Today we’d like to introduce you to Lindsey Audrey
Hi Lindsey, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Well, my journey is anything but short or simple. I currently live in my hometown, Hibbing, where I was born and raised. Hibbing is known for growing many notable celebrities through history and was once to be a booming town, due to its location between the iron ore mines. One of the most notable folks to hail from here is Bob Dylan. Like Bob Dylan, I always felt outside of my element growing up here and worked best through an artistic path, expressing myself in ways that were non-typical to the majority of my peers (or community members as a whole). I didn’t really know how to navigate that feeling of being a stranger in my village. My mother encouraged me to pursue theater. It was a great space for me to learn how to “blend” but also express myself and find like-minded friends. I did do that, but it was still not enough, I knew there was more for me. We frequented Minneapolis often. We had family there. I knew there were other things to explore. Bob Dylan got booed off the stage and went off to make a difference. He created a unique style of music and he fought for social justice and change. I wanted to do that too, but I wanted to find fame in an effort to bring back my knowledge and riches to better grow the artistic cultures of The Iron Range and to show that we can all work together, embracing hard labor, athletics, social justice and the arts. I would eventually leave to finish high school at The Perpich Center for the Arts in Golden Valley and stayed in Minneapolis for 15 years, with a few brief stints in Los Angeles and New York. I traveled, I lived, I loved and eventually, I found my way home again to start a family. Through all of my journeys, I continued to pursue my artistic endeavors and work in many fields of trade, from years and years of food service, management, merchandising, wholesale to non-profit. I did all of this while making efforts to be a professional performer. I put my professional artist pursuits aside when I became a mother, but I never stopped creating. My son is now a very gifted visual artist. He taught me so much about myself. More than I could have ever imagined and as he got older, I started getting back into art for myself as well. We were living in Minneapolis again for awhile until the COVID pandemic brought us to choose life back on the Iron Range. With this decision, I had to find work that would be significant and be an effort to bring change to a space that I found very complicated to grow up in. If I was going to raise my son here again, I needed to be a changemaker. I didn’t become rich and famous in the literal sense, but I did collect a world of experience. I brought all of my passion and struggle with me and helped to grow the youth arts program at The Lyric Center in Virginia and through that, my entire direction on what work, art and community meant to me. While we navigated our life back home, I also finished my bachelors degree in psychology. Through many struggles, I found my way to connect with my community again through my job, through raising my son and his journey, through networks of what the pandemic opened for us to shift our lives and make it work however we could, I found my people again in a space that I once tried to escape from. So every day I am here, I continue to focus on the path that brought me home and what that means. I push to change the narrative of the typical and challenge the spaces to find new paths of acceptance for those of us who have always felt as if we are “strangers in our villages”. I work as a parent first, and then as an artist and a community connector.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has not been a smooth road at all. With my “quirks”, I always knew I was different, but I didn’t know what that meant exactly. As a kid, I just tried my best to embrace my differences. As we all grow, those differences can really make one stand out in a crowd. It took me a while to figure out I would need to “mask” in order to somewhat fit in. This is where the acting came in handy, but it still wasn’t enough. I was often bullied or manipulated. I had a lot of issues in primary school, just trying to figure out who I was and why I was pretty different from most of the kids in my school. My emotions were so big and my desire for answers and visual expression took off. At one point, I just embraced it. My mother was very supportive and very encouraging. I knew I was an artist and when I would meet other artists, I would feel safer, but still unsure of how I was supposed to “fit in”. My mental health was in constant chaos through the majority of my 20’s. I made a lot of decisions that I couldn’t explain. Through my needs for knowledge, I would get some answers, I would have amazing experiences filled with extreme highs and lows. I would fall through cracks of our medical system and have to stop and start over again for decades trying to find stability. It wasn’t really until my son’s struggles really showcased a lot of myself. Through his journey, I was able to learn so much more that wasn’t accessible to me in my youth and so from there, I was really able to open many new doors to possibilities for myself and how I could use this to really heal. With my art and community work, I focus mainly on neuro complexities. After realizing that my entire life was not just filled with being strange or mentally ill, but being a consistently misdiagnosed human for four decades, I was able to really own what that all means. I was recently diagnosed with ADHD and I can’t even express how validating that is. For me having a “label” means having answers and a new path towards acceptance, awareness and accessibility. So through that, I work diligently to aid in helping others navigate their way.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a multimedia artist. When I was a kid, I was given a make-up set for Christmas. Being someone that was not so much into being “girly” at the time, I decided that I would use it to make art. Paint and supplies were expensive. I started painting with make-up and then started using random objects and things to make more stuff. My busy bee brain was always collecting and seeing art in the less obvious spaces. I was an only child in the late 1900’s, there was a lot of down time to figure out how to not be “bored” all day long. I was a tinkerer on the verge of becoming a hoarder. I found a passion for photography in my teens, but film was expensive. I asked for a video camera every Christmas for years and years. I was a writer, a visual artist, an actress, a media artist (which was difficult due to costs then). I couldn’t choose. I tried instruments, but it was too frustrating, so I used my voice as my instrument. I could tell my body how to play notes easier than forcing my fingers to play notes on objects that were complicated. I wish I would have been able to focus just on one thing and perfect it, but that was not an option. My literal dreams came true when the smartphone became accessible for everyone. I would have my music, a camera, a video camera, editing tools, drawing tools, the works, all in one place (my pocket!) I was a cohort member with Springboard for the Arts Community Leadership Institute in 2022-2023 and it really brought me back into thinking about who I am as an artist outside of performing as I had lost the ability to embrace that part of me, especially in my journey to “unmask”. I forgot how much my photography really meant to me and started embracing that along with the desire to make short videos that added elements of performance. After I left my position with the Lyric Center last winter, I decided to take control of my art and make it my business. I founded my art company, AuDrenaLin Arts and published my first photography journal which showcases photos from my “walks” and encourages anyone to see beyond the typical, embracing the “quirks” that are overlooked but hold so much power and beauty. One of my favorite things to photograph are “awkward selfies” of me standing in random spaces. People so often are so worried about looking just right in photos and posing with smiles. I worked so hard at becoming the typical version of “feminine” that I really lost myself. So now, I embrace my age, I embrace my awkward nature, I embrace the fact that I don’t always feel like smiling (not because I am unhappy, but because I just don’t need to pretend anymore) and I also want to capture a moment, but I don’t have a model with me, so I do it myself. These are spots I am in on my journey. This is me and I am significant, wounded, healing and strong. It’s important to capture those feelings, no matter what emotion I am holding onto at the moment.
Have you learned any interesting or important lessons due to the Covid-19 Crisis?
I mentioned quite a bit of that already I suppose, but yes, I learned all of the lessons and important things due to the COVID-19 Crisis. Just before it happened, I had a severe mental breakdown. I was going through a separation. My job was incredibly intense and I was in crisis due to being on a medication that I should not have been. It spiraled and my world had to come to a complete stop. I lost my job and my best friend on top of coming to terms that my marriage was over. Just when I was starting to learn how to navigate healing from that, the world shut-down and I had to learn how to be a stay-at-home mom again while reconfiguring who I was, and with our routines being completely halted. It was there that my son and I both saw patterns in each other that were being significantly masked through the efforts of day-to-day life. Being able to slow down with him for a few months and really learn together was a time I will never regret. Having to build our lives back up after the world started spinning again, was a challenge I could have never prepared for. We are still learning how to adjust to this post Covid-19 Crisis world, but we are both embracing who we are much stronger than we would have had those big moments not occurred. I am beyond grateful I get to help him navigate his struggles so early in life. Nothing has been the same, but everything has been a clear guide to what I want to bring to this life. Especially when it comes to community and artistry.
Pricing:
- “Walk with Me” Stories Told Through an Atypical Lense – $15
- Panda & Pals Expression Helpers Card Set – $15
- Photography Sessions $50+
- Logo Design $50+
- Custom visual artwork $100+
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/audrenalin.arts
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lindsey.audrey.me/
