Hello all Grazia readers [update: article scans!]

Click through for larger versions of the article

Hi everyone who found me through my two-pager in Grazia (Australia)! I answered a callout on SourceBottle last week and got called in for a photoshoot and an interview. I was surprised at the space - I honestly thought it would be just a headshot and a paragraph! Now I can say I'm in the pages of a mainstream women's fashion magazine ;)

Just some things about me that the article probably didn't make very clear:

• I'm not that desperate for a job, haha! I was pretty desperate by mid last year, before my parents' allowance stepped in, and there are months where I often wonder when or if I'll get any income. I find that things tend to sort itself out, though yes, if it weren't for my boyfriend (who works as a web developer) or my parents I would definitely be in much worse conditions!
  
  
• Despite what the article implies, I do actually have stacks of experience. I've been active with events, festivals, non-profits, media, social enterprise, culture, youth, and performing arts in one way or another since about 2001 - possibly earlier. Here are my latest resumes (professional and performance). I get a LOT of praise and rave reviews about my resumes - both the look of them and the diverse range of experience - but I never seem to have the "exactly right" experience they're after. Which can be befuddling, especially when they don't seem to know what they're after either.
  
  
• The freelance stage and events management work I do that was mentioned in the article is as The Merch Girl. As Tiara the Merch Girl I create performance art, assist creative productions & creators with their administrative or menial tasks, and am growing into event & project production. I love being The Merch Girl, and if I could I would just like to keep doing all sorts of creative projects and not worry about being properly "employed". But, as the article says, the money isn't reliable or much, so at this stage it would be good to have a part-time job that allows me enough flexibility for me to work on my own projects. (Or have people sponsor/hire me enough to just be The Merch Girl full-time. Ooo!) Besides that, I also do some temp childcare work from tiem to time.
  
  
• The main drama surrounding my jobhunting is actually my Bridging visa. I came to Brisbane from Malaysia in 2006 for university and hung around to pursue performance and production opportunities. I applied for Australian permanent residency in May 2009, and while theoretically it means I can work just about anywhere anytime, realistically a lot of companies and agencies have no idea what to with you. The visa doesn't have an end date, despite being temporary (it expires 28 days after a decision is made on your PR application), so sometimes even forms don't work for me. I've had HR in companies knock back my application in seconds because they didn't understand the bridging visa (one time HR was telling me my visa was ineligible, at the same time the direct supervisor of the role I was applying for asked me to come in for an interview). The vagaries and inconsistencies of the migration system in Australia is something I am deeply passionate about. I suspect my ethnic last name may be a factor too.
  
  
• I don't tend to write job applications at 2 in the morning - I like my sleep! - though I have done job applications in the middle of the might mainly due to jetlag. I did reach a point where I was applying for every job possible, not getting anywhere, and feeling physically ill - just looking at job advertisements made me sick. Now I've pared down my approach; I only apply for roles and/or companies that feel like a great match with my skills, ethos, and personality.

Here are some other articles I've written about the jothunting process:

Should I change my name for a job?
On software and the job-hunting process
Tiara, Brisbane, and the Creative Industries - let's work together!

And once again, my resumes, and my work as The Merch Girl.

Feel free to get in touch if you have any questions, want to commiserate, or perhaps have a job offer!

On software and job-hunting.

I recently received a call from a recruiter, responding to a job application I made. I had been jobhunting for over a year with very little success - creative work via The Merch Girl and other courses is sporadic and unpredictable, and I needed a regular source of income that wasn't parental - so any response beyond "Sorry, no", especially over the telephone, would be greeted with excitement.

She asked me if I've typed up tenders. I haven't, specifically, but I am excellent at typing and have worked with all sorts of official documents.

"What kinds?" Almost everything - strategy plans, reports, employee handbooks, student databases, contracts, articles, marketing, the whole gamut. My typing speeds are phenomenal (78 wpm, 21900 ksph) and I knew that I could deal with tenders very easily.

"And this is all in Word?" I recall a conversation I had with another recruiter, this one more focused on getting me a job and helping me apply to more entry-level non-specific work. She had given me a link to a test on Word 2007 (most of it being "find this function hidden in a really inane spot on the toolbar and don't rely on F1"), and told me to list out all the software I was proficient in.

I was incredulous. I had enough experience with all sorts of office software, starting from Lotus 1-2-3 and Harvard Graphics in my childhood (I was a bit of a dork...) through to MS Works and Wordperfect, to the MS Office Suites, and now predominantly working with OpenOffice and Google Docs. Most office suites run the same way; if you know one, you know them all. Any hitches can easily be resolved with Help pages and Google searches. Even if I wasn't familiar with them, I could look it up easily and learn it on the spot. Listing every possible software brand would take up a whole PAGE!

Surely I could just categorise them? Office software, word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, databases, desktop publishing, accounts? According to my recruiter, no - most other recruiters and HR people are after specific keywords and won't take the time to decipher what "word processing" means, let alone work out that I am pretty flexible and can deal with any sort of software.

So I said "Yes", even though I haven't really worked with Word for at least a year now. Her next question proved my regular recruiter's point:

"Do you know Adobe?"

Well, Adobe what? I know of the company, sure, but which software do you mean? Image editing like Photoshop or Illustrator? PDF managers like Acrobat? The Macromedia suite - Dreamweaver, Flash, Shockwave - that they bought over? AIR? Film editing, sound editing, 3D? Why do you need to know?

She flustered for a bit. Stumbled. Then she asked: "Do you know Adobe Writer?"

There's no such thing as Adobe Writer!

There's Adobe Acrobat, which deals with editing and writing PDFs. But were they wanting me to edit PDFs, read PDFs, create PDFs from other documents, or just fill out PDF forms? But you don't even need anything Adobe, let alone Acrobat, to do all that. (Examples: Foxit and CutePDF.) A Google search for "adobe writer" brings you information about Acrobat.

But what does your client need? What do they hope to achieve with Adobe software? Who came up with the ad to look for "Word and Adobe Writer experts" - your client, or you?

She couldn't quite answer. She just said that she didn't feel I'm quite right, but she'll keep screen, and she'll keep me on file for something else. Which is fair enough, I guess.

What doesn't seem fair is penalising people who grew up around computers and technology because they have the ability to switch and you don't have the ability to think laterally. Do recruiters even know what they're looking for? Do they understand the software they ned? What about the companies - what do they know? Do they only ask because it seems like they need to ask?

If you're a digital native, like I am, you're probably very familiar with switching between OSes and computers and working out how to run a program through context and visual clues. Yet apparently, for some reason, people with the power to hire you can't seem to give you enough trust that you do know what you are doing.

How many others have lost jobs because they said OpenOffice instead of Word? How often do computerised resume scanners catch context?

Should I change my name for a job?

A week or so ago I was ranting to Mark and his family about my inability to get very far in jobhunting despite trying for over a year. Most of the time I’d get rave reviews about my resume (“we love the stuff that you do! you seem outstanding!”) only to be denied job offers or interviews because

• “You don’t have enough experience”
• “You don’t have enough specific experience”
• “You didn’t tick all the right boxes”

A few times the job I’ve wanted has gone to a friend of mine. Knowing their CV and experiences, it’s baffling how they could get the job and I couldn’t even score an interview – the same excuses lobbed at me could very well be used on them. I was denied a job interview as the website & social networking person for a council youth agency – something I already did on my own for free; also, I was friends with the original job holder (who had no say in HR). I was told that I didn’t have enough social work or youth work background, despite my many years of working with youth communities worldwide. The person who got the job, a friend of mine, doesn’t have “enough” social work background either – she’s a journalist by trade! She absolutely deserves the job, but it’s odd that she got considered when the council won’t even give me a chance to sell myself.

Yet when I ask how I can improve my chances, or what they mean by “enough”, I get vague answers. Often I get no reply. Sometimes I get people rejecting me because I didn’t include something in my resume that was clearly there. (Do they even read these things?) My university HR tried to give me the runaround about not hiring people with Bridging Visas – but at least one of the actual departments gave me an interview.

Today I found some blog chatter about Men with Pen’s James Chartrand revealing that she’s a woman writing under a masculine name . She says she did it because she was not getting anywhere as a freelancer under her female name, but things magically got a lot easier with a male name. Same skills, same resume, different name. The name made all the difference. (Figleaf and the Washington City Paper call possible shenanigans, and I’m starting to wonder if this is a publicity stunt, but that’s a digression from my main point.) It echoed cases of people like the Bronte sisters or J.K. Rowling who only got success and recognition under an ambiguously male name.

This reminded me of my rant with Mark’s family. One thing we thought may have been a big factor is my name. There’s been research (in Australia, even) that shows that people with ethnic names have a far harder time getting jobs than similarly-qualified people with Anglo names . A friend told me about a Middle Eastern colleague of hers that got nowhere with Salleh [Lastname], but when he sent out resumes as Sam Milton people jumped at the chance to hire him. Same resume, drastic difference.

“Tiara Shafiq”. It’s part of my real name (I have another first name that I hardly use which is even more ethnic sounding). It’s the name I’ve done a lot of work by – writing, community work, education. It’s the name on the resume, on the email address, on this website. There are some national and international guides & websites with that name associated with me. Googling that name gets a whole page of sites by or about me.

“Tiara” is unusual, but an English word. It doesn’t twig people’s Foreign-Meter. People tend to think it’s Kiara or Chiara or Kara – it takes a while for me to correct them. “Shafiq”, however, is highly Foreign – not just that, it’s Arabic, which means OMGTerrorist. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the name pronounced right. It takes a while to spell. People are surprised to learn that I am a near-native speaker of English (the only reason I’m not ‘native’ is because I’m from Malaysia); foreign students are surprised to learn I’ve only been in Australia 3 years and I haven’t been raised in an English-majority country.

Should I change my name? Is my name really the deciding factor in whether or not I get jobs, the thing that doesn’t tick people’s boxes (despite my “great experience”), the thing that’s “not enough”? Do people not trust my experience and skills and assume I’m some dodgy foreigner who has no idea what’s going on?

I’ve been thinking of getting an Anglicised name for months, mainly out of frustration at still not getting a regular job. I’ve been pondering on “Tiara Gill” – Gill is the last name of my Eurasian best friend, it’s ambiguous, but it’s also the name of a character in an action fiction story so anyone Googling me will get confused. I’d lose out on all the work I’ve gained through being “Tiara Shafiq”. My references wouldn’t have a clue who “Tiara Gill” is if asked – but do they even know my last name? It could be “Tiara Stephanopolizkytek Chin” for all they care.

Take this website. TiaraShafiq.com. Would I lose out on all the hard work if I start sending out resumes as Tiara Gill? Or something as banal as Tina Smith?
Then again, given that even my best appearances on the web and my wide body of work apparently isn’t enough to even convince people like the Brisbane City Council or QUT (who have people who are very familiar with me) to even give me an interview, does it matter? Are people even reading the resumes and selection criteria, or are they just scanning?

Mark was wondering if it could be considered as fraud since they’d be having preconceived notions based on the name. But isn’t the whole point that they’re building preconceived (yet inaccurate) notions based on my name anyway? How would I deal with paperwork and official material once they work out I’m not Tina Smith or Ms Gill?

Would I be buying into a system that demonizes people for being “ethnic”? That was a major criticism with Chartrands – that not only was she posing as male, she built a hypermasculine online identity that sometimes degraded women. I’ve written plenty about cultural issues and racism both on here and The Merch Girl , but if you read my more neutral posts would you have worked out that I am South Asian born & bred in Malaysia? Would that knowledge affect how seriously you take me, how capable you think I will be? Some people think I’m being too Westernised anyway, what with my taste in performance and my tendency to be more of a loudmouth individualist. Am I already playing within the system that oppresses me over something relatively insignificant?

Should I change my name?

When True Fans become Worst Enemies

Cody McKibben has “been royally fucked over by a big-name blogger“. He doesn’t name names, but in his post, he explains what has happened:

I have been silenced and banned from a community that I helped to build and that I am extremely passionate about. I invested three months of my blood, sweat and tears into promoting someone else and I feel as though I was forced to walk away with nothing. This isn’t the first time getting involved in someone else’s community has turned out to be a complete waste of my time, and it won’t be the last.

His post contains a comprehensive list of ways that companies and high-profile people end up misusing the goodwill of their fans – from filtering out the competition, to not trusting their fans. The post is an emotional but also well-reasoned plea for people to treat their fans with respect, and the consequences of not doing so.

I can empathise with him – there have been at least a couple of times in my life where I’ve spent a lot of energy and effort promoting something I loved, only to be – as Cody put it – royally fucked over. It’s one thing if they don’t acknowledge you, that’s somewhat normal if you’re dealing with a MAJOR name (like, say, Angelina Jolie – she probably doesn’t even know), but it’s another thing when this group claims to be totally supportive of your work…only to drop you hard at the last minute and leave you in the dust.

It’s moments like these that make you realise that even the best concepts and movements have humans at the core, and humans are inherently flawed.

I hope Cody finds his peace. It’s taking a long time to find mine, and just when one thing’s sorted something else comes up. At least he’s learnt quite a bit from this unfortunate experience, and has passed it on to others – so it’s not a total waste.

Personal ads for the soul

So a while ago Havi mentioned how she found her dream house (amongst other things) by writing a personal ad. I took the idea and ran with it – and it worked! I did find the people I was after, and they keep showing up. woo! I followed it up by putting out my intentions for housing and income – those ones are still muddling along, so here’s a kickstart.

Then Havi brought them up again and everyone pitched in. It was awesome! I met a couple of interesting people through there and kinda fulfilled one person’s wish (to join their online community). Then Andrew made a site for it which is even more brilliant.

It seems to be a regular thing with Havi, because she’s now adding her mini personal ads to the bottom of every post (hmm, maybe a new trend?) and she posted about them again . In the spirit of things, I’ll repost the ads I made in Havi’s comments:

1. MERCH GIRL SEEKS FINANCIAL SUSTAINABILITY
Creative eccentric passionate dabbler seeks means of being able to pursue her heart’s desire while also being able to pay bills, pay rent, and feed belly. Said dabbler would rather be able to sleep on a comfortable bed with her matey and not worry about money, instead of being a homeless foreigner.

YOU ARE: any combination of the following:

• An ethical sustainable at-least part-time job paying at least AUD$30,000/year, which allows me to make a comfortable income while developing my skills and being connected to interesting motivated people, without being sucked into politics and hypocrisy. Level doesn’t matter, as long as it’s something I can do a good job in and has a great working atmosphere.
• Funding and/or support for The Merch Girl so I can make it into an awesome business without worrying about lack of funds
• Funding and/or support for me as an emerging creative artist and/or interesting person
• Projects that are interesting and good and compensate well
• Another fascinating good ethical interesting way of self-sustainability that I haven’t imagined yet

YOU ARE NOT:

• the result of someone’s untimely death (so no family inheritances please!)
• A product of crime and/or unethicalness
• Attached with strings that reveal undesirable conditions
• Attached with hate, discrimination, nastiness, ickiness, hypocrisy, soul-suckage, drama, and anything else that makes me cry

WHAT I WILL DO:

• Treat you with respect, honour, and care
• Work my best into any venture I involve myself with
• Use my sustained self to support other eccentric creative young artists who don’t quite fit in anywhere
• Work on spreading love with my work and creative interactions instead of getting caught up in drama
• Love you forever

Feel free to get in touch if you have any ideas!

I should also add “you are not more money from my parents which only comes with filial piety issues” because I’m trying to be financially independent from them. Doing that and being able to live is proving difficult tho.

2. SEEKING A FUNCTIONING COMPUTER
I would like to ask for a functioning computer. I have a laptop, but first the hard drive died, then the main partition is borked so I can’t even reinstall Windows or boot up from something else. The most I can do is load Ubuntu on CD and then look at stuff. I haven’t touched it for a while as I’m planning to get back to Brisbane, backup everything (that’s where my external harddrive is), and then reinstall stuff.

This could come in the following ways:

• A new external harddrive gifted to me before I return to Brisbane so I can backup everything earlier (or something else that accomplishes this)
• My computer will suddenly function again and stay functioning for a few more years at least (I got it late 2007)
• I get a new computer that is much MUCH better at staying alive

I commit to taking care of my computer, doing regular backups (my external is now not leaving my sight!!), and learning more about how to maintain my computer. You’d think I get this, since I’ve been using computers since I was 2 and I’m turning 24, but argh.

3. FANTASTIC FESTIVALS & AMAZING ARTS ACTION
There are a few arts and festivals opportunities that look interesting. The people I train with in circus have a street performance project and a physical theatre project thing, there are some bigger arts festivals popping up this year, and two main TV stations in Australia are auditioning for presenters.

My request: To obtain favourable and pleasant results from applying to these opportunities, preferably in a way that allows me to sustain my journey through them (e.g. paid employment, expenses covered, sponsorship, etc).

This would mainly come from my applications being accepted, but I am also open to alternative arrangements being made that would have been better than the thing I applied for in the first place.

I commit to placing my applications, putting my best effort in, and being open to new opportunities. Also if you know of any other options that myself and/or The Merch Girl can do, let me know!

What would you place a personal ad for?

The In-Between State - or the Tipping Point of success

Gala Darling just released the second episode of her podcast, Love and Sequins – I was pretty intrigued in this one as she talks about running a creative business, and I had often wondered how people like her got to the point of being invited to speak at events and getting free stuff.

The conversation between her and Molly Crabapple, as well as her general guidelines, were interesting (disclaimer: I read the transcript but haven’t actually listened to the podcast yet). A lot of it are things one can pick up from other small business guides – figure out what you like to do, think of various ways to build that into a business, network, diversify, and so on. She does have some interesting advice, like “don’t take your passions so literally” – for instance, there are still ways to build a career out of writing Harry Potter fanfic without needing to literally write and sell Harry Potter fanfic.

However, the one part I was most interested in was left unanswered: What did she do, or what happened to her, that led to her current status and commanding power?

visually it’d look like this:

There are many other bloggers with equally effervescent personalities and not-so-dissimilar content that have come before Gala. Some of them do have their own small followings. But, unlike Gala, they haven’t been able to command product placements or speaking gigs or afford international flights. What was different?

Let’s take this similar issue in the point of view of performing, since that’s what I do at the moment:

There is a little while to go before you’re considered professional enough to be drafted for commercial shows, before you become a recognisable and credible brand name. But when does this happen? How many shows and how many years do you need before you reach that point? If you’ve worked in one area (say, improv) for a while, then moved on to something else in the same field (say, contemporary theatre) does anything from your previous work count within the timeline? Who proclaims you as ‘professional’ anyway?

The Circus Oz Twitter account had promoted this interview of Artistic Director Mike Finch as:

How do you go from Work Experience boy to Artistic Director at #circusoz?? Read Mike Finch’s interview to find out: http://TwitPWR.com/gG5/

The interview does go into quite a bit about the background of the show and of his work as AD, but it doesn’t actually answer @circusoz’s question: How do you go from Work Experience boy to Artistic Director at Circus Oz? Who discovered him? Did he have to make an application? Did he have to leave Circus Oz for a while?

This in-between state is something I’ve been interested in for quite a long time. However, it’s not one that’s often talked about. The only other person I found who actually looks into these things is Malcolm Gladwell, whose books The Tipping Point and Outliers talk about pivotal points that affect people’s success. There are certain factors that make the difference between success and failure: whether it’s the number of hours, someone believing in you, being born in the right place at the right time.

What sets them apart from others? What point, what event, made a difference?

I asked this about Internet-famous people on Ask Metafilter but didn’t really get the response I was expecting. However, I was directed to Wired’s article on ‘fameball’ Julia Allison, which is an example of what I really want to know. The article describes her thinly-disguised press releases (“Oh my, I’m going to do something really stupid! Please don’t publish this even tho you are media!”) and how Gawker lapped it up despite protesting about how useless she is.

Is that what it takes? Shameless self-promotion? On the one hand society tells people that they’re not worth anything if they’re not famous or well-known. Yet we also scorn people who actively seek out fame. Why? Is it a bad thing? Is it because they’re not passively waiting? Will just having talent make people come to you, or do you need to do more to get someone’s attention?

What do you do that sets you apart?

Monthly Goal Meetup

I just heard about the Monthly Goal Meetup from Modish Biz, who writes about things that help with your creative business. Since I’ve been trying to get The Merch Girl going but am utterly procrastinating, I figured now is a good time as any to announce my goals!

It’s meant for the first Friday of the month, so I’m a bit late, but here goes:

• Write content for The Merch Girl
  • About The Merch Girl
  • Performance / Entertainment Options
  • Creative Production Services
  • Support The Merch Girl
  • Links
  • Contact Me
• Work out how to sell merch online that isn’t yours (any ideas??)
• Reorganise my papers
• Request insurance reimbursement for meds
• Get some recommendations & testimonials
• Apply for Education & Training Coordinator job with Zen Zen Zo
• Apply for a few more jobs

There’s probably more that I haven’t thought about (it’s 7am here!) but let’s see how far I go!

The value of arts

I recently observed a very interesting discussion on the economics of theatre, using the thesis that the theatre world needs to be less self-centred when it comes to funding as the Average Joe may not relate to the “WE MUST SUPPORT THE ARTS” point of view, especially when they’re struggling to make ends meet.

While the discussion was primarily America-centric, I see similar debates happening around the world. This was actually the topic of my first assignment at university – about how Australian theatre is struggling to survive and how it needs to adopt models from outside the art world to sustain itself. There are already a lot of organisations that are shutting down or have shut down because they lost Government funding. This startles me – the idea that the loss of one funder can make the difference in your survival.

Chris Ashworth made a few great posts about this situation. He argues that asking for public funding for the arts may be counterproductive:

Go find a nurse and ask her about her day. Or go read “Mountains Beyond Mountains“. Or go have a chat with a social worker advising single mothers, or a middle school teacher trying to teach students who can’t read. Then come tell me our new president should spend a million dollars on dance tours instead of any of those other things.

Indeed, according to Chicago-based theater artist Jay Rasolnikov, no one really cares:

No one really cares about why an artist deserves money except for those in the arts. Really no one does. A factory worker who’s out of a job and about to lose his or her home couldn’t care less about artists getting handouts. Someone trying to get buy on minimum wage working a series of shit jobs probably has very little sympathy for artists also scraping by.

As Theatre Idea‘s Scott Walters points out (using Johnny Bunko), it’s not about you – and indeed, there’s a value to art that artists themselves may not realise:

For much of art history, artists considered themselves to be craftsmen doing a job; many didn’t sign their work. They knew it wasn’t about them. Artistically, as Pink writes, they “give their client something it didn’t know it was missing.” They give a gift. Which brings us back to Lewis Hyde again, and the difference between a gift economy and a transaction economy. One of the many subtitles Hyde seems to have used for different editions of this book is “How the Creative Spirit Transforms the World.” The artist is the conduit, the vessel for the creative spirit. The artist is a midwife that brings into existence a new life.

This is something I struggle with currently as a performance trainee (and in the recent past while applying for the KaosPilots). My work isn’t directly applied or educational or world-changing. I do it because it gives me happiness. It’s an outlet for my silly creativity. It gives me access to a whole bunch of smart, friendly, open, loving people who have welcomed me wholeheartedly into their world. (<3 Scoundrelles and Vulcana!). It lets me fulfill some long-held wishes (I just managed a few handstands on Monday!).

But it’s not solving world poverty or global warming. It’s not going to make a difference in a life-or-death situation. Circus may be gaining respectability (even if too many people assume I’m working as a clown or with animals, neither of which are true) but burlesque is still fraught in many places with controversy over its sex world connections and its respectability. Why should people care that I’m training in circus and burlesque? What’s in it for them – bendy bodies?

Yet without some sort of funding – financially, in-kind, free lessons, room & board, whatever – I won’t be able to sustain myself enough to keep on performing. Life doesn’t come cheap. I feel like I’m caught in a Catch-22 described by Nick in another Chris Ashworth post:

Xan’s argument is that the public expects the arts to do something before it’s willing to fund it, but the arts can’t actually do anything without the money first because of the overhead of putting something together. … People don’t want to pay for a product they haven’t seen, but the product can’t be created with the capital first.

It’s the WIIFM conundrum – What’s In It For Me? . As it is, I grew up in a culture where the only good “self” to be is selfless. Any form of self-enrichment or self-improvement, especially in contemporary arts, is seen as selfish, self-centered, self-indulgent. You live for your community; you do what other people need you to do. There’s no way I’ll get any sort of capital support in Malaysia unless I severely compromise on what I do.

I’ve been looking at grants to support myself (after sifting through tons of “Citizen/PR only” and “No individuals accepted” opportunities, which make me lose out on majorly awesome opportunities like this Australia Council production mentorship – waah!) and almost all of them require some sort of statement on why you should get the grant. What’s so good about you that they should support you. What sort of benefit you bring.

Uh, I’m the only South Asian in Brisbane doing burlesque, so I can inspire other South Asians? What I’m doing isn’t necessarily accepted within similar cultures to mine, and I don’t want to be known as the token Asian or the token “coloured” person.
I am a totally unsporty person jumping into acrobatics? Would it be cheating if I showed my other previous classes, which took some measure of fitness?
I am linking cultures by being a foreigner? It’d help if I actually planned to relocate to Malaysia anything soon without them banning me from the stage for life. And again, tokenism.

I don’t want to turn my work into some overthought plate-of-academic-wanker-beans, but how else do I justify my existence?

So what are the solutions? Does it involve rethinking theatre as a form? Providing funding for universal healthcare and/or education and welfare, so that people don’t have to worry about paying for their living costs and fulfilling the base rung of Maslow’s Hierarchy? What is it?

Does it involve changing public assumptions that artists must work for the love of it and any acceptance of money is “selling out”? That you need to “pay your dues” before getting any back? That we do provide a service – of creativity and passion?

What’s in it for everybody?

Creative CVs, Resumes, Media Kits, and so on

Every so often I like to look at creative interpretations of CVs, resumes, and other documents that introduce you to the world. My current CV is ok but rather boring; it doesn’t really communicate my personality, my interests, nor the fact that I like to try unusual things and bring things together.

I want something I can send not just as job applications, but also as introductions to people and groups I find interesting. People I’d like to get to know better, work together with, create something of soulful merit. Do fun stuff. I don’t want my resume to put me to sleep! My kit would need to look more like this:

I’d like my CV to be offbeat, reflective of me, and unorthodox. Sure, it may not get past the typical HR headhunters – but I’m not going for “typical”. I’m going for people who appreciate individuality, creativity, and openness to ideas.

Nubby Twiglet has an article on creating a successful press kit with examples of her kit that she updates every year.

I asked my friends (and my sister, who does illustration and has her birthday today!) about how I could get such a kit for myself. My main questions were (from the email):

• How do I create a CV+portfolio+thingo that is creative, reflects me, and gets the attention of the receipient?
• How do I do this without being wanky?
• How do I structure my content in this creative CV kit?
• How do I get the thing designed?
• Am I only stalling because I’m overwhelmed by vast nothingness, so I’m either trying to be outrageous or trying to procrastinate? (Well, possibly, but that’s an issue for another email)

(I’m not facing vast nothingness at the moment, which is great, but I still may be stalling.)

Now that I’m starting The Merch Girl and am delving a bit deeper into performance work, especially theater and burlesque, having some sort of a kit to represent myself would be really helpful. Inside this kit would be:

• My CV/resume
• Performances lists
• Headshots
• Artist statements
• Business cards
• Personal letter

what else? What else should my kit hold that represents me and gives other a good picture of myself?

Issue 1 of the Underground Art School had an article with questions that build your artist statement. Questions like:

How & why is your work meaningful to you?
What is it that you like about what you make?
Do you do things differently from the way you were taught?

This statement is going to be a lot more important if I’m going to apply for grants or for work at festivals and such (The Merch Girl may have a gig at This Is Not Art as Stage Manager!). It’s pretty exciting to even consider such a statement, but I’m only just developing my work, and I don’t want to come up with something really academically dense like “Tiara extrapolates given assumptions about her heritage culture and synthesises it with modern dogma about society, commenting on the juxtaposition between the expected and the desired” when really what I want to say is “Tiara does things that are fun. This is one such thing.”.

I’ve contacted Autumn Heep – who worked with us at the Vagina Monologues – to help redo my resume for me. She has a thing going where she could retool and reformat your resume for you from $50 upwards. Hopefully I’ll be able to afford the $100 for a complete changeover! If I want a full-blown kit though, I may have to invest in more than just a resume change. But small things first.

Do you have your own specially designed CV, resume, media kit? What’s something tangible that you have available for others? What do you include in yours?

Burlesque Ball and the Adventures of The Merch Girl

This past weekend I’ve been working at the Burlesque Ball as the resident Merch Girl:

There was every style of burlesque there – from graceful pink & purple electronica (Vivi Valentine) to Josephine Baker’s banana skirts (Kelly Ann Doll), French alcohol-laced cabaret (Lauren LaRouge) to a naughty Scarlett o’Harra (my Scoundrelles teacher Lena Marlene), and of course the Headline (Amber Ray from New York) and the Joker (the MC, Cameron ‘HotAugust’ Knight). All photos below by Darcy Papparazzi and Christine Bowley:

As an aside, can I say that I really LOVE this picture of Lena and Alyssa that Darcy took on the first night:

It absolutely shows just how much of a punk my burlesque teacher really is. Her corset that night (a friend’s) was one of the few which wasn’t black or red – it was all pastelly but had a SPIDER. And a black tutu. She spent both days running around rambling like a hyper madwoman, advocating for edgy grotesque rock burlesque, singing cheesy songs, and taking the blame for corrupting me. I <3 her.

As Merch Girl, I mainly sold Amber Ray’s flower fascinators – which are PRETTY!!! – and some programs. A few people thought the flowers were mine (I wish) and one person tried to buy my tickler! Amber was our headliner and she’s a fab lovely person – she gave me a few fascinators of my own as a thank-you :D You can get them at her Etsy store too.

[I’ve been asked to take down my personal review of the Ball for the time being. It wasn’t very in-depth; just a comparison of the two days since they were quite different. Essentially: up and down, very different atmosphere between the two, the show was awesome once I got to see it, performers = lovely, nice audience members are lovely but PLEASE be nice to your Merch Girl, thanks. a.k.a. if you’re disgruntled, yelling at her multiple times will not change her superpowers. It’ll just want to make her poke you with her tickler. But all the really lovely audience members and performers and people who came up to chat & supported me totally made up for the couple of goons.]

At one point in the Sunday show they had a fan-dancing competition. I got charged with nerve and energy and jumped up at the very last minute (after trying to find someone to manage the Merch booth for a few minutes). I don’t have a photo of me fan-dancing at the moment but if I find one I’ll post it here.

Anyway, just before my turn, I was announced by Cameron to the crowd as:

THE MERCH GIRL!!!!!

and the name stuck. Even Lena calls me that now. I think I just found my burlesque name.

I looked up “Merch Girl” on Google just to see if anyone else is using it as a stage name, and I was surprised to see that merch girls are something of a subcultural icon amongst indie/scene people. Sara & Tegan fans absolutely love their Merch Girls, they have their own catchphrases and getting a Merch Goal is a goal on Guitar Hero . The only people I found who make Merch-Girling a trademark (and possibly an arts project) are Bam Bam and Vi who promote themselves as Merch Girls that do things “better and sexier”, and also run their own shows and make their own merch. They haven’t updated their website since 2004 though so I don’t know if they’re still around.

I could base an act/persona around The Merch Girl. She’s bubbly, friendly, gives you compliments, and takes care of your merchandise. She gives directions to those that are lost and holds your cloaks for you while you watch the show. She occasionally tries the merch on, puts on some music, and dances around (and over the counter). She wears multiple layers of red and black, including a tiara or a flower in her hair. She holds a tickler to poke people who annoy her, and she’s not afraid to speak up to rabble-rousers and jerks. She’s not pushy but is not shy either. She’s flamboyant and over-the-top, yet also approachable and down-to-earth.

She’s also practical and helpful with the actual merch-selling side of things. She sets up before the show, takes care of the merch, and packs up after. She is willing to be one of the last people to leave the venue and one of the first to arrive. She protects your merch from bubbles, booze, and bastards. She takes inventory and gives you reports on your earnings. She makes signs and arranges items to show them off in their best light. She stops thieves and freeloaders. She loves the merch, she loves the audience, she loves the show, she loves you.

The Merch Girl would work at performance events – burlesque, theatre, concerts, parties, openings, launches, festivals, and so on. The people at her shows are funky, alternative, label-busting, fun, friendly, kind, chatty, open, creative. She would go on tour and do double duty as a roadie, assistant, or stage manager. She wouldn’t be just a random staff member; she’d be a part of the show, adding to the atmosphere. She’s all about the experience – your experience.

To do this, I’ll need:

• Some costumes – I’ve got a few pieces, though I gather that my costuming would depend on the event
• Contacts for events that need a Merch Girl
• Work on my Merch Girl persona – especially audience interaction and dealing with downtimes

I’d do it voluntarily at first, perhaps for smaller events and gigs. Sliding-scale according to how much they can afford me (up to $20/hour, which is a typical going rate for entry-level part-time jobs). Then for bigger events (e.g. corporates or mainstream big-name acts) I would charge a lot more – say $40 or $50/hour, more if it’s multiple days and longer hours. Expenses covered if I need to travel and/or live away from home, as well as to obtain any specialist costuming (though I’ll supply my main props).

I may have enough of a following that people would come to events just because I was there. I could have my own merch. I’d train other people in performance and customer service, making a merry band of Merchants and Merchettes – or Merch Guys and Merch Girls? It would be fun!

Anybody want a Merch Girl?

How do I earn money to sustain myself?

I’ve been trying to come up with a few ways to earn enough income to thrive for the next 18 months or so in Brisbane. I would like to earn enough to:

• Pay for expenses – rent, food, health, transport, phone, etc
• Take workshops and classes that interest me and help me grow
• Build a performance outfit kit – clothes, accessories, makeup
• Buy media for creative inspiration (albums, magazines, etc)
• Travel to different events and places (for creative work, other work, holiday, etc)
• Treat friends and loved ones to presents
• Attend interesting and fun events
• Not have to worry about where the next dime’s coming from
• Pamper myself once in a while

Here are some ideas I’m mulling over (plus some from the Twitter #ideaparty hosted by Barbara Sher):

1. Get a (part-time or full-time) job
Pros: Stability, get to spend my time purposefully, generally good income
Cons: Job market difficult to break into, may clash with timetables for training, I have this big gap between March and July to get my temporary visa and attend sister’s wedding – I don’t know if I’ll get enough leave, may not hire me due to visa issues

2. Run the 1000 True Fans business I was mulling about
Pros: Can do it anywhere, targeting creatives so will be able to build networks, relatively lighter and flexible work
Cons: Only vague ideas on how to start & run a business legally and productively, might get tired of it after a while, takes a while to find new customers

3. Get bailed out by parents
Pros: Usual method, they’re often there, they have more money than I do
Cons: I don’t want to depend on my parents, they’re not so keen on what I’m doing, parents retiring and I don’t want to be a leech

4. Create a pay-only subsite of TiaraShafiq.com
Pros: Build my own Seth Godin-esque tribe, get some income, don’t have to do tons of work, build on current experience
Cons: What would people want in a subsite? Value for money, egocentricness

5. Consult young people on what to do after their high school years
Pros: Years of experience in doing just that for free, fun and good job, some young people ask me this already
Cons: The people who most need this service aren’t able to pay or afford what I need!

6. Work freelance as a writer, performer, director, events, etc
Pros: Flexibility, access to various projects and networks, good fun
Cons: Hard to find legit decent job

7. Live off trainee pay for circus training
Pros: Already something I’m doing, not very complicated
Cons: Definitely not enough to pay the rent!

8. Entertain at kids’ parties (as a fairie?)
Pros: Cute fun, I have a Blue Card, like pretending
Cons: Where do I start? Not much skill to share (magic, clowning, etc).

9. Sell all my stuff
Pros: Money comes in, junk comes out
Cons: When are we going to hold a garage sale? How to price things properly.

I probably have more ideas in my head, but it’s 10:52pm and my brain’s getting tired. What about you?

The New Liberal Arts

I’m really excited about Snarkmarket’s book project The New Liberal Arts. The idea sparked from a discussion about liberal arts in the modern era, and has grown into a 100+-comment monster on what should be included in the definition of “liberal arts”. Some suggestions:

• Synthesis, mashups, reframing, Creative Commons
• World economics
• Search and information/knowledge management
• Intuitive thinking
• Theory of creativity
• Electronic communication
• Online archiving
• Photography
• Home economics
• Identity management

and so on.

Malaysia and Australia don’t tend to use the term “liberal arts”. In Malaysia, it tends to get smooshed into Arts (really Business/Accounting/money issues) or Humanities (the “leftovers”). Even there it’s heavily limited – no theatre or performance studies, logic is covered in a subchapter in Form 3 Maths, rhetoric and astronomy are unheard of. Indeed, Malaysians have a big stigma against those who don’t do Maths or Science (or, currently, traditional Business) – such students are seen as “not smart”, under-achieving, ne’er-do-well. The classes that offer Humanities/Arts in schools are generally for people who’ve failed their exams. I caused such a huge controversy in my school for moving to the Humanities class because they offered Literature (“you’re wasting your grades!”) but at least now more people are following my lead!

Heck, if you bring up “arts” with anyone there you’ll usually get “Oh, so you’re doing graphic design?” WHY IS IT ALWAYS GRAPHIC DESIGN I CAN’T DRAW MY WAY OUT OF A PAPER BAG.

In Australia such subjects usually fall within Humanities, which in my university (and possibly some others) is being phased out due to budget cuts, lack of faulty, and general prioritising. There was a lot of hullaballoo two years ago when QUT closed down the Humanities faculty and reshuffled some subjects around. I was in the Student Guild at the time and the party line was “QUT’s evil, all proper universities must have Humanities, BOO”. My main concern was with whether international students (them being my portfolio) were being dicked over – arriving for a course that doesn’t exist, missing a few subjects, changing faculties and campuses, etc. However, I didn’t disagree with the principle of closing down the Humanities school. Unlike most of the other Guildies, I didn’t think a “proper university” only existed when they had Humanities in the curriculum. Why not build on your strengths? If you don’t feel that Humanities is your strong point, why not reprioritize?

The QUT admins were planning to make Creative Industries “the new Humanities” and I can see where they’re going with that. The creative industries, as I understand it, is the expression of arts and creativity through business; using creative skills as avenues for making money or providing value to local and global economies. It’s not just ‘how to write a story” or “how to paint a picture” or “how to act”; it’s about how publishing companies select pieces, how to use rhetoric in your work, how to organise galleries, how directors create innovation.

Those principles – innovation, opportunity creation and seeking, interdisciplinary studies, collaboration – are those that can definitely transfer across fields, and connect fields together. We have tons of knowledge and experience in our hands. We’re exposed to more cultures than before. What can we do about them?

Idea: 1000 True Fans

One major purpose for this blog is to post various ideas for ventures, services, and so on that I come up with from time to time. I love coming up with ideas; they’re usually of the “I wish someone would do this” or the “Wouldn’t it be cool if” mentalities, but if anyone wants to do something with these ideas, go ahead!

This idea was originally for an Entrepreneurship and Innovation uni project (which I later dropped in favour of something else). The project was to develop a business plan for a hypothetical business. The project, and its name, was inspired by Kevin Kelly’s essay on 1000 True Fans where he proposes that artists and creative folk work on building the core group of fans that will support them no matter what, and to concentrate their efforts on those fans.

Most creative people I know love their creative work, but they find all the other aspects of it rather draining. Invoices, bills, gallery bookings, marketing, PR, website updates, etc etc. They’d rather spend their time and effort on their actual art. However, without doing the work to maintain their fanbase and business, they won’t be able to survive.

Most mainstream artists have teams of people that do the extra work for them – publicists, agents, PAs, labels, etc. But what about people outside the mainstream? Indie artists? They may not be able to afford such assistance, and even if they did, they may be turned off by the commercial veneer such things tend to have.

1000 True Fans aims to provide various services to smaller-scale creatives, helping them with the logistical issues – the “dirty work” – while they concentrate on their art. Among the services provided include:

• Updating websites and managing their social networking profiles
• Communicating with fans, dealing with fanmail
• Preparing and sending out invoices and receipts
• Dealing with bills and other finances
• Work on marketing/promotions/PR – researching ideal media outlets (emphasis on indie/street/small-scale), sending out media releases, organising interviews/activities
• Researching good deals for art costs (materials for costumes, makeup artists, guitar tuning, whatever the artist needs essentially)
• Taking care of artist’s personal needs – booking health appointments, giving them holidays, referring them to therapists/counsellors
• Researching what’s happening in their scene, passing on relevant information, building a database of knowledge based on their work
• Collecting media references, getting testimonials/reviews
• Connecting them with other artists/creatives, promoters, festival hosts, etc
• Building a database of volunteer opportunities
• Doing small errands, concierge-like work
• Managing riders

so part PA, part manager, part publicist.

The people involved with 1000 True Fans appreciate and honour the philosophies of the creatives – DIY, indie, earnestness, free culture, whatever it may be. The services provided are personable, personalised, honest, and direct. The team members are regarded as part of the creative’s “crew”, and work on building good relationships between the creatives and their fans.

I got stuck on ways to monetise this, since the 1000 True Fans idea was aimed at creatives that don’t necessarily make a whole lot of money. I discussed my idea with Megan Elizabeth Morris , who is brainstorming on something similar (a “people network”) and some of her ideas include:

• Targeting artists who currently have day jobs
• Working with banks to get combo loans
• Tiered services – by level
• Motivating artists to eventually take change of their own business

If you’re a small-scale creative, would you go for this? What would motivate you? How much are you willing to pay?

I did a spreadsheet survey about this; if you’re interested in reading the responses, let me know.