Can social projects led by artists be successful?

October 2018

In her beautifully sunlit home, Vanessa Lively fits right in, emanating warmth and colorful life experiences. As an artist and musician, exploration and discovery have been a fundamental theme in her life journey, initially encouraged by her parents. While growing up in San Antonio, she studied under the tutelage of successful painter Vie Dunn-Harr, informing the path she would inevitably take. “I studied under her when I was in high school and got to learn what it meant to be a living artist. That was a really big part of laying the foundation of the future path that I walked.” After high school, she continued to study fine art at San Antonio College and the University of Texas San Antonio. She sharpened her artistic style as a student there and later formed her own graphic design company, Lively Productions, with her husband in 2000. Their clientele consisted of creatives and small businesses, eventually preparing and leading them to an amazingly aligned opportunity in South America.

Vanessa and her husband, Jason, moved to Peru initially to do volunteer work for school children. When the opportunity didn’t fully materialize, they were introduced to a priest in Ecuador needing graphic design volunteers to work on his various community projects in the small town of Salinas de Guaranda. Vanessa and Jason were the perfect fit, inspiring their cooperatively owned graphic design office, InnovArte. Training local artists fulfilled the town’s needs of creating advertisements, posters, calendars, and books for local businesses and a local orphanage. That time was very instrumental in her growth and creativity. “That experience really changed me. I got a lot of time to explore who I was. It also opened my mind to the world and what I wanted to do,” says Vanessa. For the first time, painting had become somewhat limiting to her. She began to desire to express herself using a different medium. So she picked up a guitar and started writing songs. Shortly after, she recorded her first album in Quito, “Let Me Rise,” which became a community collaboration with the help of Ecuadorian musicians and other international travelers.

After her experience in Ecuador, coming back to the United States and readjusting to a much faster pace of life was very challenging. She wasn’t sure how she fits in and what direction her life was meant to take. “I felt very confused, so it was healing for me to say, I’ll just take to the road with music and play shows. It just felt like it gave me something to do while I was processing how to move back home. I started to learn how music could be a powerful tool to help lean into and express yourself and work through things, just through songwriting.” So in 2007, she started touring nationwide. Her following albums led to her signing with a record label, national and international radio play, song chart placements, and an expanded fan base. It also generated co-writing opportunities with other musicians in Europe. Stylistically, her music approach would be considered singer/songwriter and folk at the core. But what makes her music unique is her natural desire and ability to draw from world music. Her voice and various merging genres naturally create a soothing, compassionate, and eclectic soundscape.

In 2014, the landscape of creativity and touring shifted for her when she had her first child. “I entered a state of survival mode and focused all of my attention on family and trying to find other ways to work. So I taught painting classes and stayed local.” During this time, she stopped writing and began feeling increasingly depleted. But her passion for artistry began to bubble to the surface again two years later. She was able to attend a women’s retreat focused on setting intentions, which sparked an epiphany. “I realized that creating music and art is like feeding my soul, and I have to take care of myself and my artist’s self. So I made the intentions and put on paper the things that I need to be able to take these first steps back to being an artist again.” Hesitantly, she put this into practice by entering a songwriting contest focused on social justice and activism called Music to Life. One of the questions on the application asked her to write a proposal about her dream social justice project. To her surprise, she won the activist award and funding to support her idea. She also met Elizabeth Stookey Sunde, a vital mentor who would become very influential in helping her fulfill her project.

Vanessa’s idea was to create Home Street Music, a program similar to Art From The Streets, but serving as a music equivalent. People that have lived or are currently living on the streets gather together once a week during the eight-week sessions, four times a year. In the gathering, Vanessa facilitates a music circle in a consistently safe space. The group explores the main components of songwriting, like melody, rhythm, and lyrics. They also gain friendships and a chance to express their own experiences. “These gatherings are meant to reconnect every person that comes in with their human dignity, sense of self-worth, confidence, and a feeling like they are worthy of sharing something.”

Vanessa didn’t know exactly where to start to form Home Street Music. With the help of her mentor Liz and many others with wise advice, she sought a way to gain local fiscal sponsorship to raise funds for the project. “Liz said, ‘don’t worry about becoming a nonprofit right off the bat. You can be an independent artist or an independent project that gets fiscal sponsorship so that you don’t have to jump into that right away, yet you can still accept donations.’” Vanessa encouragingly called a few places that offered this service and began to choose her favorites that felt aligned with her vision, specifically one in particular. “Austin Creative Alliance was just the best fit. They seemed to have a great system but still had time for me. They weren’t so big that I was going to go unnoticed, but they weren’t so small that they didn’t have resources of any kind. They were what I wanted as far as size and capabilities,” she says. She has also gained the support of various grants and the SIMS Foundation, which provides mental health services to musicians in Austin.

Her motivation to work with the homeless has been close to her heart since she was a child. “For some reason, I always wanted to help those that didn’t have homes, and it also just didn’t seem to make sense in my mind. Homelessness just felt like something wrong. It still does. So this community will always have a special place in my heart, and I wanted to find a way to work within this population.” Not only does she love to share the cathartic process of songwriting, but she is also learning so much from the people she gets to meet. “They have such an impact on me, these friendships I’ve made. I learn so much from their life stories, it’s crazy. They have lived such tough lives, having to find out how to survive in a very exposed environment and always be on guard. Whereas we, with houses, close the door and get to shut everything out, we can put our guard down. But when you’re living on the streets, you don’t get to do that. You’re exposed constantly. And I want to create a creative refuge of sorts with Home Street Music.”

In creating her dream social justice project, balancing motherhood and her artist life has given her more clarity, acceptance, and fulfillment. She understands that one of the greatest gifts you can give your children is modeling what it looks like to love, value, and respect yourself enough to go for the life you want. “I feel on fire again, in the most positive way. I mean better than I have ever felt before. It’s sort of like I returned to it all as a different person,” said Vanessa. “I feel even more rooted with gratitude and committed to trying to make a positive impact in the community here. And it all just ripples out to everyone around you, which is what it’s all about.”

2022 Update:

Along with many others, Vanessa’s life changed dramatically overnight when Covid-19 shut down the world. In one week, Home Street Music had to stop gathering, and she lost all of her income from graphic design and upcoming musician gigs. It was a dire situation, on top of facing personal family struggles at home. How she persevered and transformed this challenging chapter into an uplifting story is remarkable. She made it through with the support of her Home Street Music team, her neighbors, the Foundation Communities program in Austin, and a Nashville music promoter. Today, her life is better than I found it four years ago.

After the shock of the pandemic started to wane, she knew she had to continue to Home Street Music in some form. It took some time and thoughtfulness to figure out how she would move forward and translate a circle gathering full of talking, hugging, and singing people into something else. With the help of Nicolette, a team member who helps run the circles, they started to innovate ways to stream the gatherings online. Nicolette set up microphones, artificial lights and posted chord charts and lyrics in the comments section, hoping to encourage others to sing along at home. Surprisingly, it was a hit. “Nicolette found different ways to engage people through the comments. It became sort of a blessing in disguise. The circle opened up to a wider community and people who were never in our circle at Community First could tune in because it was on Facebook. It broadened our community a little bit,” said Vanessa. Being accessible online also helped reach a wider audience that she couldn’t have imagined, making her marvel at what happened next. “We even involved someone who lived in San Antonio who brought in different guest musicians every week, and that was really fun. It even created this opportunity for a musician living in a wheelchair who couldn’t travel to Austin. He lived in San Antonio and finally felt like he could be part of the Home Street Music circle because it was virtual. Even though it was such a challenge and hard not to be together in person, these beautiful silver linings were everywhere with what it forced us to do and then gave us these new opportunities that we just wouldn’t have had.”

In the meantime, Vanessa received a microgrant from Austin Creative Alliance and a Covid Relief Grant for Home Street Music to continue its important mission. She also found steady work as a graphic designer and video editor. During this intense time, she and her longtime husband also parted ways but are now finally in a healthy rhythm of being co-parents in different homes.

Home Street Music is still growing and recently brought on a social work intern from Texas State University. After two years away, they are now operating in person at Community First following Covid-19 precautions. Vanessa, rightly so, is so excited to be in the room and sing with others once again. “The nonprofit has been this beautiful golden thread throughout this entire time. It’s been there through the whole journey. The people in the circle have been like a new family created, our Home Street Music family. It keeps growing and maturing and deepening. Just getting to be a part of that evolution of Home Street has been so beautiful. It has been just a joyful part of my life.”

Not only has it been a positive relationship, but it has also been a symbiotic one for Vanessa. Going through personal hardships, unemployment, the uncertainty of relocating, and building back self-confidence, mirrored the same obstacles of many circle participants. In a way, she needed Home Street Music just as much as they did. “Realizing that gave me a new level of appreciation or understanding of how important it’s been in my life, how it’s giving back—having gone through that challenging life chapter and transition amid Covid and that whole loss and rebuilding on all levels, both professional and personal. Those life lessons really teach us a lot when we’re going through them. And, of course, everything that I do and learn will keep enriching Home Street Music. I’ll be better able to understand. Every time we experience our own grief and hardship, we can relate to others even more. It’s just true.”