Friday, August 2, 2019

Being a "Kidd": Lessons from Ruby May

Dear Grandmother-Loving Kids of All Ages,

I'm an audiophile from way back when I was a kid and my Mamaw sometimes let me borrow her very state-of-the-art cassette recorder before many people owned such technology. She was organized and forward-thinking about using audio for self-documentation, and she saved and labeled numerous cassettes of her original music as well as some recordings of me as a child. I've written previously about some of the ways that I use and engage with sound as an anthropology graduate student, but I also enjoy producing creative audio projects as a media artist. This year my partner and I received an Artist Enrichment Grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women to produce short audio pieces about each of our paternal grandmothers and their influence on our lives. Thus, I am proud to premiere my new audio production, "Being a 'Kidd': Lessons from Ruby May" about my Mamaw as my primary creative inspiration and benefactor.

[If experiencing playback problems, you can listen directly on SoundCloud.]