accountability — blog — Danielle Mohlman

I started teaching Crafting Your Artistic Handbook last week and I’m so happy with the group of artists who’ve opted into this class. They’re all so incredibly talented, smart, and excited to put the work into their artwork. They even indulged me in a class photo last week. Look at all our smiling faces!

This week, we focused on different modes of accountability — a theme that could really take over the entire six week series if we let it. I brought in four different accountability structures that I’ve tried over the course of my career: two that I’ve abandoned and two that I still use to this day.

CYAHDanielle MohlmanMay 14, 2019artistic accountability, accountability, Crafting Your Artistic HandbookComment

Crafting Space for Documentation

I live my life surrounded by so much paper. A pile of books sits in my windowsill — a combination of library books I’ll certainly never finish before their due date and books and plays I own, texts I dream of reading one day. Bookshelves tuck into every corner of my apartment — under the windowsill, inside an unused closet, below my growing collection of plants. The wall in front of my desk is papered with postcards from friends across the country, women who mean it every single time they say “Wish you were here!” Even my calendar is paper, much to the dismay of my super tech savvy bestie and my partner, a man who knows his schedule at a glance. Flipping through his calendar is a silent activity. Flipping through mine is percussive.

CYAHDanielle MohlmanApril 29, 2019accountability, artistic accountability, documentationComment

Crafting Your Welcome Letter

When I set out to write my own Artistic Handbook last April, I had no idea where to start. I knew what I wanted to include in my handbook — I had a list as long as my arm that featured everything from the phrase “standard operating hours” to “play ideas” to “working out of town.” I had a ton of rules for how I’d operate in the American theatre landscape, all of which I’d broken at some point or another. And I had an overwhelming task ahead of me: a 70+ page artistic handbook that was fully searchable, fully functional, and fully me.