The Expression of Art with Wakefield Brewster and Stacey Walyuchow

Sep 5 2023 • 26 mins

Melanie Nicholson welcomes Calgary poet laureate Wakefield Brewster and mixed media artist Stacey Walyuchow to the show for a conversation about connections, accessibility and the power of art to facilitate both. Wakefield and Stacey each share insights and glimpses into their mindsets, and how they use their art to communicate directly with their audiences.

Stacey shares the story of how she and Wakefield first met and how Wakefield’s performance changed her opinion of poetry while moving her to tears. Wakefield addresses how poetry is perceived as “old white European male” and that people often have an adverse reaction to it. He communicates very specific messages through his poetry that he says are translated by his performance. When Stacey considers how people perceive her art, she acknowledges the messages she intends but that people may interpret her work differently. Each of the artists talk about how COVID changed the opportunities in their careers and offered new ways of reaching people. The importance of art to society is significant, it’s how we collectively communicate and interpret, it facilitates accessibility. This episode explores the varied expression in art with two brilliant artists whose work you will want to experience for yourselves upon listening.

“Regardless of what the material is or how it's been crafted, my delivery is going to be the translator because even if you don't get it, I'm probably going to make you feel it. And that's even more important in some ways.” - Wakefield Brewster

“I think a lot of artists do not have gallery representation and you have to find another way to sell your work and to get it seen. And so though social media can be the bane of my existence some days, and that of everybody else's, it is free and it is necessary.” - Stacey Walyuchow

About Wakefield Brewster

Since January 1999, Wakefield Brewster has been known as one of Canada’s most popular and prolific Performance Poets. He is a Black man born and raised in Toronto, by parents hailing from the island of beautiful Barbados, and he has resided in Calgary since 2006. He has spoken across Canada, and several States, and makes countless appearances on a regular basis in a variety of ways, for a myriad of reasons, throughout each and every single year. In 2022 he was appointed Calgary’s 6th Poet Laureate, the Calgary Poet Laureate produces literary work that is reflective of Calgary’s landscape, cityscape, and civic identity and that may raise awareness of local issues.

About Stacey Walyuchow

Stacey Walyuchow is a mixed media collage artist in Calgary, Alberta. The theme of her work is is the human search of identity and recollection of memories, most often using female imagery and animals as symbols. Stacey works with a technique of hand colouring fragile pieces of paper and attaching them to canvas or panel to create the narratives. She intentionally leaves any imperfection that might occur in the process, as they reflect the imperfections, or perhaps the beauty, of such flaws in human beings. She believes the whole process of blending delicate pieces of paper to sturdy surfaces is a wonderful illustration of the exceptional durability of human beings, women in particular.

Contact Melanie Nicholson | Melanie Lynn Communications Inc.

Contact Wakefield Brewster

Contact Stacey Walyuchow

Transcript

Melanie Nicholson: [00:00:03] Welcome to It's a Theory. I'm your host, Melanie Nicholson, and today we're diving into the arts. I'm so excited to welcome two guests today for a conversation around making poetry accessible and the power of art to communicate around tough issues. Joining us, we have Wakefield Brewster, Calgary, Alberta's sixth poet laureate. Wakefield has honed his craft through 20 years of writing and performing and engaging audiences of all ages with his powerful words and captivating performances. Over the years, he's performed at a wide range of events, including schools, festivals, fundraisers, rallies, corporate functions and literary development events. His passion for poetry and storytelling is evident in every performance, making each one a truly memorable experience. Wakefield is considered a poet of the people. And Stacey Walyuchow, she is a mixed media artist who creates stories and situations that break the passivity of the viewer by developing scenes that don't follow logical criteria. She bases her work on impactful situations from her own life experiences, but leaves each piece with room for people to interpret on their own. Mixed media and poetry. We're talking about the power of connections, accessibility, and how art is changing the game. Let's dive in.

Melanie Nicholson: [00:01:24] It is first thing on a Monday morning. This is such a fun way to start the week. I feel like we're having coffee with friends very early in the day.

Wakefield Brewster: [00:01:32] We are.

Melanie Nicholson: [00:01:33] I love it.

Stacey Walyuchow: [00:01:34] My third coffee. So it's good.

Melanie Nicholson: [00:01:36] Third coffee of the day. I haven't had any caffeine yet, actually. So it's going to be.. we'll see. I'm a little foggy. Can you start? I want to know how the two of you know each other.

Stacey Walyuchow: [00:01:48] There is a fabulous little space in the East Village called Loft 112 that sadly is no longer there, but hosted beautiful poetry events and one of which was People's Poetry Festival. And I've thought about this because I was trying to recall exactly what event it was that I first heard Wakefield perform, and it actually was People's Poetry Festival. As somebody who's always been a little afraid of poetry, I think, I just never thought it was - I know that sounds weird, but sometimes you would read it and you always, admittedly equate it to, like, Shakespeare and the stuff that you would read in high school, and I just never could wrap my head around, Oh, it's way more than that. So not that there's anything wrong with Shakespeare. Oh, my gosh. But, um, let's be clear. Anyways. I go to this event and I was kind of like sitting here, I have no idea what I'm in for. And everybody was lovely and fabulous, and then this guy gets up there. And I think I said this the other day, like, I think my hair just went, like, whipped right back. I was completely blown away by the words, obviously, and the delivery and the performance. I am a crier, as anybody who knows me knows, Mel you know this. So tears form when this man performs. And I, and so, um, it's a lovely human being as well. That's why I think it's so beautiful that you're in this position now, Wakefield, as poet laureate, because you can go up to Wake and have a conversation. You made it easy to come and talk to you and ask a question about the poetry or just say it was amazing and what he says? Thank you.

Wakefield Brewster: [00:03:32] Wow.

Stacey Walyuchow: [00:03:33] That's it. Just thank you. Like, super humble. So that is how we know each other.

Melanie Nicholson: [00:03:39] Beautiful. I love it. Thank you, Stacey, for sharing that story. I think it is beautiful. Wakefield, do you remember when you met Stacey?

Wakefield Brewster: [00:03:47] I do remember meeting Stacey. I do remember meeting her at Loft 112. I do remember it being the People's Poetry Festival, and I think it had been a few years where the People's Poetry Festival had a bit of a hiatus. So I think it was probably the first year back in circulation and it was my first time meeting Stacey. So anyone who is connected to Lisa Murphy Lamb is golden. So right away, right away, Stacey - I'm cool with her. I delivered my poetry the way I do with everything I've got, and it isn't common to see someone get emotional. So I noticed and it was pleasantly distracting. I was, I too was blown away that there was especially someone who hadn't experienced me before feeling what I was sharing. So she's connected to Lisa Murphy Lamb, she's connected to the Loft 112, she's an artist of many years. And I mean, that's a trifecta for connection in my world. So it is the world of the arts that brought us together. And it is love that has kept us together.

Stacey Walyuchow: [00:05:06] Yes.

Melanie Nicholson: [00:05:07] Oh, that's beautiful. And I think one of the things, Stacey, you said, which was poetry wasn't your thing. And I think. Let's talk about that. I mean, Wakefield, in terms of part of your mandate as poet laureate is to make poetry more accessible, accessibility and reducing the barrier and making it more open and helping people understand it. Is that, how is that going? What has that been like for you?

Wakefield Brewster: [00:05:35] The answer is yes. I have been doing all those things. I do believe it's my charge, my duty, and it's also my will, my, without ego, it is my will. I wish to give poetry to everyone. I believe that it belongs to everyone. Just as speech and communication belong to everyone, regardless of your medium. But what it comes down to is a lot of people, especially within my generations of perception, before and after me, I hear the same lament as Stacey just began with, which is I never, I don't really dig it. Some people are actually quite adverse, have an adverse reaction to it. Technically, it's called metrophobia. And generally we will find in the language arts of the populace, most people don't embrace poetry. It does evoke the first reactions, responses and perceptions of Elizabethan and Shakespeare and theatre. It does make people recall, especially our generations and before, just being handed down a whole bunch of stuff that was old, white, European male poetry, because we can all relate to that.

Melanie Nicholson: [00:07:06] Everyone in this room.

Wakefield Brewster: [00:07:08] Everyone in this room when it came to, okay, here's a piece of poetry, let's understand it, dissect it, inspect it, whatever. Well, if we get it, we get it. And if you don't get it, you can interpret it any way you want and you're correct. Give me a fucking break. Because when I say yellow, I mean yellow. Not canary, not banana, not sunlight, not coward. Fucking yellow. So if you got any of those other answers, you're fucking wrong. So since communication is never as linear as we would like to believe, when I get on stage and tumble out with these pieces of poetry, sometimes I'm very direct with language. Sometimes it's quite, I call it Wake Word. It's the way words come to me. I don't try to translate it. I juggle the juxtaposition and I put it down. Sometimes it's very cipher, very cryptic. Regardless of what the material is or how it's been crafted, my delivery is going to be the translator because even if you don't get it, I'm probably going to make you feel it. And that's even more important in some ways. So that's the long way around some of how I perceive the world perceives it. How I believe I can help reframe it. And I believe it's done primarily through performance because I have a 25-year career and I don't have anything published.

Melanie Nicholson: [00:09:11] But, and that's an interesting... I mean, when you think about it, when I think about my exposure to poetry growing up and I mean, I was in speech arts and drama and I was very well versed in the old white man poetry space.

Wakefield Brewster: [00:09:25] That's all there was.

Melanie Nicholson: [00:09:26] But to your point, the performance side you just didn't see, you didn't... Where I wasn't, I wasn't forced to interpret it myself. It was just there and I could feel the story. And then it just made sense and it clicked, which is sort of what you're talking about, Stacey, in terms of that click. And then on the flip side, we've got Stacey doing the same thing from a mixed media art. And that's what I love about this conversation of the two of you together, because we've got poetry and we've got mixed media art, and they're both profound ways of communication. Stacey, how are you taking stories from your world and putting them onto canvas?

Stacey Walyuchow: [00:10:07] As I listen to Wakefield, there's a lot of parallels because it is the arts. And though with poetry he was talking about the word yellow and it can't be canary or, oftentimes with mine, it's okay. They can interpret it a little bit differently, that's okay. I think that similarly, there's definitely one main meaning or thought behind each piece that I create, for sure, that is come out of my brain. It's my part of my story or composition that I came up with. However, it is going to be interpreted a million different ways. I'm okay with that in the sense that I kind of want my work to speak to people, something relatable to them in their lives potentially, or just evoke a feeling, like Wake said with the poetry as well. It might not totally get what I was coming forward with with the art, but they will have some sort of feeling that is evoked from being able to look at it. And I'm good with that.

Melanie Nicholson: [00:11:14] I want to hear from both of you about, we talked a bit about accessibility. In terms of again, we've looked at traditional art and the sharing of traditional art and art forms, when we look at online, I mean, Covid obviously forced everything online, Wake, you talk about performance being your primary medium, without rooms of people, you had to flip. What was that experience like for you and how did you continue to make, to focus on poetry being accessible to people through an online space?

Wakefield Brewster: [00:11:51] You are now looking at the result of it. When the pandemic hit, everything shut down, went online. What's the one thing artists always claim they don't have to be successful, and it's not money, it's time. So there I am as a massage therapist, spending 20 hours on transit, 40 hours somewhere, that's 60 hours a week, we get shut down for three months, that equates to 7200 hours. I said to myself, I have 72 consecutive hours. I've never had this in my life. What am I going to do with this? In my opinion, artists fell in three categories, just like people. There's something to do. You're either going to - and this happened because of age, so the older artists, elders who never embraced technology, they dug in their heels and didn't want to do it. They weren't ready to learn it. They weren't ready to go virtual. Then there's others who just, regardless of generation, just don't want, didn't want to. Just people just don't want to do shit sometimes. Then there's the middle band, which is most people, and they put in a half-assed effort and they get a half-ass result. They went to the gym for two weeks. They don't look like Arnold. They give up. Then there's those freaks like me in the third class, which is now I can be right where you see me right now, and I can be anywhere I want around the clock building my career. I didn't know how it was going to happen and I didn't have any straight lines. I decided to make myself my own epicenter and simply radiate online. Everyone was online and nowhere else. So if you had a presence online, you still had a performance presence. So that's what happened the two years before 2022. So 2020 to 2022. That's when I hit online and I was literally everywhere. I did fundraisers, I did community stuff, I did featured readings. I did open mics and I did them across the country and a few across the world because it's right here. So it was really easy to come out of Covid, that lockdown, and have a bunch of options during that interruption and new norms beginning. I totally can say the pandemic turned my career around 180 because we could go virtual. It was really hard for me to have this much reach in my own city unless you ended up at a show. Now places are asking me in because they've heard of me. It's a good presence. It's a dynamic performance and it's online. So sometimes in chaos there's opportunity, and sometimes disorder is a ladder. Unfortunately, the pandemic turned my career around.

Melanie Nicholson: [00:15:04] What was the most surprising thing through that period of time, through the online, was there anything that really just threw you off or surprised you that you had to sort of make any adjustments, or for you was it just, I am here and this is my space?

Wakefield Brewster: [00:15:18] I grew into the space. I didn't know what it entailed moving into the virtual space, but I knew it was still an interactive space, a communicative space, a performance space, an exhibition space. That's what I do live. That's what I'll do virtually. It was a, it's an adjustment, it's an adaptation, but it's really kind of a parallel shift. We used to watch The Flintstones and then we watched The Jetsons. We are living The Jetsons life. We just don't have a Rosie robot. Yes, we do. It's called a Roomba.

Melanie Nicholson: [00:15:55] I was like, uh...

Stacey Walyuchow: [00:15:57] That's what I call my Roomba. It's Rosie.

Wakefield Brewster: [00:16:01] It's right here and now and doing things hybrid and virtually it has, it has an exponential impact on your presence.

Melanie Nicholson: [00:16:16] Stacey, is the print, is art going that way? I mean, you have people buying your art from Europe. Is it because they can find you online?

Stacey Walyuchow: [00:16:27] Absolutely. I, just to kind of echo what Wake was saying about 2020, it was probably the best year I've ever had. Um, art sales. I was freaking out a little bit because...

Wakefield Brewster: [00:16:42] I saw it. Sold, sold, sold.

Stacey Walyuchow: [00:16:44] So I decided to make postcards for free because I needed something to do. And it's a really good exercise for me to do these little smaller things to imagine larger pieces. So I was making postcards and mailing them out for free to anybody that wanted them. And by doing that, it's like forced marketing, really. Like, maybe I should have done that a long time ago, but put in the situation with everybody else with this pandemic, that was what I needed to do for my own sanity. And then doing so, anytime I would produce a piece, they did sell relatively quickly. So it was, yeah, it was fantastic. And I think a lot of artists do not have gallery representation and you have to find another way to sell your work and to get it seen. And so though social media can be the bane of my existence some days and that of everybody else's, it is free and it is necessary. And if you use it properly, I think you can do a good job. And I'm still thinking I could probably use it a lot better than I do, as you know. But um, yeah, predominantly my sales come from Instagram.

Melanie Nicholson: [00:18:01] Good old Instagram.

Wakefield Brewster: [00:18:02] I applaud that. Thank you for saying that was so beautifully said. It absolutely was.

Stacey Walyuchow: [00:18:09] Thank you, sir.

Melanie Nicholson: [00:18:10] So it's 2023. Wakefield, you've got another year as poet laureate of Calgary, is that correct?

Wakefield Brewster: [00:18:19] Yes. Until April.

Melanie Nicholson: [00:18:20] What does that look like? What's your next...?

Wakefield Brewster: [00:18:24] It looks... this is the plan.

Melanie Nicholson: [00:18:28] I'm ready.

Wakefield Brewster: [00:18:30] It took 22 years to get to here. Now I get two years here. I work with numbers in a weird way because they show up. I'm going to put 22 years, that effort, into these two years. And hope I have 22 years of opportunities to work with later. I have to believe that on the way to becoming poet laureate, it's because I had the presence as a poet of the people. If I never became poet laureate, I, over time, may have made this much impact. It may have taken five more years. But I was never going to stop doing what I'm doing. So what else can I tell you? Except for I believe that after poet laureate-ship is over, I'm still always going to be Calgary's poet of the people because I tell our stories, not only mine. And I'm sticking around to tell our stories. I have never felt so at home. Nor have I ever been so embraced.

Melanie Nicholson: [00:19:43] What would you say, what would be your challenge to people who are unsure about poetry and that it's new for them? It's a, it's a different space for them. How would you challenge someone to open their purview and consider it in a different way?

Wakefield Brewster: [00:20:01] Please use the internet for things more than bully fights, cats and porn. Go and listen to a bunch of fucking poets who are... oh, I'm swearing all over the place. Is that okay?

Melanie Nicholson: [00:20:11] It's fine.

Wakefield Brewster: [00:20:12] Holy Freakonomics. Sorry. Didn't check in.

Melanie Nicholson: [00:20:16] You're fine.

Wakefield Brewster: [00:20:17] This is me. All right. Use the internet and go check out a bunch of poetry and stop reading it. Why don't you go and check out dynamic performance poets, not slam poets. Stop pigeonholing. Slam is a competition. It's just like a rap battle. Those poets that you see in slam atmospheres are like me, performance poets. We are a conduit to energy and we help you feel it poetically. Those are poets you want to engage in. No one is like me and no one is like anyone else. Sooner or later you're going to find stuff that appeals to you. That's generally it. Now, okay with any one thing in this world, because nothing is absolute, it might be like cilantro because people who don't like it, they never ever like it. I hear it's genetic. It will always taste like soap. They never want it.

Melanie Nicholson: [00:21:10] That's what I hear.

Wakefield Brewster: [00:21:11] Okay. I'm going to have to say there are some people that will never like it, but it is about language. I believe they've never heard their poetry. Do you get what I'm saying? They've never heard what speaks to their heart poetically yet. So you have to find it. You have to look for it. Do you really want it? You'll probably find it. Think of everything in life you wanted to find. Really wanted to find. It's a thing about being open to. And if your heart is not in it, it won't happen. So if you believe that listening to some loudmouthed poet say, Listen, I believe that you have a poetic heart and somehow your ear just hasn't heard those particular words, please get online and look for the poets that speak to people and maybe you'll hear your poet.

Melanie Nicholson: [00:22:09] And are we all better off if we try and listen to different things and expose ourselves to different concepts and ideas in the grand scheme of things?

Wakefield Brewster: [00:22:17] Yes. Considering I never wanted to be a poet.

Melanie Nicholson: [00:22:21] What did you want to be?

Wakefield Brewster: [00:22:25] Since I was six, I wanted to be one of the only black classical concert pianists playing in Europe and amphitheaters. Hundreds of white people on pianos that cost more than cars. That is a really weird dream for a black kid in the 70s of Toronto. And I don't know what it was about classical music. But I was drawn to it. And that's where I began. It's just, we're supposed to be living in this day and time and age where we're sharing stories. And words and actions may move at the speed of light now. And because we are becoming so more aware, we're having these quote/unquote tough conversations, due conversations, necessary conversations, and yeah, they're all fucking hard. I find that the arts, every single medium, the arts is the great translator. Because people can handle harder messages when translated through an art form. They don't always want the stem delivery of misogyny. Because it may just rattle their bones, but they can take a slight shaking when the theme of misogyny is inside of an art form that they can more easily bring themselves to. That is one of the greatest things I believe Stacey does, that I do and every artist does, is we attempt to be the great translators for every and all conversations. And that's really who I think we as artists are.

Melanie Nicholson: [00:24:37] But it's beautiful. And you really have just pivoted that into still being a performer and sharing an art form in a different way. It's amazing.

Stacey Walyuchow: [00:24:47] It sounds just as beautiful to anybody listening. It's amazing.

Wakefield Brewster: [00:24:50] Oh, that's kind.

Melanie Nicholson: [00:24:52] I love it. Stacey, what's next for you?

Stacey Walyuchow: [00:24:56] Oh, I'm just painting my face off. That's all. Painting. It's all I can do, you guys, it's all I can do.

Melanie Nicholson: [00:25:04] I love it.

Stacey Walyuchow: [00:25:05] Yeah. Just working away.

Melanie Nicholson: [00:25:07] I love it. Thank you both. I think, I'm a firm supporter of the arts. I love the arts. I love the different ways as a communicator, I love how the arts is a way to communicate to different people and help people understand different challenges and social issues. And I think that it becomes such an important tool within our communities to help people understand tough issues in a different way. And I love, I love that. So thank you both for the work you do and how you're communicating and just all of it. Thank you both.

Wakefield Brewster: [00:25:46] Thank you so very much. Thank you both.

Melanie Nicholson: [00:25:52] What an incredible conversation. I, as I said in the conversation with Wakefield and Stacey, I am a firm supporter of the arts. I believe in the power of art to communicate, to help break through some of these tough conversations. Wakefield talked about that as well. So grateful to be able to have that candid conversation. Thank you, Wakefield and Stacey, for joining us today. Thank you for listening. Please, like subscribe and consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. We'll catch you next time on It's a Theory.