues for maximum impact. So please welcome to the show. Lynn Harris.

Lynn: Thank you.

Passionistas: What's the one thing you're most passionate about?

Lynn: Besides salt? I'm into salt and I'm into comedy is power. I'm passionate about a lot of things. I'm passionate about a lot of things. I think the most on-brand thing for me to say right now is comedy is power and comedy, as I'm passionate about comedy as power. And that's why it matters to me. Who's got the mic so to speak.

Passionistas: So what does that mean? What, what does comedy as power mean and why is it so important who has the mic?

Lynn: It's certainly at an individual level and to the cultural level. When you make people laugh, you make people listen. And comedy really has been, as you know, at this sort of level of joke and at the level of industry and at the level of culture has really been defined by a kind of a small narrow group of people since the beginning, which is.

Because if you think about it, comedy, everyone thinks of comedy as this outsider, art that you get into comedy. Cause like the underdog and you're punching up at power. And why are white dudes running the whole thing? It makes no sense. I'm working to try to change that. How are you changing? The more women do comedy.

The more women define comedy. And that's true, not just for women, but for anybody who is not a straight white dude, many of whom are very funny, but I think that comedy will be funnier if it is defined by more types of voices. And if comedy is funnier, the world's a better place, honestly. Not just because laughter is the best medicine, which it's like the second best the COVID vaccine is the best, but also because comedy affirms connections.

When you laugh at a joke, that means you get the joke. And when you get the joke, that means you're in on something you like, you got the reference, you follow the comic on there. On their bait and switch. And a lot of people say that, you know, that's, that's the reason that comedy brings people together.

I'm not super convinced that it does because for better and for worse, I think it's sort of affirms who we are. Not that it doesn't have something to teach us, which I can circle back to, but I think, you know, comedy does affirm who we are and what we think is funny and, uh, what we think is important. And it can also change that to some degree it can, um, cause as comedy, you know, comedy kind of is sort of a fun house mirror for color.

And what we're allowed to laugh at can change for better and for worse, usually for better the arc of a let's see, how can I destroy that? Quote, the, you know, the arc of, of comedy? What is it? They have bends toward justice, right? As things become okay to say not okay to say, I think that's a, both a driver and a reflection of culture evolving, and that's why it's important to have. For a lot of us to be in charge of how that culture is evolving.

Passionistas: So let's take this back. Tell us a little bit about your childhood and when was the first time you remember that you were funny?

Lynn: Okay. This is so dumb, but I remember I was, I don't know, six, seven, I don't know. And my mother was kind of the kind of person who, like, if you sneezed, she would be like, what's wrong.

And I remember I was little five or six whenever and she said, Are you and she heard me cough, or like I said something, I don't know what, and she said, are you okay? You're a little horse. And I said, no, I'm not. I'm a little, child's obviously my parents thought that was side splitting and I got a big laugh and I was like, oh, I can let them getting last as fun.

That's the first one. I remember, by the way I moved away from puns. Another time they were building. They were building like a new bath or renovating our bathroom, the house I grew up in. And so there was like the frame for a closet, but there was nothing in it yet. It was just like, the space was defined.

And so I went into the closet and I said, look, it's a Lynn in closet. That's where it all began. Folks

Passionistas: Was humor, always a part of your household? Like where your parents funny?

Lynn: Yeah. My parents are funny, white parents in very different ways. And they also, but in very different ways, but they definitely both of their families or also super funny in very different ways. But at the end of the day, they really just, they just, they liked a good joke. They just really liked a good joke. A funny movie, funny TV show. It was, there was, it was definitely. But like a high-value currency.

Passionistas: What sparked your interest in comedy? And did you immediately want to pursue a career in it?

Lynn: Maybe the career part came when I was a little older and wanted to find ways to upset my parents as opposed to delight them. But I just, I always just gravitated toward, I never defined or pursued a career in a certain kind of comedy, a certain kind of. Like my, I did stand up for a long time, but my goal in doing standup was to do stand up.

So I didn't, which is nice because it kind of took the pressure off. I worked at it, but I didn't, I didn't attach not that this is a bad thing, by the way, this is a completely legitimate and great thing. My goal at the time, wasn't to like, get on a show or get to, or, you know, get an agent and move to LA or whatever it was.

So either it just means I had, I was just content or just that I was really not at all. I just really liked standup. I just like it as an art form. I just, I just like it. I never attached it to a next level dream. And then I just kind of stopped doing it when I just got tired when I just couldn't stay up past 10 anymore.

Basically I used to host shows that started at 10 and now I'm, I don't know. And I'm not a napper, so I don't, I just powered through, I just always gravitated toward basically like the wacky red head, not the lead, but the leads weird from. Like the Janeane Garofalo character in the truth about cats and dogs, not to directly compare myself to her majesty, but, um, Jimmy grew up a little, but, um, but that idea was always my jam, I think in high school.

I went to, I had a pretty good experience overall, but I went to a very preppy high school and I had very preppy. They were very nice, but very preppy classmates who were sort of all tall and live and blonde. Um, none of which describes me. And they could like burst into lacrosse the way that I like the fame kids burst into song.

And so it just wasn't, I wasn't like miserable. It just was not, that was the central culture and I was not in that. And so I think I defined myself against it even harder by being like the theater kid played the goofy roles. That was just, I think it, I probably would have been that anyway, but I think I probably kind of defined myself against the lacrosse team.

And now. When I was in high school, um, I went on a ski trip. It was like a Jewish youth group ski trip up to this winter Wonderland. Um, that was called every year. It's still going on, still going on. This is the eighties it's still happening. And we all went up to Manchester, New Hampshire to ski and do other stuff for the weekend.

And on the Saturday night, um, a bunch of dudes. Somehow got ahold of like some grapefruits and some borrowed nightgowns and went and did this completely made up impromptu improvise, drag skit in the social hall that brought the house down. And my, it was sloppy. It was made up. It was, there's nothing inherently funny about dudes dressing as women, but it brought the house down and I, my first thought was okay, what are the girls going to do?

And my next thought was. Because I knew even then that wit girls would not be received the same way we could not be equally slept. And, and bring the house down. Not because we're not funny, but because that's not the way people view women as funny, or, you know, it's just women don't have that kind of audience.

Um, we didn't in the end, we maybe more now, definitely not back then. And so, like I just kind of, you know, my my third thought, you know, my first thought was, what are we doing second thought? And my third thought was. And so we didn't, I didn't say con let's come on, Debbie and Jenny let's go. So I didn't say anything.

And, um, I don't regret that because I think my instincts were correct, but I was bummed out out of, I was bummed out about it for years and I, that really, really stuck with me. It really, really stuck with me. I had this real sense that. That was not cool and not fair. And, uh, something would have to change.

Uh, and so I I'm, who knows, but that may be, oh, and fun fact, one of those dudes may or may not have been Adam Sandler who was there. So, um, I, as a civilian, it was his high school. So I have Adam Sandler to thank for Gold Comedy. And what I'm doing now is.

Passionistas: So that was high school. Where did you go to college? And, and what did you decide to focus on when you were in college?

Lynn: I went to, as we all like to say, I went to college in new Haven and, and very much enjoyed the pizza by the way, in new Haven, as the New York pizza snob, I will say that navens even better. So yeah, I went to, so I went to college at Frank Pepys and.

I did there wasn't any, there was improv. This is, this is the eighties. There was improv. I believe there was maybe a sketch group, but there was no awareness. There's no standup. Like now I hear they have stand up groups and I'll get back to that, but I didn't do it. So I didn't do like straight up comedy in college.

What I did do was I was in an acapella singing group once again, continuing on my nerd track. And I became, I was, I am not a great singer. What came naturally for me was doing the, like the shtick in between the songs. And so I became the ringleader of those things and that's where I kind of scratch the scratch to the comedy itch.

What did you do after college? Did you pursue a career in comedy or did you do some. I was always drawn to being a writer. That was always just what I was. I never decided that was what I was going to do. I just kind of knew that I was going to do something where I had to write. And I just had this tractor beam of wanting to be some form of writer, not in the way that, like I thought about it.

I didn't think about it. I w I didn't like journal about what dreaming of being a writer. And I didn't watch movies about thoughtful writers that I didn't, I just do it. And so after college, so I did a lot of journalism in college. And after college, that's really where I focused in terms of it didn't occur to me.

I could really make money as doing comedy. I loved theater and I was always, I loved being on stage, but I knew that I didn't have the gumption or that Moxie or the, I just didn't think I wanted to go to LA and compete with anybody. In that world. And I just didn't see myself as really an actor. I saw myself as more of a I cam then, or just a wise ass than a serious actor.

So I didn't really occur to me to head to the head, to the, to Hollywood or even New York for a few years. I went back to Boston for a little while and then, but I started doing, I started taking stand-up classes when I lived in Boston, when I lived. Laundry distance from home. Basically, I actually sort of freelancing as a journalist and I took a stand up class and I also had a day job.

My dad is a retired MIT professor. He, my dad's actually a very famous phenologist, which means that about seven people know who he is and that he's a heartbeat away from Noam Chomsky, which made me very popular. And I did. I had an office job at MIT that I'm sure was pure nepotism. So I called myself the rejectionist.

So I sat at a desk and told students that they had the wrong forms. And, but then more and more as I was able to get paid more and more for journalism, I phased out. My night job became my day job. And then I also did, started doing standup in Boston and Cambridge.

Passionistas: Tell us about your work as a journalist. Because I, uh, we saw that you like wrote like the first national mainstream article about dating violence and what kind of, uh, topics were you writing about and what drew you to those topics?

Lynn: That is a true story about you. Remember, you know, Parade Magazine, they insert. Frankly, if you want to get an issue out there, I think it has the pattern or had I'm going to get this wrong, but either the first or first, second, or third largest circulation of anything.

And so I, I did make a choice back then based on two things, I always cared a lot about various social justice issues. Influenced by my parents, especially my mom. And especially I, I wound up carrying the most about gender, gender justice, and related, um, you know, feminist stuff back then, we were not as nuanced about what we meant by gender justice.

It was, it was much more narrow focus on, on women's rights and probably white women's rights. I'm sure. But, you know, I thank my mom for, you know, making, being a feminist, not rebellion. So I, I gravitated toward social issues. Social justice issues, especially I was always really interested in how pop culture reflects or shapes culture.

As before. When I was talking about comedy, I was, I've always been interested in that in any culture, in any forum when Ellen came out. And culture had led it to be okay for that to happen. But then when she did it, it also changed culture. Like it's back and forth. And I just cared about it mainly because I really love television.

And, and in all seriousness, I do think, I think it matters. And it was always, there was always some combination of what gets me out of bed in the morning is social justice. And what keeps me up at night is till. Burning the candle at both ends. And so at that somehow first, it just kind of happened. But then I evolved into making a real choice about choosing to write for the most mainstream possible publications about issues that would kind of push them a little bit, push things a little bit, maybe not push the publication, but push people a little bit.

And, um, and even if I had to do a little bit more, more like both sides or whatever, To appear balanced or whatever. And maybe I wouldn't write it quite the same way as aggressively as I would write it for, um, uh, you know, a real, like a lefty. We didn't have blogs then, but blog, I made the choice also financial, you know, because they paid more to, I'm not, I wasn't that noble to write for.

Um, I kind of got lucky with Parade, but, um, no. Okay. I worked hard on that, but I wound up gravitating toward women's magazines also, which were. Terrible in many ways, but way more feminist than people ever thought. I'm way more aware, like anyone who didn't think Cosmo was performance art and God, I just, nobody should have any, should waste any time being angry at Cosmo it's it was, I just don't.

I never understood that. And so I wrote a lot for Glamor and Glamor was way ahead of a lot of those. They went back and forth a little bit after. With Whitney, but under Ruth, they had a Glamor had this column about all the female senators, all of them, the definitive legions, a female senators that reported on exactly what they were doing.

Exactly what they were. And weren't doing for Glamour readers. You're not gonna find that elsewhere. Um, no one else has wrote about the women's senators. Nobody cared and. And so in Glamour, would you way back then would write about abortion and all those things. And sure. Their audience was huge and included people who were anti-abortion, but I, but then when I got to write about it, I wasn't preaching to the choir necessarily, and you can humanize the issue and you can really actually change hearts and minds a little.

And so I that's what I, that's what I gravitated toward. And I was able to eventually. I worked so hard at writing for so many different types of publications. I wrote for a sewing newsletter. I wrote for obviously Glamour tons of different publications each with their own style. And the most important thing I learned was aside from feeling that I was, in some cases, doing something important, the most important, important skill I learned was to be able to write in the publications voice and not be fancy about that. Cause I wasn't ready to express myself. I was running cause I liked writing and it was, I mean, I just, wasn't all precious about that. I, it was a fun game to be like, okay, how do I write about this thing in that voice? And how do I channel that voice? It's really, it's interesting. It's a project.

It's a puzzle. It's not. Like, that's what you do in your journey. For those of you watching the podcast, I'm miming, I'm listening to the podcast, I'm miming some sort of like, kind of BS self-expression, but like you wouldn't have to deliver a product and it's, it's fun only after you learn how to do that.

Do you really get to a place? I think where you then get you get assignments from people who are asking you to write in your voice. Um, so that eventually after I worked and worked and worked for years and years and wrote. Uh, probably thousands of articles. I can't even remember. Then I was able to do things like for Salon and other publications where they'd be like, no, please, you do you.

And, and, and really have my own voice. I had a bunch of different columns in my ear that were supposed to be Edward a column for the DailyToominNews. Like things that we're supposed to be sound like me, not sound like them, but that is not where you start. And, and, and, and it's, it's so much the better, you know, the better for it.

It's like TV, it's like TV. Our usual friend, Amy Toomin Strauss was, um, is teaching for Gold Comedy now. We were talking to her about what to teach and when, or what are the different things that she could teach. And, and, you know, I do sort of hear and feel out there that everyone's like, well, I've got a great idea for a show, um, because, because rightly things have been, so, um, the platforms have been so democratized now that like, sure you could do, you, you could write your, you know, put your show on YouTube and maybe.

You know, maybe it'll get picked up or maybe, you know, that it's not that that doesn't happen now, but Amy's point was. Yeah, but I don't want to teach how to write your own show. First. I want to teach how to write someone else's show and it's the same thing. Learning how it show you needing to be able to show a show runner that you understand, obviously the basics that apply anywhere and everywhere, but also how to write for that show, how to channel those characters, those voices, those situations.

How to replicate that world. And so it's definitely analog that I really learned in journalism. I've learning how to write the other stuff first. Then you get to do your own thing. It works the same way on stand up. I'm not that you should go around telling other people's jokes or writing other people's jokes for them.

It doesn't really start that way unless you're Ava on PACS, which we love. And she didn't start that way either. But anyway, 2, 0 1 almost comedians. I know. Or people who either teach or mentor comedians always say, find the comedians that you like and learn them, know them, live them, and even go ahead and do the exercise of writing jokes.

Like there's obviously you can't go and do that and get paid for that. Or, or, you know, there's a point past which that's stealing, but just that the imitation. The imitation and the practice and the imitation and the practice is really helpful. And it helps you learn how any joke works.

Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington, and you're listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Lynn Harris.

If you're a young woman or identify as nonbinary and want to turn your sense of humor into your superpower, visit GoldComedy.com.

If you're enjoying this interview and would like to help us to continue creating inspiring content, please consider becoming a patron by visiting ThePassionistasProject.com/podcast and clicking on the Patron button.

Even $1 a month can help us continue our mission of inspiring women to follow their passions. Now here's more of our interview with Lynn.

So in 1997, you found your own voice and you created Breakup Girl.

Lynn: Co-created.

Passionistas: Co-created. Yes. So tell us about that character in the show and how it expanded as time and technology.

Lynn: I co-created a Breakup Girl with Chris Cobb. So, so in '97 it was much, much easier to get a book contract. You didn't have to already have a blue check mark. You didn't already have to have a sub stack or whatever, like you, if you had an, you really just had to have a good idea. Seriously. I had an idea about writing a humor book about surviving a breakup and.

I went to bat to have Chris who's a brilliant illustrator. And we had collaborated before I went to bat to have Chris have us be a package deal. It'd be the designer and illustrator of the book, which also would never happen now. So we actually, literally, we actually realized we were roommates in a different block and you were sitting there figuring out all the real estate and what we had written and what he had designed.

And we realized we had like a few more, like we had like. You know, 16 more pages to fill in. We were like, ah, and then Chris was like, you know, I was just kind of thinking that we, that, I don't know if there should be like a superhero character. And I was like, oh my God, we should've done that from the beginning.

And so we created this, it was originally Chris's idea. But, but from that moment, we collaborated and came up with the idea of this, the superhero who helps people with romantic emergencies. We have superheroes who can bend steel bars, but how about one that it can mend broken heart? And so that we invented this kind of classic, like kind of a winking version of a classic superhero who had like a utility Fanny pack.

And who's really, but actually really smart and thoughtful character who had her own problems, but was able to help others. And so we added her origin story and all this other stuff in the book and added her as this voice and presence in the book. And then the book did. Okay. But then people were like, what?

I liked that character. And so in actually that was in '91, whatever '96, I don't remember '96. And then in '97, Chris was like, there's this thing that mostly NASA uses, but it's called the worldwide web. And I think it would be super fun to make a page on the worldwide web about. And so we created a website in '97.

That was literally an overnight success because no one else was doing anything remotely like it. And we just did it. We did the thing that does not happen now, which is we built it and they came and it hasn't happened yet. But the advice column, I decided to write an advice column. It got super popular. I think it was, you know, Chris's artwork is amazing, but I do think that, um, and this goes back to the idea of the intersection of pop culture and social change, what we were doing that was different.

And this was intentional. We kind of wandered into this enterprise, but the part, once we kind of get our bearings, um, the part that was intentional was that it was not going to be a female superhero talking to women about related. Because that's stupid and it's reductive and in the world, at least of like binary, heterosexual people, half the people in relationships are dudes.

So like, why is it thought of as like this lady thing that's so stupid. And, and we kept coming up against that because then people would assume that because Breakup Girl was female, because we were talking about relationships that it was a site for women. And it never was never, not even, it never was. We just, we made it it's about relationships and we wanted to change.

This was, we were like intentional about this. We wanted to change the way people thought and talked about relationships. So from the very beginning, the letters that we would get online, we're not even close to all from women. So many from dudes. And we had no letters from people that we have different words for.

Now, people would say, do your breakup girl, I'm a secret. Cross-dresser my wife doesn't have. And all these things that we talk to gay people and straight people, a trans people at all these things that no one else was doing, not because we were like brilliant, but because we, there was intentional that we really did think it was dumb that, that only half the people in relationships were talking about relationships or had a place to talk about relationships.

I think that plus the combination of humor, she had a really specific style of nerdy, superhero comic book humor that people felt comfortable with. And was nice to everybody. It got really big. And then the property. Got we got acquired by Oxygen and, um, in a really kind of great deal because they hired us.

They didn't buy it away from us. They ha they bought us with it. So we got hired to create it for Oxygen on an even bigger platform. Um, and that all went straight to hell a while ago, awhile, awhile later, but that's a story for a less jaunty podcast, but, but out now we actually are. We're playing around with it with a new version.

A lot of the stuff that she talks and talked about is, is eternal. But a lot of it is like, we talked about like computer dating. Um, and so, you know, some of that stuff has to be updated.

Passionistas: You have so many things that we could talk to you about, but let's focus a little bit on Gold Comedy. When and why did you start.

Lynn: Well, that part goes kind of goes back to Adam Sandler and wanting to, and also having them stand up myself. And I didn't have a lot of people have a lot of women who worked a lot harder at it than I did and did a lot more of it than I did have much worse stories about, about everything from just garden variety, sexism to outright horrific.

And not just the harassment itself, but would it having a law? I didn't really get into the whole world where I, that many other women did, where you have to actually make choices about jobs that you don't take and jobs that aren't even offered to you because they're cause you don't, you can't work with that guy or because that guy already has a woman or whatever.

So even my mild experiences were exhausting and outrageous and. All paths lead to this idea of making sure that women, especially young women and anyone else outside the comedy norm, which is often a way to name norm had access to the fun of comedy and the power of comedy. And it matters. It matters because women are people and it matters because comedy is a job and it ma it matters because comedy is power.

I just had this idea of how much better would the world be if we had an even broader idea of who's funny or, or who makes us think, or who helps us process that, that day's crazy news. And I thought, what if I just start building the farm? And so now it's gone through various forms in reality, and in my mind, but now what we have is the only, and this was by the way, just, we, I was envisioning this online long before anyone knew about any kind of COVID or a pandemic, because part of the vision for me was, first of all, nobody wants to, I don't recommend starting a brick and mortar place in New York City because it's.

But also, I wanted to find the funny young people and not even young people who don't live in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, LA, Toronto, where can we find the Carrie Underwood of comedy? Let's like if they can Zoom in from Dakota and they're funny then. Great. So I always had this idea of creating an online school and community and online place of learning and social interaction, where, where you could find your comedy crew no matter where you live and get the learning and collaboration and interactivity interaction and helping each other out that I did get from my crew in New York and many people do, but it's hard to find.

And again, what if you don't live in New York or what if you're not old enough to go to club? We opened again, went through lots of different ideas and permutations, but we opened our current members member, only members only club last fall. And so we now have this amazing online platform, which is powered by a company called mighty networks.

Basically they built the bones of the app and we just bring our people in our stuff. And we have a place where. Women and young women and non binary folks come to, let's see Mondays, we have open mics with feedback. Like they're the nicest open mics in the world. Plus you get feedback from me and other and your peers Tuesdays and Thursdays usually are when we have our courses right now, we're in the middle of the standup course.

We just finished improv. We posted on storytelling and sketch, which yes, you can do all of this online. Wednesdays, every Wednesday we have a Q and A with a comedy pro or celebrity. Writers who have toilet in the trenches whose names you don't know, but who shows, you know, to, uh, Rachel Dratch and Bloom, Ashley Nicole Black from A Black Lady Sketch Show, like an amazing range of people.

And you just show up in the Zoom and ask them like you totally just fan girl out and ask them questions. We have monthly shows that are open to the public. We pay our own comics for. For performing because it's work and you want to set that tone set that precedent. We just did a pride show, which is amazing with Murray Hill and Sydney Washington.

And so we basically just create the experiences that, that, that young or new, or not even new medium. We have a lot of comedians in the gang who have been doing comedy for a little while, but still want to find the people in the place to really nerd out and really like level up as fast as they can. And we have folks.

I think our youngest is an eighth grade with a couple of eighth grade and then all the way up to people Myers. And then we just. Uh, a course that's outside the member's club. So like we had, so you get all that with a subscription, it's all inclusive with a subscription. Then we have a one-off course that we call gold label, which is being taught by your friend and mine, Amy Toomin Strauss, who is the one who wrote The One With the Embryos, um, on Friends.

And she's teaching in a three series on about TV writing, con TV, comedy writing, and that's open to people inside and outside of the. It's really the place. It's the place to find your way to level up your work and find your crew. And it's great if you, you know, there's a lot of like improv for T-Mobile.

And stuff like that, which is great. But we really present comedy as a path to comedy it's comedy for comedy. However, there are many people, we also attract a lot of people who may or may not want to be professional comedians in whatever capacity, standup writers, whatever, but who know that comedy skills are life skills and they like comedy.

So they're like, well, that's perfect. I can learn to be, I can use this thing. I love. To learn how to, you know, write better sink faster, listen, better, get out of my head. Um, stop self-editing react more quickly. Um, all those things are, things are things you can do. And, you know, find your voice, which is, which sounds abstract and woo, but it's a thing.

Um, understand your what's, your unique take on things. You can do all that. So we have a real mix of people. It's sort of varying levels of intensity around their comedy career goals, but there's room for everybody.

Passionistas: How does the average person get involved? How do people become a part.

Lynn: Funny, you should ask. Um, all you need to do is visit our website, which has a lot of free resources on it. Also, I believe that the, uh, irritating term for that is freemium. If lots of articles and, you know, useful, actionable snackable, actionable resources to, to help you just kind of learn. Basics of joke writing and you know how to make your PowerPoint funnier without being a group without being too much of a dork.

So there's just a ton of ton of free resources. And then if, um, if folks are interested in joining what we call the, the club, the Gold Comedy club, um, Click right through from our website to there and learn more about that, frankly, the price is amazing. Um, and frankly, it's going to go up. Um, so one of these days, so, so it's $299. 99 a year for all of that stuff.

Anything we do in the club, you get any course, um, any, all of our self-paced, we have a ton of one-off classes that are just an hour. With, you know, a writer from James Corden talking about topical jokes, you know, um, you could just nerd out without, and just inhale all of that stuff. You can take our, um, our lives, you know, live on Zoom classes, all those things.

So that's all with that one price. Um, so, and then we, we, we record and archive everything that we do. So you also have active. That's why eventually the price is going to go up because our, our resource libraries is getting bigger literally every week. So, um, it's really, really fun. And the. As much as I'm proud of all the resources and I'm happy to like drop all the names of the famous people who have, you know, who swing by and answer questions.

And I'm happy to talk about the quality of the, of the instruction and all that stuff. Really. The thing is the community, really the thing. And because you all these people who have literally never met, unless it's their friend that they brought in, um, are like this incredibly supportive. Like cheering section for each other and people will post like stuff they're working on and get feedback.

Um, people will come to other classes, final shows just to cheer the others on. Um, people really have there's. We have a lot of 1, 2, 3, few people who have now done open mikes for the first time, because they felt, you know, got those skills and the confidence from us. And, um, and then, and now like people are going now that we can do this.

People who live in the same city are like starting to go see the other people in your life. And it's a whole thing. So it's really, um, just it's that kind of, you know, safe, supportive ad-free, um, welcoming place that you can't, you can get. And, and most comedians say like the most important thing is to find your crews.

You can do that, but this is. This is not, instead of, if you start doing comedy in some city and you meet your friends, it's not instead of that, but this is, this one is going to be there for you wherever you are, um, and all the time and it's on your phone. Um, so, uh, yeah, it's really, that's the most moving thing that I've seen. It was my goal. So I'm not surprised, but I'm delighted that it really has turned out that way.

Passionistas: Listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Lynn Harris. If you're a young woman or identify as nonbinary and want to turn your sense of humor into your superpower, visit GoldComedy.com.

Please visit ThePassionistasProject.com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans. To inspire you to follow your path. Use the code FALLMYSTERY to get a free mystery box with a one-year subscription. And be sure to subscribe to the Passionistas Project podcast, so you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests until next time.

Stay well and stay passionate.

Quest Skinner Is Breaking Away the Emotional Blockade Between Artists and Buyers

Quest Skinner is an artist who is always striving to find new ways to make her artwork break away the emotional blockade between artists and buyers. As a mixed-media artist, teacher and community activist. Quest is influenced by the energy of cityscapes, music and the personalities she encounters every day. Then, in her studio, she brings them into her world; a world that takes raw feelings, vibrations and various moments in our lives then captures them with flowing pigments. Quest’s artwork tells a story that changes with every person who sees her work. Working with different traditional and non-traditional mediums, her fluid and always interchanging style of work keeps patrons coming back to explore the world through Quest’s eyes.

Read more about Quest Skinner.

Learn more about The Passionistas Project.

Full Transcript:

Passionistas: Hi and welcome to the Passionistas Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same.

We’re Amy and Nancy Harrington and today we’re talking with Quest Skinner, an artist who is always striving to find new ways to make her artwork break away the emotional blockade between artists and buyers. As a mixed-media artist, teacher and community activist. Quest is influenced by the energy of cityscapes, music and the personalities she encounters every day. Then, in her studio, she brings them into her world; a world that takes raw feelings, vibrations and various moments in our lives then captures them with flowing pigments. Quest’s artwork tells a story that changes with every person who sees her work.

Working with different traditional and non-traditional mediums, her fluid and always interchanging style of work keeps patrons coming back to explore the world through Quest’s eyes.

So please welcome to the show, Quest Skinner.

Quest: Thank you guys for having me.

Passionistas: What's the one thing you're most passionate about?

Quest: I think as I get older, staying honest and true to self. Over the years, you know, we compromise just a little and sometimes it really will take one moment and make it eternal. I just want to make sure that I stay true to self and vibe and keep my, my spirit in life and love.

It's so easy to get knocked off of your posts when things aren't always, or don't appear to be what you want or aren't in focus in that moment. So staying focused.

Passionistas: Let's take a step back. Tell us a little bit about where you grew up and your childhood. And, um, in particular, where did your name come from?

Quest: Childhood is one of those sensitive issues with me. I think like anybody who really creates and put your heart in your blood and your mind into it, it's got to come out of something. And I look at my childhood coming out of Pittsburgh, a little like a coal miner's daughter. I was, I learned how to sew. I learned how to hunt.

I learned how to fish. I learned how to live organic and be a part of everything around me. And then I also learned we're fine. And I learned how to dress and walk the part and go to Bible school. And you know, this, I went to Colfax Elementary School, so a little Jewish elementary school, and I learned the world from being in a microcosm that was so filled with culture.

The one thing I can say is those mountain cities, like the one that I moved to now, Seattle, they're filled with so much art, so much culture vibing communities that in the worst of times, really make the most intricate and extreme and brilliant thought process manifest out of nothing. So, yeah, Pittsburgh, that was part of it.

And then about 16. And after my 16th birthday, my mother kind of packed me up and said, we're moving Arizona. And I went from mountains to Val. And it was very amazing. I got really interconnected with, um, one of my cousins and she's just a spirit of fire and life and by vivacious. And here we both are at 43 and we are alive.

I think it all comes from being, being in, in extreme different environments and not really knowing what I was getting into, but being a part of that environment made emoted and really created this like international, global little phenomenon spirit. It was everybody to go a little bit deeper into it.

How did I even get my name? I was in high school and I had to write a paper. It was like one of those graduating papers, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I remember choosing to write it about two sisters, one Simplicity, and the other one was Quest. And Simplicity was everything that a parent would want, calm, chill, responsible, this, that, and a third. And Quest was everything that everybody should want to be — free, expressive, full of love, sexy, but not sexual, sensual, but not offensive like me. And I realized in that moment that that is who I would always be. And it wasn't so much, like, I think when we think of artists choosing names, we don't look at the history of the country and look at the tribes always. We didn't really name.

We didn't look at it as naming. People, pick their names, their souls were picked upon these growth and developments. So to just adjust to my original into who I am now, the name just gave it gravity.

Passionistas: What is your cultural heritage? What's your ancestry. And how does that kind of impact the path year one?

Quest: So how about this love life. Had a little had that I'm about to turn 40 nervous breakdown and made everybody kind of like dig in and do the genealogy by records. And our family is actually a Cherokee, Iroquois, uh, Choctaw, Chickasaw, uh, Shinnecock, uh, and Piscataway natives. You know, you think about it over time in 500 years.

It's so beautiful that maybe not all the tribes got together, but they created together this gorgeous entity and being so, you know, that's why, where my head dress and that's how even Burning Man found me. And it was funny to me, when presented with all these great minds from around the world. And I'm like, yeah, I'm a black native.

You know, I'm a native American. We came in on hues. And they're looking at me and they're like, why aren't you mad? I'm like, man, this is so big. It's so deep. It's bigger than even me. Right. But this is the story that has to be told so that we can heal. There's a reason why it was called the melting pot. We had every color, we had every spectrum and we always have. And when we go back to loving all of our unique ancestry and our, and our spirit, and we can begin to know who we really are, then we set ourselves free.

Passionistas: So let's talk about you getting into art. Were you always an artist?

Quest: I think I was, I think from the little tie dye shorts when I was a kid and the first time I kind of got a hold of a bottle of bleach and understood that I could take my genes and create and alter something else out.

Uh, I made bandanas a little hint. Here's scrunchies for kids in elementary school. Like so poetry, you know, in high school and toured what's up with people. I think I always was this, but it's when we find our art forms. It's when we find our medium or maybe I should say when they find us, when we have exposed ourself enough that we can be a channel and a conduit and really pick up as a vessel, all the possibilities.

I think I always was an artist, but I remember my first art show. So funny. I remember I'm in DC. I'm having this, like, you know, gotta come through big. I've got an art shit right now. Just have one. I get to, so my first opening night, I got two shows. I'm bouncing from here, running down the street to the next one.

And I remember my parents coming and my stepfather looked at me and he. That's what you are. You're an art. Okay. We can take it from there because we didn't know what you were going to be because you can be anything. So that's what you are. You're an artist. And I looked at him and I said, for sure, and always, and now I get it like two decades later, massive amount of pieces done, you know, and, and created.

And somehow to be able to create. 13,000 pieces, but it's so hard for some people to pull them all together and see them as one beam, because there's so many different styles and, and I just, I would get tired. I would get bored of something. I don't want to think the same little lady all day long. I refuse.

And it got to the point where I would tell clients when I'm done with the color it stuck. When red is over, red is dead. When it's time for green. That's right. When it's blue will be true, but when it's over, you will not ask me again for this painting. I think that that one move is what saved my psyche.

Cause I had payment this Africa lady, so cute. God, I still leverage it as day, but I had a dozen women try to get me to paint this painting over and over again. And insanity is doing the same thing over and over again.

Passionistas: How did you take that moment? And what, where did your art go from there? If you can do anything, how do you, how do you channel, um, what your inspiration is into the right piece of art?

Quest: I wish I had that formula. I wish I could literally sit back and go, oh, this is what makes it.

Honestly, I think it's like my neighbor who knocked on a door earlier. It's just having those spirits randomly come through who I'm working on something and they just go, you know what I was thinking? And it amplified being open really, I think creates better pieces. As I get older, I wanted to worry about creating a perfect circle.

Right. That's the ultimate like something so simple. But to be able to do a complete circle is a sign of a very ingenious individual. So how much time do you spend trying to do a perfect circle before you realized you could have just removed everything else around it and made it perfect. And it would have been a circle tip.

Right? So I got to a point where I don't tell my work what to do it doesn't tell me what. I, I literally go in there and have fun smoke a Chile, listen to some Isley brothers or some really good music, maybe Shaka Khan. If I'm having a low day, I want to hear that. Tell me something good. I'm going to have some fun, like, but this was meant to be fun.

It wasn't meant to break me down and worry about anything. It wasn't something that I chose so that I lost sight of like a beautiful sunny day and getting out there and enjoying it. It was something that I picked because it was cathartic, it was loving. And it allowed me to heal people that I love. They literally, even in like the worst times going through the pandemic, I would occasionally get like little emails and texts that said, like, just being here with my piece of art.

I've made it like my little cuddle corner. It's where I'm finding my safe space. And that was the goal that when we have to go into our homes or go into our deeper selves, you have these totems around you to live your spirit and to carry you on to make you move forward, to think of yourself in that higher light.

So when you flow like that, do you get to tell God what's. No. Okay. Do you get to tell angels how to like bless you? No. Okay. So art doesn't get to, I don't get to tell arc what to do. I'm lucky to be in a presence and to be a vessel up. And I seem like that defeats a lot of artists trying to found something that is endless and boundless without you in beautiful.

And you're just here to transcribe for the audience.

Nobody worries about the little lady in the, in the courtroom who actually puts all the words down forever. But in hindsight, she's the most important person because most people will be lost with her emotions instead of following a stenographer and understanding her words are creating the whole play out of everything that has happened in front of us.

When we lose sight of that. So in sense, maybe I'm just that little humble stenographer for, in a corner, just typing away on the keys and nobody paying attention. Other jobs. I've had people go, that's your job. You're a flight attendant. I walk in the room as an artist and people are looking at those, you did that.

Yeah. Yeah. I built that thing and it's like two stories high, in my apartment.

Passionistas: You create in many different mediums, in many different styles. You say you don't want to create the same piece twice. But is there a, is there a common thread if you had to describe your style to somebody, what would you say?

Quest: Regrounding, elegance, alchemy magic, fun, free, cocoa, sexy diva. And that's just what I get to live in and bring out of me and drop on a world. But I realized like my cocoa divas are my cream divas and my golden girls, and they are everybody in between. And there is no spectrum on it. It's a, it's a spirit on it. So I think I create for us as divine, feminine, as placed in a little zones where we can go.

Like you see the pieces. We can go and smoke a cigarette over by miracle mile in Chicago, if we need to, or go ahead and like, you know, become warriors and battle dragons. But whatever it is when I was growing up, little girls had Barbies. And that was like the rate of our consciousness. Right? Little miss Barbie.

And I love her. She got more adventurous and stuff, but she didn't always equate all of them. And the brush gives me what it, what it wants and the space and the canvas or the boards, they give me what they can bear. So some of the time, my little divas off might be pencil thin and other times they might be thick as rockstars and look like they go kick down a door and I love that.

Like it is every woman and as somebody who's been 240 pounds to 150 pounds. You know what I'm saying? It's like, I'm all of them. We go through so many stages in our life. We deserve to have little, little dolls that really do fit all of us. We deserve to have gorgeous little warriors that still in our heart note, if they're going to, like, after the war is over, go sit under those, some underneath the bullet bath and read books with kids.

We still have to be the mother, the warrior, the festival, the nurturer that everything. But we, we need more variety in our attitude about how we accept that. You know, we're not every little girl wants to wear the little tube, pink release, gargle nights. Some of them want to put on her little Carhartts and go out and get sustainable and ground themselves.

And they don't want to be considered less because of how they, they find their, their, their speeds.

Passionistas: We’re Amy and Nancy Harrington and you’re listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Quest Skinner. To learn more about her art visit Quest Skinner dot com.

If you are enjoying this interview and would like to help us to continue creating inspiring content, please consider becoming a Patron by visiting The Passionistas Project dot com backslash podcast and clicking on the patron button. Even $1 a month can help us continue our mission of inspiring women to follow their passions.

Now here’s more of our interview with Quest.

How did you get involved with burning man and what does that experience mean to you? Cause it seems like it's a very significant experience to people who are part of that movement.

Quest: It's like when you say burning man, the first thing you got almost in your heart as welcome home.

So that would have went. That's really what it was for the outgoing autodidact. Little little diva who pretty much speaks multiple languages has traveled the world, but always can be seen in one dimension, depending on the United States where I'm at. Right. I get there. Everybody's like, it's going to be different.

You have an nymity, people will just let you be quests. And it's like, I walk on Playa, no anonymity rockstar. And from the moment I get there and it was. I at least found kids like myself who were still trapped in her older they're adults, but needed to run around in our moon boots and our little tidy whities and be free.

One last time before the lights go out, I needed to be around other artists who love their work, but were afraid of the spotlight at the same time, too, because if you don't feel that anxiety and those butterflies, how do you, I know you're real. Like it burn. Okay. Going back. So, um, man, it's so crazy how my labs have always crisscrossed.

Right? So my neighbor across the hallway, his name is Jr. Rest nexus. Um, we go to burning man together. He had been a burn a couple of times before we'll come in, show me the videos, the whole nine you're born with me next year. And I'm like, yeah. Okay. Well next year and he called me and I'm sitting in new Orleans.

Getting ready to get on a flight. And he goes, what are you doing at the end of August? Beginning of September asset? I don't know. He says you want to go to Burning Man? And I put so many H-E and hockey sticks behind it and Y-E-SSSSSSS that I figured my heart was in it. So I ended up, um, getting ready to go to burning man announcing it at Eastern Market, finding out that I couldn't like, I, I.

It was almost like blacklisted, right? It's like, you're going to, you're going to burning man. And you're leaving the fine art world of Eastern Market that you have been over here building, and you want to go party in the desert with people. And I'm like, no, I want to go to build art. I want to learn how to like be with the baddest engineers and see some of the most epic art pieces in a world.

And that was my goal. When I started this. Just to see a life of art, where else in the world, can you go and see that much art and make a life out of it? So the whole thing with these star market, I remember calling one of my mentors for burn and he said, so, okay, most people lose their job coming back from burn.

You lost your risk before you left. And I was like, he goes, so do you still want to go? And I said, If that's all they can do is try and stale me. Yeah, my dream I'm gone. I will always be able to make the artwork, sell the pieces, find a new fucking venue. And only when I come back, went back, talked to them, basically told them you guys have gone way too fucking far.

We're looking at lost wages, restitutions and gag orders for the whole group. I think we should figure this out. Got my job back everything. Right? Like life was normal again. And I'm still on my way to Burning Man. I got to give them my ticket through BurningMan.org. They were looking to bring more people of color would project radical inclusion.

And it was really, it was a, it was a blessing, not in disguise, announced in loud to be able to venture out. And when I got there realized. They were just as intrigued. And I think had spent just as much time learning about me, my art, my spirit, to make sure that I was a fit it's different when you're invited somewhere and people don't take the courtesy to understand who and what they're dealing with.

I got pulled in with such, um, a nurturing spirit and I went from one camp my first year and I'm at the camp and everybody's like, Quest, it seems like you have a job. And I was like, yeah, I kind of do I'm working with foam camp and stuff and doing a front of house. And it was awesome. And they were like, you're the only person we know who came on vacation and picked up a job.

I say, because even in my playland, I still got to have something to do with them. I'm not just going to be here on debaucherous is I'm damn near 40 and y'all some of y'all are my kids' age and I want to make sure you're safe. You know what I'm saying? It's not, it's not for me to go backwards. It's for me to go forward and be futuristic while forgiving those things that were backward in life.

So end out on Playa. Next thing I know the next year, that camp, um, That I was working in front of the house with, I get called until you took one of the hardest jobs. And most people get yelled at screamed at the whole night and you just worked at, and we would love to have you mentioned your come out with us.

So that relationship blossomed, I ended up doing costume, makeup, artistic design for them, direction shows with Alison and Alex Gray at Burning Man. It just was going home. Where, no more improving of yourself and what you can do, but in the right spirit in spaces where people were able to obtain, see, and you can grow and make these connections.

So the following year, which would have been my third year, I got asked to have my artwork, artery in everywhere. And that is the heart of the Playa. That's where they put out all the artwork. And of course it's mind blowing. When some of the best artists in the world really do come up and, and go not, oh, I know you you're like for real, like, dude, you're, you're pretty decent.

Like it's mind blowing and the pieces that they create with heart and salt, you know, I wish more people understood how artists truly do sacrifice and put everything in it to be able to have. Such a small glimmer on a window of opportunity to showcase and show like, you've got to love this thing. You got to love, like staying up, you know, like us, when I told you guys I'm up till five in the morning, this morning working on a mermaid, like, I'm sorry, I'm going to be 15 minutes late.

You got to put it all in here. And sometimes you got to know like one thing may cost or, you know, go slightly undone because of, but it's worth it. Burn showed me. In a, in a whole nother capacity. Like I now know how to do plumbing. I know how to run solar panels. I know how to build an infrastructure in a middle of a desolate environment.

I know how to help people who may not know how to help themselves. It almost is like being cute. Sparkly. By the time you pack up all your gear, your bags, your headlamps, all this, that. And the third, I feel every year, like I am almost like an itty bitty Marine worn out there in my tutus. And ready to go.

Passionistas: Tell us about the commission, the mural you were commissioned to paint at The National Museum of Women in the Arts last year.

Quest: During a pandemic after months. Um, you know, isolation, yeah, one of my best friends hit me up. Her daughter is my goddaughter, love her little like amazing lightning and a little yoga at nine years old, like best.

And her mom calls me and she goes, babe, you know, we got to board up the museum and you know, I want to put one of your pieces up there.

Would you be willing to do. And I was like, dude, okay. Yeah, actually I'll do it for you. What can I do? What should we do? And she said, it's all up to you. And I said, then I want to do Octavia Butler quotes. And we went drum and we picked some Octavia Butler quotes, and I just did the words and some little stencils and stuff on the side of the two doors.

And while out there she walks up to me and goes, I need you to do one. Come around. It shows me the front of the women's museum. And I said, I know what to put there. I got it. I'm going to do it real quick and just need like two hours. So I put the woman with the headdress on and it said, um, in order for a Phoenix to rise, we must first burn.

And that's the truth. Like we literally left one old world last year, one. Thousand year link and it was great, but it's over. And some things now must be put to Ash and sense to be able to rise to true potential. And a lot of that is people's fears and our hurt and our pain. And that was just one of my favorite pieces last year.

And I started crying because when I think of the people that I love, they're the ones who will actually get me out to go. You know, to make these things into create these pieces don't fall. And Malani her name is Malani Douglas. I think that's who I would like you guys to work as your neck as my next Passionistas it's out there.

Um, she's just an amazing spirit and her energy. We have been friends since we were in our twenties. When a great woman called her shoe, you get on a phone and you go to, and that's what, one of the greatest women that I know, and to be able to put that up at the Women's Museum, all of the women walking by, and then to see those who are indigenous people, black, indigenous Aboriginal Americans, who don't even know that.

And go, we got a little Cherokee in us, or we got a little Choctaw in our family too, and it's like, we are, and I love you all for that. And to give you a total man for you to start seeing that it's a natural progression where we are, who we are, it just makes it all simpler. It makes it better. It was a fun piece.

I really did enjoy doing that one, but more than anything, I just love doing it because Melanie.

That's pretty hard. He's just like, when it comes to me doing pizza, she's like, dude, whatever you do, whatever you need, whatever you want to do, rock out so supportive.

Passionistas: While you were doing that, the people walking by were part of the Black Lives Matter protests. Right?

Quest: It was everything, you know, I'm down here and I'm realizing like you've got black lives matter.

People walking by, you have people who are out of uniform, walking by who are down there, holding them back. It was so just pose because you have people who it was their job, and they did not want to be there. And you have people who were fighting for their lives. And that was now their new job in a pandemic.

When your people have to come out and plead for civil civil rights, like plead for food for better education. Because now they understand that their children have been defeated for the last five and 10 and 15 years. When they, when they realize that they believed in something and they were looked down by their beliefs, it said to think that out of all the so-called, um, first world country, We had, uh, we had a 10th world approach.

We left our children out there. We left our elderly out there. We left Black Lives Matter for sure. You know what I'm saying? But we left everybody last year. Scared, exhausted, fighting for love, fighting for rights. When in all honesty, it's almost appalling when you think of the other countries that literally.

In your bank account tomorrow, you will wake up and there will be $10,000 or $20,000 because that's honestly, and we know because we have accountants, we have eco economists. We know this to survive for six months. As we're asking you to please stay home so we can keep you safe. You are workforce, you are our doctors.

We need to lessen the burden on everybody. Last year. It was a perfect piece to put in front of everyone.

Given a chance though. I would probably now put a mirror there and let people know that year was supposed to be for you to focus on reflect on and change yourself. What excuse can you have while watching someone's child shot dead in the middle of the street? What validity can you give me? What communication can you tell me is important over here?

And if you can find that there is something perversed and sick with you, and we need to call it out. Like we are so geared to call out everyone's atrocities and offenses, but we won't call out the simple fact that this has been atrocious and offensive for just the global community outside the United States.

I have to bear witness and watch every day.

It's interesting. How many people, I think, lost focus of how much of an opportunity this was, you know, too, we did it smart. There would have been free classes. I'd have yarn, a Yale, Harvard, Duke, and. For everyone so that you can get skills trades, do physical therapy, be able to, you know, talk to counselors. We literally left a whole world almost abandoned and abated here without any guidance in any care.

Passionistas: So what's your dream for the future for your little granddaughter and for your little goddaughter?

When I was young, I used to say every morning when I woke up, God make me strong. Cause yesterday I was. I probably wasn't the best one in the world. And I know there are hundreds of little girls and then one day I realized after like worshiping and post covers, that were thousands of little girls looking up to me as great as she is the little girl who surpass it's me, that she stays elegant, refined, beautiful unapologetic about her spirit, her body, her mind operated.

We opened the flood gates for every little girl where they can walk. And be safe and protected instead of disrespect, rejected and raped by people who were supposed to be there for them. I pray that she knows none of the pains in which I, as a woman have had to endure because we should be the last ones.

I pray that she gets to walk on golden like bricks and, mm. Ever knows anything but joy for her. And I've told her that before and my goddaughter, my other goddaughter is coming to visit me this week. And you know, these were little girls who got dropped off by my stands by their parents. And some of them, their dads would just go, this is what a real black woman looks like in an entrepreneur.

And they started their business. It's my other little goddaughter now she's in her twenties, 24, right? He came in and all my clients are in there and they're like, oh, we want to buy in advance the guys. She looked at me and she said, no, I'm buying a van. She said, that's where you pulled us to the side and made us women and made us go.

People will not argue in public. You will not disrespect yourself or anybody else out here. We're going to figure this out. I will show you how to battle and be mad because people don't understand that you have a right and you shouldn't be picked with, I will show you how to protect yourself, but we will not disrespect us.

I want them, I want them to constantly know that every woman was ever had to stand on her own for self up by the bootstraps, you know, put everything in a perspective. I did it not just for me. I did it for you because at 60, I do not want to be sitting in a room and somebody disrespect him again, lady.

And at 60, I got to get up and go say something. These days should be in the buckets. If men do not know how to conduct themselves around women, you probably shouldn't work around. Period. If you do not know that you came from a woman, then you probably shouldn't have one period. If you can't get over the fact that not everybody was perfect.

And half of the people didn't know what they were doing, you probably.

I hope that we can give them everything, everything, every starring role, every center at a stage, I hope that she is Misty Copeland. I hope she has the presence of Lena Horne. I hope they're endowed with the greatest gifts of knowledge. I hope that thought and emo tap and everybody touched their grace from, from here on out.

I want them to be able to live a full life and not die from exhaustion, racism, fear. I want her to know what it's like to be a human being and not marginalized by color or financials or this, that and the third. And if I get my way, I want to make sure they get a big coin before I go. Then when you got a nice little trust fund, one day.

Passionistas: Thanks for listening to our interview with Quest Skinner. To learn more about her art visit Quest Skinner dot com.

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