2020-10-19
1 小时 8 分钟My guest today on this best of conversation Cleo Wade is a community builder, an artist, activist, and the author of the books Heart Poetic wisdom for a better life and where to begin?
A small book about your power to create big change in our crazy world.
She's been called the poet of her generation by Time magazine.
One of the hundred most creative people in business by fast company, Cleo sits on the board of the Lower east side Girls Club, the National Black Theatre in Harlem, the Women's Prison association.
Her art ranges from short, handwritten posts to collaborations with major brands and large scale public art installations, including a 25 foot love poem in the skyline of the New Orleans French Quarter titled Respect.
In today's conversation, we explore her younger years growing up as a biracial kid in the famed New Orleans French Quarter with two fiercely creative yet very different parents, and how that influenced her, how Hurricane Katrina changed everything.
What led her to New York for many years, how she walked away from a career as a rising star in fashion to rediscover and cultivate a deeper artistic voice as a writer and artist, really sharing her work online and in public spaces, and then focusing on community building and activism and leveraging her influence for social justice.
Be sure to listen to the end, where Cleo reads a really moving poem from Hartuck.
So excited to share this conversation with you.
I'm Jonathan Fields and this is good life project.
I grew up in New Orleans.
I always say that I grew up with three parents, my mother, my father, and the city of New Orleans because it's such a unique place that has so much character and it's really specific.
So it's unlike even cities like New York.
It's so open and there's such an endless amount of possibilities to build and treat people as an environment.
But in New Orleans, there's so many specific, indigenous things to that city, whether it's the music, whether it's the burial ceremonies, whether it's the food, or the culture of living really hugely outside of your body with costumes and dancing in the streets, and it's such a liberated space.
Yeah.
Do you have memories of that from sort of like the earliest age?
Oh, yeah.
I mean, this year, because of my book tour, I miss jazz fest for the first time in 30 years, I've literally gone since I was in the womb.
And so I remember being the kid who.