129 - Gaining Distance to See What You're Actually Doing

For Christopher Stark, what makes a residency valuable has little to do with geography. Across stints in Italy, Norway, and upstate New York, location left almost no mark on the work itself — the people did, offering a rare baseline of cross-disciplinary curiosity and genuine attention that felt validating in a way daily life rarely does. Residencies also provide distance: a chance to step outside routine and assess whether it's actually serving his goals. A year in Rome clarified this from the opposite direction — Stark found himself missing the chaotic, diverse American art scene he could move through in a single week, despite conditions he describes as inhospitable to art-making. That contrast extends to artistic community itself: away from home, everyone starts from a baseline of mutual unfamiliarity, but in St. Louis, identity, history, and local politics attach to everything, including a string quartet, in a city with little of the ironic distance found in scenes elsewhere.Listen to music/Maker with Tyler Kline wherever you get podcasts, or at musicmakerpodcast.com.Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.Follow us on Instagram: @loose.leaf.transmissionsmicro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.