bleed into other aspects of people’s lives outside of their art. But in smaller and more isolated communities, performance can be much more of a spectacle or an escape from normality, and the appreciation of it can have a different intensity. Well… Here’s what I think. In a small town the trend might be that performance becomes a form of escapism for people. Where as here—I just feel hyper aware of myself here, and when you’re surrounded by more people who are performing, it becomes unclear where the performance ends and where your truth starts. In a way, people here might be more inclined to recalibrate their lives and create themselves through performance, rather than escape themselves through performance. What informs your voice as a writer? In your writing for Model/Actriz there are a lot of references to abuse of power, sexuality, and confronting an unforgivable past. What do you hope to communicate with
your writing and what has helped shape how you go about communicating that? I think the writing for Model/Actriz has been about atoning for and celebrating the ugly parts of the human condition and providing a space in which people—myself first—can feel more whole. For people who are unaware of the band’s history, we’re coming back from a hiatus now, and I think the way that I’m approaching the writing now is less so about creating a laundry list of things that I find disturbing and more so about incorporating the dailiness of life. It’s more about the general absurdity of going about your day. I think the person that I was when I started writing for the band was still in a way intimidated by the person that I felt like I needed to be onstage. The way that I was writing was to fill this idea of who I thought I should be. It was still my thoughts and my beliefs. But now, through having more life experiences, I feel less inclined to become something more than what I am right now. That’s the way that I’m