I understand that even just looking at myself like it would be a whole nother thing in the back of my head. I don't look like that this is backwards.
It's very weird when your face is like the opposite that you see it and you're like, oh,
that's what everyone else sees. No, I totally understand that. Before I get started into roadwork, just so I can make sure I have everything right for you. Can you give me like your official title with road work and your preferred pronouns?
Yeah, um, so my pronouns are she her, and I'm the Interim Director of roadwork.
Okay, and how long have you been in that role and how long have you been involved in the organization
as a whole? Um, so I have been the interim director for probably about a year now. Um, I started working with roadwork in 2020 Officially, um, when, man, it's so crazy to think about like the past few years. I had met Amy, she came to a retreat that I was facilitating for another organization. And she knew my boss at the time. And so she came it was all about borders and art and music and at borders. And so she came to the retreat and said that they needed somebody to help with some archives. So I was helping her with some archives and then came on more officially as like a research associate. Helping the previous board chair Jesse Washington, just with like managing roadwork and again it was supposed to be specifically archives, but there's just so much to do that, you know, you kind of just put your hands in everything. And then Jesse was moving my old boss, and so they needed another person to sit. I was there so awesome. Yeah, that's that's how it how it came to be.
What's good. You have work in archives because that's we're going to be pulling going back there. Perfect. I guess. I'm personally someone who benefits off of going in time order. So before I get to what roadwork is today I'll kind of hit that last. I wanted to start with I talked to Amy about like SR fire up until 99. Because that's when she was obviously very involved. And then between the last SR fire Festival and the revival tour, what what are not the revival toward the Revival Show in DC. Can you talk a little bit about what else roadwork was doing at that time? Because sister fired obviously took a
hiatus. Yeah, I mean, to be honest, that's, that's, I would actually say that Amy is the better person to talk to you about that time period. Again, I when I came in 2020. I had known about supply and roadwork for the past few years, but I don't have a huge amount of information during that time. I would say that maybe a specific question to ask Amy would be she was doing a lot of her work around Israel and Palestine and the relationship of her being Jewish and just, again, kind of like the borders relationship, and I know that some of that she plugged into roadwork itself, but I would say in general Starfire took a hiatus and a lot of that time was around, like gathering archival work from roadwork. And again, this is another thing that would would probably be a question to ask her or it actually might be on our on our website, too. There was a period of time where we had a storage unit that ducks just sold and emptied out by the storage people. So like a ton of archives were just completely lost. And so there was a big period of time where they were trying to contact people and just get any sort of information. From back in the day. And I think to like rotork has been around for so long. And these there's been these different iterations of it. Um, so yeah, sorry, I don't have the best like, period gap of that part. Again, I feel like Amy would be the best person to talk to you about that. Okay. Just because she's been around for so long.
Yeah, no, I can do that. I can reach back out to her. I'm just talking about like, you know, coming on board versus doing archive work and then research and then having this whole storage unit lost. Can you talk to me about the importance of foreign organization, organization and coalition like this, why that archival information is so important to have and significant?
Definitely, I mean, I think it speaks to a lot of the foundational roots of how rubric started even little details about you know, we were going through old documents of like the different iterations of robotics and SR ferries mission statement, both of those two things, and the different types of edit so you really get this sense of oh, okay, when we're just changing different language, things like that can take a mission. statement to a whole nother level. And what are the things inside coalition's that people are having to do? I think we have to use this word or, you know, right now we're at a time where we're wanting to be inclusive, and, and this group of people, they don't have a place where they can feel you know, as part of a community. Also, the different challenges that might have gone on during SR fire. I knew that there were, you know, just people getting upset at people or, you know, different conflicts that would happen at SR fire events between like vendors
and told me about that. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I
was like, what or how would you want to go into that? Yeah. You know, like, it's the idea of like, how do you how do you manage those two spaces, especially when, like both people are feeling like they're in marginalized positions. And I think that's the whole idea of a coalition, right? Like it's the fact that you're going to have people who don't always agree with you or who's going to have disagreements and and I think something today is like with our whole cancel culture, mindset, it's like when a person in your community does something, you know, I mean, there's levels to it. But if you do something that you don't agree with, it's kind of like just move on out. But if you're wanting to build community, like you have to have some sort of accountability process, and I think that's something that like everybody, when there was that larger community really took onto themselves like, okay, like, there is an issue, we need to address it, what are the steps that we need to take? And I think going back and looking in those archives and being like, wow, right, like, this is how we dealt with problems. How are we still dealing with similar issues today? Would we change anything? Is our mission statement, you know, is that still applicable in today's world to anything from like, wow, look at all these million different T shirts, and, you know, recognizing the artists who did specific drawings from photographs or, you know, I think it's, I think it's a great way to also connect the older generation with a newer generation. So for example, when we for last year, Sister prior and this year sister farm, when we had designers working on like the logo, we would give them you know, I was giving them logos from like the 80s of like, okay, this is what this looks like then, this is what we did in 2018. This is what we did last year, like take any of those elements and just run with it. So like those little details that you can just really pull that everybody might not get that but like to the community that means something when they can recognize this your fires logo and be like, Oh, wow, yeah, like that looks like you know, the logo that I saw the first time I went to SR fire. Um, yeah, and I think to again, in this day and age where people are getting older and the stories are sort of getting lost. It's really important to be able to collect any of that information whether from, you know, the different types of programs or letters that would come in to videos and archival footage that we'd be taking from interviews with people, so yeah, yeah, it's fun.
No, it sounds like fun. It sounds like conscious evolution like being aware of where you were to where you're going and, you know, being able like you said for older generations to recognize and to say like, if they're keeping the same look, maybe they're keeping the same you know, purpose the same motto the same nation. So that's there's that security there. Definitely. Also I didn't say this but I'm sure you assumed I'm just taking notes that's why I'm looking down I
fully because on Zoom, it can be hard people going to be doing whatever, but
so then, you know, there's 2000 I was going on the website of the timeline, you guys have a great website with like, 2017 you guys are helping with the Women's March and then like 2018, so revival tour, how much? I don't know how much you know about like that kind of air of, you know, the Women's March happening and what was roadmap works, not necessarily just involvement. With that, but involvement in just in general with the movement, our life, I guess, at that time.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, and I will say that right now, we are definitely at a point in time where we're really trying to figure out like how the organization can move forward. People are pretty spread out and because we were working a lot on our archival stuff and more internal work. Some of our more external work like SR fire wasn't always you know, able to get pushed out. We're kind of at limited resources just with people and everything so it's it's great to get people like be said, Well, who's so eager to come on, you know, jump on board and do curation, for this upcoming sister fire? I will really say that, like, Amy is the type of person who, anytime there's anything going on, she's like, let's get Roberta's hands on it. And it's not because she's like, I want to be involved. And I want to have proof of work. sname she really comes at it from a place of roadwork, has been in existence for so long. We have so many other types of resources that we can utilize. We have so many connections, you know, we have if we need to raise money from this business person, like let's do that, let's jump on that. And she's she's always the first person to be like, hey, this thing is happening. How can we get involved and how can we help the movement go forward? And so like in 2020, for example, again, when I when I started officially working for Redwork and the uprisings were happening, it was difficult for me to like be doing work and in my meeting, just because I was out on the street every single day. And so the direction shifted of like, okay, if you're going to be out in the street every day one absolutely do that. Because like that's what rook is about is being on those, you know, in these movements and on these marches. Into the frontlines, but also like who you going with? Oh, I'm going with a friend of mine, who's a videographer. Great. Can we pay him to use some of his footage that we can post? Let's get some of the I live in Brooklyn. So let's get some of the New York marches and post it on roadworks account or posted out just so that we can be sharing more that like roadwork, is in the know we know it's happening. We want to be involved and we're supporting these movements. And also again, like paying the people who we are gathering these footage, you know bites from and it seems little but I will say it does make a difference especially like as somebody who is like, who is that person or like I will just go to the frontlines and kind of leave behind to have an organization that's behind that and supportive that makes a huge difference. So yeah, again, it's it's it's not focused on getting roadwork involved for roadwork sake. It's getting roadwork involved because we want to be able to utilize all of our resources and all of our connections and create a community around these like bigger movements that are happening in the world.
Yeah, no, that's great. And it sounds like also whether someone's involved with roadwork or not like paying them for their contributions like being with like, respectful and saying you know, you you are the reason why we have this. So, that's always nice to hear someone from the journalism side who it's easy to get stuff stolen from me. Definitely. Great. And so, now, I guess so you came in in 2020. So your mid pandemic kind of experience. So, from like 2018 to now I know you talked a lot about the internal logistics of figuring out where roadwork is going to go How did the pandemic affect that and what's been just 2018 and now like, what's been that journey like?
Yeah, um, again, so for me, it's it really started around archiving, and so a lot of it with my old boss Jesse who's an amazing person. She it was really about kind of like establishing these infrastructures. So like, what type of archival service can we use online that we can like house all this information, really trying to get everything organized and something that Jesse would talk about to me a lot is like, you know, one thing that we need to do now is as for going through all these videos and photos is like really sitting down with Amy, and having her talk through all these things because I love Amy but she's only getting older and so at the you know, at some point, like you're going to be losing this information and she says it too. She's just like, I'm going to be forgetting stuff. So you guys better be writing this stuff down now. Um, and you know, really from the all of our board members, just like the wealth of knowledge that they have. I would say that it's, it's, it's been really good to kind of like, nail down some structures. And one thing too is that you know, they're really because folks are getting older they're really wanting to have the next generation take up this mantle and changed into their own. And I think I think that there is that freedom within it because they are communicating with people who are in the same room. So it's like if you trust the people, you can trust that they know where these things are going. Similar to be said, Well, you know, it's this idea of like, be has been in the community for so long and and I would love to have be come and take an even larger role at roadwork. You know, if you're able to, because that's someone who is in DC who's working with all these artists. And something that he has said to us is, you know, roadwork used to be they used to have such a big production side and so how can we continue to provide that type of production element to the artists in DC and really continue that path? So I think a lot of I mean, the pandemic was hard for everybody. Um, I I've never even met Jessie in person. Still haven't. I've met Amy a number of times, again, because of the conference that we were at. And you know, she had a place in New York. Um, but that also became a time where I started to get involved with some of our sponsored projects as well. And so that's another part of rhetoric that I think is really important is okay, how can roadwork as a big sister, you know, give our 501 C three status to these smaller grassroots organizations so they can like really take off. And so I would say that like sponsored projects, archiving, and just like gathering all of our videos and photos, everything kind of like on the web into a more secure and organized space, which is still happening. It's a long process.
Yeah. No, I imagine. I'm just gonna get that note down. Yeah, it sounds like it's this kind of limbo period of before we can go forward and even think about how it's going to evolve we need to get it before we lose it of this information of the people who are in the front. So I that makes that makes total sense. And it's I mean, it's interesting to hear an organization be consciously doing that, because I don't feel a lot of organizations want to keep growing and growing and growing and without doing that work. So yeah, I think that's going to be like, kind of the theme of where I'm taking the story of this. This looking back to go forward. I guess.
Yeah, yeah. Which is Yeah, relevant. And always that I'm going to after we talk is that's literally the the title of the event in one because it's a coin proverb. Looking back to look forward so yeah. So funny.
It's crazy. Oh, my gosh, I love that. Oh. So when you mentioned earlier, people are kind of all spread out. You know, you're in Brooklyn. roadwork is based in DC, right? Yeah. So where are some other people located? What has that spread been? Like?
Yeah, um, so one of our board members is in Michigan. And she has followed roadwork since the beginning really because she was a huge fan of sweet honey. And so she's like, anything that we can do to like really revive that sweet honey connection she always loves. Um, she's also just an incredible person because she was like big in the nonprofit world. Pretty much quote, like anything that had to do with like, social justice or grassroots movements in Michigan. She had her hands and and so she's just like, such an expert and you know, crafting contracts and details and this and that, that it's like, great to have that person in. Um, James is in Maryland, I believe, but now he's in Cuba. He travels a lot. Him and Amy are constantly working on different projects. Amy's in DC, but she's also New York Times. And then I believe our other board member Alexis, she just moved a little farther south and then even Jessie before she had officially stepped down. She was in Florida for a while. So I'd say the majority on the East Coast except for except for Cindy, but I would say to that, you know, when we're really reaching out to other people in the roadwork community, I mean, so much of that takes us all the way to the West Coast. And it's nice to be able to have these different connections all around because people just have different experiences as they move on. And in my experience have always been like very ready to help consult roadwork on anything that we're wanting to do. Whether it's thinking about okay now, you know, we have all these archives, we want to house them at institution, somewhere like what does that mean? We want to do it at a university. Would we want to do that in a museum? Is there another place that makes more sense like how can this be accessible to the community? So yeah, it's, it's, it's good to have all of these, I would say, what I think anything kind of post pandemic, you know, we've sort of resorted to this idea that we can all be removed. But that comes with its own struggles as well. For example, like I'm not down, or I'm not able to go down for the sister of our event because I have to work that day in New York, and so I think some of that in person connection is what all of us are really missing. And we've talked multiple times about, you know, when we're talking about roadwork, moving forward, can we do it in a way where we're getting people together in some sort of retreat format, where we're able to come it's not so exhausting on Zoom to do for hours and hours and we're able to be in community because, um, yeah, it's just a it's just a part of the reality of today that is lacking which sometimes is sad.
Yeah, no, I, I feel Yeah, definitely. Yeah, you were talking about your work before. road work doing? You were at a retreat, like instructing or leading a retreat. And just because you just mentioned the word retreat? Is that something that roadwork, has done before retreats? Or is that something that has also kind of been in the brainstorming of ways to get people together? Moving forward? Yeah, I
would say, um, as far as my knowledge, I know that we used to have our board meetings in person in DC. The idea of a retreat, in my experience, no. I think for us when we're all talking about, you know, when we're looking at how to move roadwork forward, who are the people that we should be talking to, and if we are wanting to bring in this new generation, it's not something that you know, just me and the board members can figure out like we need to be talking to people in the community. So maybe I just love retreats. I was like, We should do a retreat like this would be great because you just get that idea or that feeling of, you know, it's not just in those kind of workshop settings that you're coming up with ideas. It's when you guys are eating together. It's when you're you know, walking around together, it's when you're setting up it's when you're about to go to sleep, that all these other ideas are are coming to you and again, when when Amy had joined us for this other retreat. You know, I was so impressed with her presentation on on roadwork because it just seemed as though like everything that they had been doing in the past and wanting to do moving forward with just selling online and the majority of people who were there were dancers, musicians, artists, and now that she is in but she was coming at it from a more of like, boots on the ground type of type of attitude, which I loved. And so I think it can only be better if you you know, I mean, I would I would love this idea of having more retreats and being able to be in community and I think to something that you could ask her about and, and Alexis, is that you talk about the Enclave habitat at all? No. Okay, so enclave habitat is also one of our sponsored projects. I think that we're really starting to get off the ground into the pandemic, but the idea was, how can you set up the space and so again, this is kind of like a subset of a broader but how can you set up these artists spaces all over and have a hub for like a community of artists almost almost like a membership and, like, in an accessible way, and where, you know, say that you are going to New York for a period of time and you need somewhere to stand somewhere to live and you're setting up like different hubs around the country. So okay, well, I'm going to New York for work and I need to say somewhere Oh, somebody within the Enclave habitat also lives in New York. So now I can stay with them. And then they also talked about the idea of having like its own building, I think in in New Orleans, they're looking at a space of like, people can always come here they can be nourished, they can be taken care of. They can do their art here. Yeah. And just when the when the pandemic happened, it kind of became more of an online idea. I'm not so sure how much they've been able to work with it since then. Because, you know, again, the idea was it was supposed to bring people together. But I would talk to Amy about that and then you Alexis as well, because that was an idea that I really loved. And even though enclave habitat is a sponsored project like I think that it would be great to really pull that into Rhodopes future. Yeah, so ya
know, that sounds like a great organization. It sounds like the you know, not just doing workshops, but to find the people that you need to find to know what you need to do. You have to be in helping or other organizations and being where you, you have to put yourself actively it can't come to you kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. So that that's great. Awesome. So I was wondering also I will just want to because I know we're getting tight on time and I don't want to make make you have to rush. Let me just check my questions. Oh, yeah. So I was talking with B actually about how specifically SR fire but roadwork as being a you know, an organization with a mission for elevating women in music and specifically women of color. How has the organization began to incorporate queer identities that aren't that are like non like non non binary and things like that, to still giving them space to elevate their, their art?
Definitely, we've talked about this a lot. recently began this is a another thing that we talked about with language. So back in the day, you know, in the 70s, it was really this idea of wanting to elevate women and queer women's rights, but in a very, like specific way because that was kind of how the majority of the language was being put out. Um, I would say in the conversations that we have now, so much of that is about okay, well, obviously, when we're talking about queer we are extending it to the full spectrum of what queer means, right? So and that has a language around that has increased, I would say, um, bit uncovered, really, because it sounds like that language wasn't there, but for a lot of different for a lot of different communities like that language was there and then it was covered up by missionaries and Christianity and colonization and all the shit. And so how can you really start to address some pulling those those people and I would say that like right now, as roadwork, starts to like get back into SR fire and hopefully start to do more of these projects like that. That is a community that has always been a part of SR fire. And the language around it just was it was a different time of kind of how people talked about had to elevate certain people. That is definitely like the community that I am in and so there's no distinction between, you know, the queer people that we used to be elevating towards and the queer people that should be elevated towards in this day and age. And again, I think that's kind of something that I struggle with is because I'm not based in DC and I'm really wanting to hand over, um, you know, the reins in a way of the type of artists that we are putting on stage and the type of artists that others think should be elevated in their community. So it's less of me or even me being like, Okay, well, we like these people. So we're gonna put them on stage, but coming to somebody like me, who's part of our community being like, you know, the people so, like, what is what is your dream show? What who are the people that you think should be elevated and giving them that that freedom because I know when that freedom has been given to me for certain talks or certain events. It has opened up so many doors for people who never felt like they could step on that type of stage or enter in this type of institution to really show their work. And that's what I love so much about this upcoming show is, you know, we're constantly talking about these different things that are holding people down and it can get really exhausting when you're just talking about the struggle so much. So the fact that it's love songs, and it's celebrating joy and celebrating queer joy and relationships and like the happiness that we can find, not just like in between the hard moments, but is, is really blanketed over everything because like those are the things that are going to cover us and support us when all these other more difficult and strenuous. underlaying of society is like really, you know, putting us in a place where we feel like we can't celebrate or be authentic or just like rest is a big thing right now.
Yeah, do you are saying a lot of the same stuff of you know, queer love is it makes people uncomfortable so it's rare and to how to be celebrated and yeah, I It's funny because there was also you guys are all in line with each other which makes sense. But Amy was talking about how you know the world the word woman itself used to be so radical that that's why it was this big. be using that at the time was so important. So perfect. That wraps up my questions, but I did want to ask one thing just for to get a little bit more detail when you talked about how you help other organizations because you have like resources and connections. Can you talk about what some of those like tangible things are that you can share with your organization's Yeah, so
I would say one thing, I can give the example of heartbeat music project, which is one of our sponsor projects, which I'm also involved in as well as a development director. And so this was an organization that was kind of like a brain project between so it's a Navajo tuition free music education program on Navajo Nation and
