Thought Residencies

This is Wednesday January 10th, and this is my Fifth thought. Today, I'm in New York City pitching at the ISPA conference. I'm pitching Children of God, its a musical that I premiered last year in Vancouver and in Ottawa. And my thought for today is how even after you've created a show and produced that show, and feel that you know everything about that show, that you really don't know everything...

This my fourth thought. I think this has probably been on a lot of people's minds lately if you are following what has been happening in Toronto with Soulpepper. But I have been thinking about how grateful I am to Hannah Miller, Patricia Fagan, Diana Bentley and Kristin Booth for their bravery in the last week in coming forward and speaking up for what they know is the truth. I think that the next...

It's January 4, 2018 and this is my third thought. You guys, tomorrow is my birthday. My birthday is January 5, I'm turning 31... I think... yes... 31? No, yes I've already turned 30. I always have this problem of not actually knowing what year, and I always have to do the math to get there. No... you know, it is. I'm turning 31. (Laughs) Umm... I don't feel 31 but I also don't feel younger than t...

Today is January 3, 2018 and this is my second thought.   Immediately after sending my first thought, my next thought was how unoriginal I was. And how I was talking about creativity and yet my first thought that I was sharing had a lack of it. So I thought my second thought would be about fear and doubt. I think it's interesting how our thoughts turn to the negative and how these sort of, vampire...

Hi, this is Corey and it's January 2, 2018 and this is my first thought. I'm always thinking about ways to be more creative and how to carve out time for creativity even in the smallest way. I think that's what I'm going to try to get better at, is planning for creativity and making space for it in my day. I've heard a lot of people talk about this and it sounds like it's successful, it sounds lik...

Hello this is Adrienne Wong, Thought Resident for the Spiderwebshow December 2017 with three thoughts for the end of the year and this is number three. YOU. You are the person who is listening to this right now. Maybe you're my Mom, maybe you're my sisters, maybe you're my friends, maybe you don't know me from a pile of potatoes. You are so important to me. You are the reason that I make anything,...

Hello, this is Adrienne Wong, Thought Resident for the Spiderwebshow December 2017. I have three thoughts for the end of the year and it's about darkness. Um. Blech. I don't like thinking about darkness. It's enough to drive me towards my addictions: alcohol, social media, season 2 of The Crown. So for the next year I want to embrace it. To wrap it around me like a cloak, like a badge of honour an...

Hi this is Adrienne Wong, Thought Resident for Spiderwebshow December 2017. These are three thoughts for the end of the year. One. Solitude. (Laughs) Do we seek it out, or is it thrust upon us, like greatness? And is it like the seasons, turning and changing our perceptions of it? In a way I think solitude is like water. That it feeds the growth inside, but too much of it can flood our selves away...

This is Adrienne Wong, Thought Resident for Spiderwebshow, December 2017. I'm thinking– I don't want to start them this way! (laughs) I'm thinking that I don't want to start about what I'm thinking about. Because uh, of course I'm thinking about it! It's a thought residency . Blah! Boring! So I guess I'm thinking about being obvious and is being obvious always the… wrong thing to do? Is it sometim...

Good morning, this is Adrienne Wong thought resident for the Spiderwebshow, December 2017. Let's talk about agreement and conflict. Um… Is agreement necessary to making art–with collaborators? I guess, ultimately, you do have to agree on what's going to happen in the space of time that you call the performance. Or do you? Um. What does it mean if a piece has a part in it that you don't want to hav...

Hello, this is Adrienne Wong. Thought Resident for the Spiderwebshow, December 2017. I am... forgetting things lately. Uh. Maybe it's not so much lately, but I certainly have noticed it more. Um. So… here I have forgotten to do this thought and I'm... thinking about why I forgot. Because isn't it said that we remember the things that are important to us. So maybe this... thinking isn't important t...

Hello, this is Adrienne Wong, Thought Resident for Spiderwebshow – December 2017. I'm trying to get better. I'm trying to work harder, to be more efficient—to work smarter, not harder—and get better at what I do and that's really hard because I can't always explain to other people (nevermind myself) what it is exactly that I do. So how does one get better at something kinda unnameable. Of course,...

Hello, this is Adrienne Wong, Thought Resident for Spiderwebshow, December 2017 with Thought Number 5. Right now I'm thinking about deadlines. I'm late submitting this thought aaand it seems like I am late with pretty much everything these days: late getting to meetings, making supper, getting to bed, etcetera, etcetera... Uhh… And yet at the same time I have to admit deadlines are pretty importan...

Hello this is Adrienne Wong, Spiderwebshow Thought Resident December 2017. This is Thought #4. Right now, I'm thinking about community. Uhh… And how hard it is to make stuff if you don't…  have it! Um. ( laugh ) Who are you making this thing for? Who's gonna watch it? Who's gonna want to see it? Who's gonna listen? But moreover who's going to be the one to... help you... think. Uh… I truly believe...

Hello this is Adrienne Wong, Thought Resident for Spiderwebshow, December 2017. Let's talk about gifts because after all, tis the season. I remember, when I was a kid, my Mom teaching me how to choose a gift for another person. She taught me to think about what the person might like and then to find that thing. And so even though I don't really like all the buying and spending and spending and buy...

Hi, it's me, Adrienne Wong, Spiderwebshow Thought Resident, December 2017 with my second thought. It's 8:30pm and I'm finally sitting still. After a long day. And it makes me wonder: do you take a break every day? I don't. And... that makes me wonder: do I even know how to relax anymore? Do I even know what I like to do to relax? Everything I can think of... that I like to do... has to do with wor...

Hello this is Adrienne Wong. I am the SpiderWebShow thought resident for December 2017. I'm in my car right now. I've just picked up a wood rasp from my friend. I'm borrowing it so that my father-in-common-law (who's visiting right now) can help us with our drawers in the kitchen. Make them less sticky. I've traded two cans of Coke Zero and two slices of black forest cape–cake, although I don't ex...

Hi this is Michael Wheeler and this is my final thought.  I think for the arts to really thrive in Canada we need to radically reshape the way that Arts Councils work. Operating funding works on a system where the older the company is, the more money they have. If you started a company in the 70s you have good money, 80s still pretty good, 90s getting rough, and by the time you get to the 00s you'...

I've been reading a lot about how automation is going to change the nature of work - that it won't just be factories, but it will be lawyers and accountants, and even doctors. So much of what humans do as work currently will be automated through robots and algorithms. And then the question is what do we do with our time? Now that our bodies are not required to generate capital. And, uh , i don't k...

Is there anything more anachronistic than the Royal family? Who cares about this wedding? Why do we care? Why do we allow this family to be on our money, to avoid paying taxes, to have to sign our laws? What have they done? They've accumulated wealth. They do not adhere to any democratic principles and yet we place them at the top of our society. Let's evolve as a people. Let's take agency into ou...

If the reason a society should support artwork is that it is an economic driver that contributes to a creative economy, if we were to determine that art did not drive the economy, should we then not have art? 

Hear that sound? Hear that sound? That's the Fisher Price, I don't know, "bounce and play" I'm gonna call it. Anyhow, this thought is about being a parent and how before I was one I was sure that it would be hard because how would I get any work done with all the diapers and the no sleeping and carrying and bouncing and uhh it is really hard to get work done but not for those reasons. Mostly becau...

One of the things that's different about hiring Canadian than American is we celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving. Much earlier. Mid-October. This means there's no breaks between Mid-October and Christmas. We go straight. No holidays. No nothin. Just workin. Hard. Dark. Days. Gettin it. Done.

I first joined Twitter in December of 2011. Since they I have made, apparently 19.2 thousand tweets. And all those little messages that I have sent out into the universe have reshaped how I use language. In particular, how I can be brief in making my point. Now that Twitter has doubled the character limit to 280, I imagine this will shape again the way that I use language to express myself, aaand...

A recurring concept in the arts is: Entrepreneurship. How can artists be Entrepreneurs? And one one hand i think that's a really amazing idea, and in particular that artists can control their own destiny by being entrepreneurs that make their own work. And on the other hand, the idea that art should be profit-driven is antithetical to what makes it valuable.