Who I Am
I am an artistic kind of a human, living in a small community in south-western
Ohio. My creative ventures span theatre & cinema arts, writing, and music.
I act, sing, play some instruments, write songs, stageplays & screenplays,
prose fiction & poetry (though not either of these last two in quite
a while), direct for the stage & the screen, design sound (mostly
for theatre productions), volunteer as a staff creative producer for
The Dayton Theatre Guild
(AKA: "DTG" or "The Guild"), and sit on the board of
directors for that same theatre. Am I any good at any of this? Ultimately
that's for other people to judge. Most of the time I'm a pretty harsh
self-critic, despite being an egomaniac in many ways. I will say that I have
done some things that I am happy with, a few even very proud of, and some
of what I've done I think just might honestly deserve to be called excellent.
In the end, what matters most is that I'm being as creative as I can on any
given day, that I'm "being the artist," for whatever that's
worth.
As for that academia stuff, I earned my B.A., with Honors, with a duel major
in English and Mass Communication, from
Wright State University where I've been
support staff at the
Paul Laurence Dunbar Library
(what I refer to as "the rent payer") since 1994. I'm on the
verge of retiring, and will do so as soon as: 1) the magic date arrives,
then, 2) my debt stops making me anxious. Don't tell anyone, but they know
me on campus as Kevin, but in my artistic world ‐‐ the
one I prefer to spend my time in ‐‐ I am, as presented here:
K.L.
To return to a theme from the first paragraph above, one of my loftiest
artistic goals is to be brilliant, not to simply be known as brilliant,
but to actually deserve the term laid upon me. I think maybe ‐‐
MAYBE
‐‐ I've achieved such perhaps a little bit, a few times, maybe.
But even if I'm being delusional, which isn't far-fetched, even if some,
or much, of what I have done and still do is horrible, I take solace in
these words from my favorite novelist,
Kurt Vonngut, who
is obviously speaking to a classroom of kids:
Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing,
painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no
matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to
experience becoming, to find out what's inside you, to make
your soul grow.
Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art and do it for
the rest of your lives. Draw a funny or nice picture of Ms.
Lockwood, and give it to her. Dance home after school, and
sing in the shower and on and on. Make a face in your mashed
potatoes. Pretend you're Count Dracula.
Here's an assignment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lockwood
will flunk you if you don't do it: Write a six line poem,
about anything, but rhymed. No fair tennis without a net.
Make it as good as you possibly can. But don't tell anybody
what you're doing. Don't show it or recite it to anybody,
not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms.
Lockwood. OK?
Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces, and discard them into
widely separated trash recepticals [sic]. You will find that
you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem.
You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what's
inside you, and you have made your soul grow.
There is going to be ridiculously verbose elaboration
added for much of what's above, at some point
(it's in the works)
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This website and all content © 2021-2025 K.L.Storer, unless otherwise stated ‐‐ all rights reserved
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