Interview with Eleni Kelakos

We have a fun job! We interview real people with real creative lives. Both Alyse and Jayne live in cities with many interesting creative people. Who says you have to live on the coast to have a creative life! Well, I guess Alyse, does live on the coast, in Long Island NY . Jayne lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the heart of the Midwest. We don’t have to dig very deep to find people who are genuinely living creatively and were willing to share. We believe you will be fascinated and inspired by their stories. You may even put some of their suggestions into practice.

This time we spoke with Eleni Kelakos who resides in Ann Arbor (Formerly of New York and Los Angeles). Eleni is an active member of the business community with her Communications Coaching and can also be seen on stage performing musical theater or her own music. She is an accomplished singer/songwriter with several CDs to her credit. Jayne and Eleni both felt an immediate connection when they first met at the Ann Arbor Chamber meeting last year. She generously shares the wisdom she has gained on her creative path.

Here are a few highlights of our conversation with Eleni.

I’ve created a program, (The Tallest Poppy Program) … that involves a one-woman theatrical show with music and monologs based loosely on me, Eleni, and my life as the Tallest Poppy. I wear a Tallest Poppy costume. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a six foot woman in a green tutu with petals around her head. Really, it’s empowering. It’s thought provoking. It’s designed especially to get girls right at that "cuspy" period when they are moving into adolescence, when they are being told by their peers and by the general media "diminish yourself, be less than your are." I’m saying, "Be everything you can be, what ever that is, and celebrate being unique."

I’m asking my SPEEK clients to do the exact same thing… I give permission to give yourself permission to be everything you can be. I am an artist coming in to the business world with the intention of remaining an artist in the business community because I feel it’s really needed!

JB: What are you doing right now?

EK: I’m doing several things. I started a company a year and a half ago called SPEEK, Speaking Powerfully and Effectively, with Eleni Kelakos, meaning me. Essentially I use my acting background and many years of performing, I apply the techniques and tools I learned there to speeches and presentations that are brought to me by various people in the business community. I help them take those speeches to a different level entirely, to make them more dynamic, expressive. What I’m really doing is helping people be present and explore some of the issues that hold them back from feeling, so they can be alive and in the moment. That’s my goal, because, as an actor and as a performer that is an essential element of being able to communicate effectively… and. something that’s really comfortable and familiar to me, but alien to the people I’m working with. So my job as a coach is to push people there and keep them in it and then see what happens. Then keep moving them along to other areas where they can learn and grow.

I’ve been touring as a singer and songwriter for the last 10-12 years. I’m doing short tours to various parts of the country and I perform for listening rooms, where people actually sit quietly and actually listen to the music, so I don’t perform in clubs or bars. I perform in concert series and festivals. That is enormously satisfying to me.

I have my Tallest Poppy project which is my heart-based project. It stems out of a song that I wrote called the "The Tallest Poppy." This song is about a little poppy in a poppy field who dares to defy the law of Poppyland and grow taller than the other poppies. In so doing she catalyzes and encourages the other little poppies to break through limits and be everything they can be, just like she has done. This song appealed to a lot of moms and spiritual centers. Teachers loved this song. As a result I’ve created a program around it that involves a one-woman theatrical show with music and monologs based loosely on me, Eleni and my life as the Tallest Poppy. I wear a Tallest Poppy costume. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a six foot woman in a green tutu with petals around her head. I’ve created workshops that can be done in tandem with the performance that enforce the tenets of the song. Really, it’s empowering. It’s thought provoking. It’s designed especially to get girls right in that "cuspy" period when they are moving into adolescence, when they are being told by their peers and by the general media "diminish yourself, be less than your are." I’m saying, "Be everything you can be what ever that is and celebrate being unique."

JB: That’s excellent! And you are really living the Tallest Poppy metaphor in your coaching.

EK: Yeah. To me the Tallest Poppy Project and SPEEK are one in the same, but the approach is different. One is for adults. I’m asking my SPEEK clients to do the exact same thing. I’m asking them to celebrate who they are and bring it forth, whatever that is. Everybody needs that encouragement, I think. And everybody has something marvelous inside of them that’s screaming to come out and to be encouraged. It just takes another person to say, "You know what? I give permission to give yourself permission to be everything you can be." I am an artist coming in to the business world with the intention of remaining an artist in the business community because I feel it’s really needed!

JB: There’s a lot of overlap in the entrepreneurial mind and practice with the creative process.

EK: I agree. I think creative business leaders have a lot in common with actors, great actors anyway. That’s the general philosophy that I share with you anyway. These are creative human beings. These are problem solving human beings, great performers. Actors, I’ll stick with actors, are problem solvers. You are given a problem, serious problem to solve- make this script work. What are you there to do? What choices are you making to solve the problem? My teacher, Michael Howard, used to tell us, "You want to solve the scene." He would use the word solve. What do you need to do here to solve the scene? So, it’s essentially a creative approach in all of these forums.

JB: Have you always wanted to do what you are doing now?

EK: Yeah.

JB: How did you get started?

EK: Well, that’s a very good question. I remember the first time I was on stage. I was a little girl living in Paris and we did a little stage production in school. We had to sing, "She’ll be coming around the mountain when she comes." And we had made costumes and so forth. I remember being on a big stage with lights, in my costume, with hoop earrings made out of paper. I had a big paper mache skirt, which I ripped, and was skipping around and singing at the top of my lungs. I knew my mom was out in the audience. I was singing for her, you know. She said, "Honey, I heard you all the way in the back of the hall!" And I had no doubt that she did because I was loud, and ebullient. I was a little diva growing up. I had a lot of energy and I was one of those little kids who constantly sang. I was making songs up all the time to the point that my brother tried to get me to shut up. We would go on drives and I would be in the back going "sing, sing, sing." He would sing off key just to shut me up. But I knew early on.

I was living in Israel, and I was cast in a TV show for kids. They needed English speaking actors. They came to the American school and they picked people to go read and they picked me and that was fun. Then I did a play a couple years later. I thought it was the coolest thing in the whole world. I was in choirs and I had a couple of teachers who mentored me early on. Mr. Bick, my English teacher, directed one of the plays. And he said, "I’m going to say this to you, and I want you to hear it and I want you to put it in your back pocket. You could be a professional actor if you wanted to. You could be a professional performer. Think about it, you got what it takes." I was in ninth grade. That was a very heady thing to hear. I took that stuff seriously.

I learned how to play guitar just about then and any chance I had to express myself that way I did it. I just loved it. I was a writer too. I was very verbal. I liked to write, I liked to sing, I liked to be on stage. I was not afraid to be on stage either. I did it pretty naturally. I was pretty clear about what I wanted. I did grapple with it.

I had to choose between Brown University and Boston University and Boston University had a strict theater program. But I had to go through hell trying to figure out which place should I go to. Dad’s paying the bill. He wanted me to go to Brown. I went to Brown and I graduated with a degree in Theater and Semiotics. I double majored. It took me over a year to let myself do a play at Brown, because I felt, by choosing to go there, I hadn’t given myself permission to really be a real actress. If I had gone to BU, in my head, I would have been at a professional training school (for actors.)

JB: What is semiotics?

EK: That’s the study of signs and symbols within and between cultures, very esoteric. It allowed me to do many things including interning at a TV station, take advanced writing courses, journalism. I almost became a journalist. That was one path I was sorely tempted to take. I was offered a job writing for the Brown Alumni Monthly as staff writer. I really thought about it. But instead I got cast in summer theater and did that. That was that, and I moved to New York and pursued that whole life there. Then I moved to LA and continued to try and do more TV and film. And then began to sing. I had been in a band in college. I had been writing songs for awhile, but I resumed seriously writing them in the early part of the 90’s after I got divorced from my first husband and I just got pummeled with songs. I made way for them. And one thing led to another. I recorded a CD and toured it. And recorded another one toured that and recorded another one and toured that and here I am.

JB: sounds like you have been very fortunate to have the opportunities and be open to opportunities at a very early age.

EK: Well, I had support too. My dad basically supported it, financially too. I was very lucky that way. I had a bit of a safety net. My mom was a creative artist. She was a visual artist who had never really fully let that be. She wasn’t able to go to school. She was limited and she didn’t want me to be limited. My dad just wanted me to go to a good school. He was dead set on me getting a good education. I was a good student. I pooh-poohed getting in to Brown sometimes. They were just starting to let women in, and I attributed being accepted there to that.. But you know what, I got in there because I was I good student. I was a good choice for them, and I’m proud of it. I had support and also I was determined. I really wanted it. My husband reminds me of this constantly. "You’ve kept going." I’ve kept finding ways to reinvent myself. I utilize what it is that I do. I’m less afraid of diluting it. When I was first starting, I could only do this or I could only do that. I could never do commercials; that’s not pure. I spent many years financially…in a constant battle. I’m a six foot tall, exotic looking woman trying to be that in Hollywood. I’m a strong woman, not the acquiescing …

JB: Ingenue?

EK: Not that. I never have been and I never fit in anywhere. That’s why this Tallest Poppy really was born because I didn’t fit in anywhere. Instead of struggling to fit in I decided to feel really good about what I am and call it a day, to let that be. I’m tall, by God, I’m going to be tall. Don’t downplay yourself.

JB: Do feel like you are fully creatively satisfied at this point?

EK: Yes.

JB: If money were no object?

EK: I’d record a Christmas album. I’ve always wanted to do that. That’s what (local singer-songwriter)Annie Gallup and I talk about doing; some kind of innovative, interesting, beautiful Christmas album. I want to publish the Tallest Poppy book. Mostly, I think, if there were money it would be to fund projects. I love there being money to do things. I like my own money going into do things so I don’t have to sacrifice my integrity in any way, shape or form. I’m sure about how I want things to come out from a creative standpoint. I’m a pretty good producer. I’m detailed oriented and I’m focused. I would develop an interactive Tallest Poppy web site that would be a place for kids to go to, that they could chat with each other. And I would really put a lot of money into the Tallest Poppy Project. I just really want to create some kind of center that would really encourage discussion and conversation and creative projects. Actually, I love to study, I’d love to go back to school and study a few things. I’d love to go to the department of sociology. I’d love to learn more about the development of girls, communication issues between people, between men and women. There’s a lot of stuff that really interests me. Bliss is the things that money can buy: learning and creative control.

JB: Some people think the highest thing you can do as an artist is to make a living from your art, but then you risk having to create for your audience or not get paid.

EK: It’s a really tricky thing. I have really strong feelings about this. I believe artists of all kinds should be paid well for their work. This one thing collectively that artists do is to enable people to take advantage of them. We don’t set boundaries, we are willing to do it for nothing. We’re the ones that are going to raise the benchmark that way. If we let other people treat us that way then artists will be treated that way. The basic attitude that artists starve, and artists are poor is absolutely ludicrous. It doesn’t need to be that way, but we keep perpetuating it by our own actions and by our own beliefs. I really think that’s a huge issue right across the board for every kind of artists, for writers, for any kind of artist or creative person.

JB: what strategies have you discovered to support your creative life?

EK: It means marketing myself and really looking at what I do well. Creating SPEEK was a great example of this. What can I teach ? What is it I want to teach ? What need is there out there ? I spent a lot of time watching people giving presentations and I would sit squirming in the audience, thinking they could use a little help. I started to pay attention to that.

Over the years I’ve been encouraging myself to pay attention to the clues I get. We all get big fat clues if we just take a moment to breathe and be there with them. What would happen if I tried doing this? I’m just taking one step at a time with this. The Tallest Poppy Project is a great example. Jim was saying to me, "There are a million singer songwriters out there, there aren’t a million doing the Tallest Poppy Project." The fact of the matter is, it’s a very special, a very special thing coming very much out of me. That’s what makes it unique. I feel I am a healer. I use my art as that medium. I’m not declaring that I am a healer, but what I do has a healing element that I’ve become aware of over the years. And I take it seriously.

Being open to expanding my universe instead of holding on to one idea of what it should be like, has been crucial: Listening for the clues, and looking for the clues and then taking action, and holding firm. There are so many people out there who say, "You can’t do that," or "That’s crazy!" or "why do you always write dark songs about difficult topics shouldn’t you be writing happy, happy things?

JB: Let’s talk about financial independence part. What are your strategies for financial independence to give yourself the artistic freedom you want?

EK: That’s a very good question. Well, I’ve invested in myself. I’ve actually put money into my own projects. I have decided that something is important enough to invest savings in. I’ve helped myself go to another level by not being afraid to take money from one place, and putting in to another aspect of my business to help me get to where I want to go.

When I first started writing songs again, I was making this big shift from being an actor and a sporadically working actor. It was very hard for me. I either worked or not. There were no gray areas. As I was making the shift, I worked several years as a party manager at a catering company. What I liked about it was I left a part of me alone. I could go to this job which was actually great fun and really creative, and do it and leave it. And then come back and write my songs. I was willing to do that at that time. I was willing to have the money coming from someplace else. I wanted to be able to write my songs. I didn’t know what I was going to be doing with them. I just knew I had to write them. Choosing that other job let me do that. Then, when I was ready, I began recording and touring out there. I made the shift and stopped catering eventually. I had sort of leveraged it. I didn’t leave some job that I loved and was completely invested in. I kept my art very clean. I’ve learned to live simply. Because to me there was great magic in what I was doing.

It’s only been in recent years that I’ve taken a long-term approach where I’ve started to look at the future. I was always frugal, never had much credit card debit. When I got a chunk of change I would pay it all off. I started building a retirement fund. Several years ago, I noticed that a lot of people creative people I knew were flying by the seat of their pants financially. I worry about them. I’ve always had health insurance. I paid for it. It might have to be catastrophic, but I had it. I’m a daughter of a very practical scientist and a very emotionally big, charismatic artist mother. So there are these two elements. I’m still pretty practical.

JB: One of the ideas we are exploring in Get a Creative Life is the establishing of residual income. As artist there are royalties, of course, but there are other things we can do to create a business asset.

EK: I believe in creating assets. I consider things like royalties. I have the intention to write a book, actually 2 books. One of them is about SPEEK and the other is about the Tallest Poppy Program. I am also creating a script that can go in to the school system that the kids can augment with their experiences, thoughts and written words and I would go in at the end to perform it. I’m looking for stuff that can produce income that I don’t have to be present to earn. There’s only one me.

JB: That’s the limitation we all face. We only have so much time.

EK Right we are limited. I would like to eventually train people to go out and do this.

JB: Like a franchise?

EK: Yeah, I’d have independent contractors, artists, performers. Have them go out in the world have them do it. I would get a percentage of that and more people would be served.

JB: There are concepts in the business world, like franchising that can be applied here.

EK: Sure. I think being open to different ways of financing things and marketing things is essential.

JB: One more, quick question: Who are your role models?

EK: One of them is a director by the name of Ann Bogart. She is a real risky exciting director. She had her own methodology. It’s very kinetic. I worked with her once in LA and I would ask her, "How was that" and she would give you a smile and say, "Could be more." So you’d do it again. I admire her because she would not back down.

Also, my mother. She was creative every second of the day. Even setting the table was a creative act. She was vital. Things excited her, she was passionate. She taught me that if you could envision it you could do it.

Also, Doug Messenger, the producer of my CD. He’s a Princeton Graduate, very bright and artistic. Left of center Always questioning, always reading, always growing as a human being. He does not compromise. He holds to his values and ideals.

JB: Books you recommend on the creative path:

EK: Writing down the bones. By Natalie Goldberg. A huge seminal influence for me was Ayn Rand’s, Atlas Shrugged. It’s the element of reaching high and not being mediocre that’s huge for me. It’s about celebrating your uniqueness.

JB: Last tips for getting a creative life?

EK: Act now on impulse, don’t wait. Invite the muse. Ignite the muse, don’t wait. Creativity breeds creativity so start in one area and move into another creative area. Sometimes we stop trying because we are stuck when we are just at a little impasse. When you are truly in the flow of creating, it is divinity itself. It is the ultimate reason we are here. Just do it!

JB: Thank you so much!

Comments

[sopitikoj]

Hi all!

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G'night