Anger as a Generative Force, Care as a World View
Integrating Spirituality, Ancestry and Legacy to Create Generative Power
M. Carmen Lane spills on the nausea of emotional “self-care”, crankiness as generative fuel for creation, coping with change within change within change, and the need for all of us humans to truly consider what it means to be living together.
M. Carmen Lane is a two:spirit African-American and Haudenosaunee (Mohawk/Tuscarora) artist, writer and facilitator living in Cleveland, Ohio. Lane’s work ranges from experiential educator to diversity practitioner to organizational systems consultant to experimental artist—all of it integrates ancestry, legacy, and spirituality; pursues expansion, experimentation, and play. Lane is founder and director of ATNSC: Center for Healing & Creative Leadership, an urban retreat, residency and exhibition space; a social practice experiment in holistic health, equity leadership and Indigenous arts and culture in the historic Buckeye-Shaker neighborhood. Lane’s work has been published in numerous journals and anthologies including the Yellow Medicine Review, Red Ink Magazine, Anomaly, and the Lambda Literary Award-nominated Sovereign Erotics: A Collection of Two Spirit Literatures. Lane’s first collection of poetry is Calling Out After Slaughter (2015). Lane has exhibited work during the FRONT 2018 triennial group show by Michael Rakowitz, A Color Removed at SPACES Gallery and at EFA Project Space’s Spring 2019 exhibition In The Presence of Absence. Lane was a 2018 Creative Fusion artist-in-residence and recipient of the 2019 Room In The House artist residency at the historic Karamu theatre. In 2020, Lane was awarded a Joyce Award with ATNSC: Center for Healing and Creative Leadership and artist-in-residence at Northwestern University.
Lane attended Earlham College receiving their BA in Women’s Studies with a focus in feminist art history, theory & criticism and later earned their MS in Organization Development & Change from American University. Lane was a recipient of both the AU/NTL Segal-Seashore Fellowship and Hal Kellner Award. Lane is an Amanda Fouther scholar/member of NTL Institute for Applied Behavioral Science and Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers. In 2016, they became a birth/postpartum and end-of-life doula through Doula Trainings International.
Listen Now!
Also available on…
What We Cover:
00:36 - On the palpable power of Carmen
8:45 - Meet M. Carmen Lane
9:35 - An intervention as to what is possible; Arts and culture, birth work, end of life work, traditional healing… all in one place! The social practice experiment that is ATNSC: Center for Healing & Creative Leadership
12:08 - Crankiness as fuel. How anger can be a purifying spirit and generative force
14:44 - The difference between a white girl and a person of color starting an art gallery in a garage
16:25 - The wonders of a wild garden
17:34 - Reclaiming one’s place, literally.
25:36 - Opening a physical space in the pandemic
29:04 - The connection between public lynchings and the media today and how Mamie Till’s choice to show her son’s body was an intervention
35:53 - You need to know yourself to know how you can be useful to yourself and the world
38:21 - On working from your bed
40:07 - Pandemic as postpartum life
41:57 - How saying “no” is taking care of your wellbeing…as is eating an entire bag of popcorn
50:08 - Commodifying care
53:23 - Hitting your edge. Discovering what needs to shift
55:13 - Change within change within chnage
57:25 - Bonnie Raitt
58:46 - Gen X is percolating…and MTV’s The Real World
1:02 - The spinner game: Where did you learn about sex or reproductive systems and who did you wish you learned it from?
Resources + Cont. Learning:
100% of donations goes towards our programming in support of reproductive health.
