Transcript Season 3, Episode 7
Alexis Clements
Terri Trespicio:
What does it mean to make it big? Well, depends on who you ask. And we did. Welcome, to Making It Big in 30 Minutes, a podcast for, by, and about the Emerson community. You're about to meet an Emersonian who's making it. Making a living, making a difference, and sometimes, making it up as they go. I'm your host and alum, Terri Trespicio, and if you like what you hear, subscribe and share with your friends and meet me and other Emersonians over on Emerge, the only digital platform exclusive to the Emerson community. Just go to emerge.emerson.edu for more. All right, let's get started.
Alexis Clements has been writing since she was a kid. It was just her way of making sense of the world. She graduated Emerson a semester early in December 2001, with a degree in theater studies. And she's racked up quite a few awards and grants, including a Bruce And Arch Brown Foundation grant, a Dramatists Guild of America fellowship, two Puffin Foundation artist grants, and the Source theater, Washington theater festival literary prize. There are others.
As a working artist, Alexis isn't just interested in art, but in the labor of art and how incredibly undervalued it is. This is what inspired her to start her podcast called The Answer is No, about why it's important for artists to say no to more things. Her first feature-length documentary film, All We've Got, looks at the shifting landscape of LGBTQI women's spaces, specifically the ones that are thriving, which got attention in the New York Times, Slate, and Rolling Stone, among others. What it's really about, though, is the nature of community and what it actually means and doesn't mean, and the opportunity that it affords us all. I think you'll find it fascinating. I give you Alexis Clements on making it as a writer and filmmaker. Alexis, you've done it. You've made it as an artist in the world. You've made it as an artist and activist. You're living the dream.
Alexis Clements:
Well, thank you. That's the first time I've ever heard that.
Terri Trespicio:
Well, it's always fun to talk to Emersonians who have really committed to making art their work and art of their work. And that's layered, there's people who become artists, and there's people who do things and use art to do those things. And since you are a writer and a filmmaker, and usually those things start with, probably, a kid who likes to read and write-
Alexis Clements:
Yes.
Terri Trespicio:
...I'm interested if what came for you was when you pictured little Alexis imagining her life, if it was the writing that came first or the work and the writing followed to support it.
Alexis Clements:
Definitely writer, no question. I used to walk around with a stack of blank paper and I was just sure that I could fill that entire ream of paper with whatever random thoughts I had that day. Yeah, no, definitely writer was always my way of dealing with the world and also imagining a future for myself.
Terri Trespicio:
It sounds like you had a writing practice though, from a young age, if you're writing that young. How old were you when you remember doing that? I'm going to guess like seven.
Alexis Clements:
I mean the classic image that I have of myself, it's all... My mother had this roll top desk. Well, so I was a military kid, so we moved around a lot. So writing was a companion, writing and books were a companion. So it definitely was there early. But I remember being in this sunroom, in one of the houses that we lived in, and my mom was sitting at her roll top desk and she knew her daughter very well, so she'd set up a little tiny kid size desk next to her. And she would be sitting there doing the house finances and paying the bills and all of that, and I would be sitting there pushing my little paper around on the desk being like, okay, what am I going to do here?
Terri Trespicio:
Oh my god, can you believe that we're like, let's play how, we're going to pretend we're working. That was play.
Alexis Clements:
I mean, that's a whole other thing that I'm working with my therapist on, let's be honest.
Terri Trespicio:
I love it. You're at your desk, you're being productive, being a writer, having your paper. I mean, it was like this was important. I mean, obviously there's a million ways to be a writer in the world. Did you have ideas about what that meant or would look like, or you didn't really care at that point?
Alexis Clements:
It's interesting because when I was... Even at Emerson, I never considered writing as a career. I came in through the theater studies program and thought I would be an actor. Because when I left... I went to a high school for nerds, I went to a high school for science and technology. And I-
Terri Trespicio:
What?
Alexis Clements:
I know, I know. That's a whole twisted path that we all walk in life. But yeah, so I was one of the few people from my high school who was going to like join a circus. I was applying to opera conservatories and acting programs. And the reason I decided on Emerson was because if you study in a music conservatory, especially in an opera program, you pretty much don't have the time and opportunity to study anything else, because you have to learn three languages, you have to learn music theory, you have to learn to play a piano better than you probably do.
There's just a lot, it just eats up. And so for me, Emerson was a chance to study, having come from a school for nerds, was a chance to not lose track of my intellectual interests, but still pursue know my interest in the arts. And so yeah, I came in thinking, okay, well I'll be an actor. It's just funny because writing was always part of my life, it's how I managed life, it's how I interpreted the world and my thoughts. [crosstalk 00:05:56].
Terri Trespicio:
Right? [inaudible 00:05:56] blood.
Alexis Clements:
Yeah. But I never really was... I don't know, somehow I was always just like, well I have to do something for money. Not that acting is necessarily the most obvious choice. I don't know where I got that idea.
Terri Trespicio:
Oh my gosh. So basically you're like, I like to be a writer, but why don't I do a backup career that will be definitely secure financially.
Alexis Clements:
Totally. Really easy, lots of opportunities, good pay. Yeah, and then in theater studies, I pivoted and ended up just doing more general stuff because acting turned out to not really be a good fit for me. It didn't work for me, and I don't know that I was necessarily amazing at it, but also it just wasn't what I was looking for. And so one way or another, literally in my last year at Emerson, I started taking a playwriting class and then entered the Rod Parker fellowship sort of contest. And it was sort of a bunch of people would submit a play and they would choose one and that person got a fellowship and they produced the play, fully produced the play. It was amazing, it was-
Terri Trespicio:
Wow.
Alexis Clements:
It was really, really cool. And so I had a full production of something that I wrote within a year, which doesn't happen in real life, actually. And it was an amazing experience.
Terri Trespicio:
What was that play about?
Alexis Clements:
It was called People Watching and it was because I loved to sit around and people watch. But it was about the tension... So it was about a young girl and an older gentleman who encountered each other in the park, a park sort of like Boston Common because I spent way too much time walking around and sitting in Boston Common. And they, I can't remember all the details, but essentially they sort of strike up a friendship, a very unlikely friendship. And then something happens, I can't remember what the crisis is, but something happens and then other people impose their view on that unlikely friendship and think that it's inappropriate. And so it's about sort of them trying to unwind other people's expectations of what is genuinely just a lovely friendship between these two people who are enjoying hanging out in the park and watching people.
Terri Trespicio:
Interesting. And actually, what the interesting twist there for me is that they were being watched themselves-
Alexis Clements:
Yeah, exactly.
Terri Trespicio:
... and being judged.
Alexis Clements:
Yeah.
Terri Trespicio:
Did that make you think this is what I want to do now or...?
Alexis Clements:
Well, I will never forget one of my professors at Emerson, Steve [Yakutis 00:08:38], he was talking to me and he was like, in a very gentle, but dryly humorous way, pointed out it will never be like this in real life. And he was right. I mean in retrospect, I'm super grateful for it because it was that chance to have an idea, see it realized, and have people responding to it very quickly. And it just made it seem very possible, it made it seem tangible to actually do this thing. So even though the circumstances under which I've produced shows has never been as well resourced and I didn't get to sit in on the design production meetings and all of that, but it showed me what was possible, and showed me a really interesting view of that stuff, basically, from my first time out of the gate, which was amazing.
Terri Trespicio:
Yeah. I'm so glad you got that experience. And that's kind of how I feel about Emerson students with their beautiful apartments that overlook the Common, you won't be living there either, you know what I mean?
Alexis Clements:
No, you won't.
Terri Trespicio:
It gives you a taste of it, but then it can feed your life and imagination, whether you do that one thing-
Alexis Clements:
Exactly.
Terri Trespicio:
... or not. So the idea of creating something, having it executed, and getting response, for any creative is addictive, right. Once you've had that experience.
Alexis Clements:
Yes.
Terri Trespicio:
It doesn't mean you have to be a playwright, it doesn't mean you have to go to Broadway, there's no one way to do it. When you started to go, okay, now I'm going to be leaving school, I'm going to be building a career and a life, were you of the mindset of I'll do whatever it takes to just make art and I'll just eat pasta every night forever or tuna out of a can? How did this inform your idea of what work would be like?
Alexis Clements:
It's an interesting question and it's part of one of the things I ask people in my podcast that I produce about this, because I'm so curious how people do imagine it. And it gets back to that point earlier about somehow even though writing was the thing I did every day, it made my life livable and interesting and it helped me deal with the world, it never occurred to me that that would be a career. So somehow I had it embedded in me that I had to do other work. So basically when I left Emerson, one of my professors, my playwriting professor acknowledged that I'd had this really cool experience and this little bit of success sort of walking out of Emerson, and was like, look, give it a go for five years.
And so I was like, all right, well, I have to pay my bills. I think it must be from my parents that I was just sort of like... And the sort of class backgrounds and the ways that all of that stuff plays in, I was just like, well, I have to pay my bills, I'm not willing to just wing it. I don't have anything to fall back on. And so if I don't pay the bills, they're not getting paid. So I definitely pursued work right away. I've been working and doing internships and babysitting when I was in Boston and school. So I'd been working the whole time. So it was just part of life, you work and then you do the things that you like to do. So I came out of school, looked for jobs, and just started to put my head down outside of work and write. And that was basically... Yeah, the first five years I was just, I mean-
Terri Trespicio:
You knew one had to fund the other.
Alexis Clements:
Yeah. I didn't have any illusions.
Terri Trespicio:
Yeah, totally. I mean, it sounds like you had a very realistic mindset about it. But when you say, I looked for jobs, you weren't looking to have a career where you got paid inside the industry you wanted, it was more like let me just get a job job, or...?
Alexis Clements:
This was always, and it continues to always be kind of an internal debate, the question of whether or not to try to earn money in the arts while also trying to have a career in the arts. And I've talked with many people about this, and it's kind of a constant conundrum, I think many people... Because you use up a lot of your energy, if that's your day job, or if your day job uses the same skills as the thing that you do outside your day job. And so it can be a really tricky balance sometimes. Some people are fed by it, some people love it, but I had a little bit of a resume because I'd been working that whole time, I'd had internships and jobs since high school. So I just started looking for jobs. I graduated a semester early, so I graduated in December 2001, and it was actually really difficult to find jobs at that time. So I started temping, which is the thing-
Terri Trespicio:
[inaudible 00:13:45].
Alexis Clements:
... that many people do. Worked in a call center, worked in a dentist office, worked for an accountant, had a bunch of random-
Terri Trespicio:
Oh, god, everything.
Alexis Clements:
Yeah, and it would be like two-week gigs, one month temp job. It was really like temp jobs. And then I started applying for... I did, I was like, okay, well I'll try working in the arts because that's where my heart is, so I'll see if I can get a day job. And my very first jobey job, like permanent job out of school, was at a small art museum in Washington, D.C. And that job actually burned me out on working in the arts as my day job. And I have never-
Terri Trespicio:
Oh really?
Alexis Clements:
I have never [crosstalk 00:14:31].
Terri Trespicio:
Well, this is a bad idea.
Alexis Clements:
Yeah. I won't get into all of the details.
Terri Trespicio:
We're kind of like if we're going to have a relationship, we can't live... You're basically like if we're going to have a relationship, me and you, arts, we can't live together.
Alexis Clements:
Yeah. I mean, it really was just this thing where it became very clear that to get into some of the subject matter of my later writing and even the subject matter of the podcast, it became very clear that labor is extremely undervalued in the arts, and particularly in the nonprofit arts. And so people are paid very poorly and they're sort of this false trade-off of like, oh, well you get to have a job in the arts, so you're so lucky and it's so great and you're doing good things in the world, so we're not going to pay you anything.
Terri Trespicio:
Yes. And I want to get to that, to talk about the podcast a little bit. The point being, not working for money inside of the arts. But you have gone on to become a filmmaker and I'm interested in your take on this. Talk to me about making a film today. Obviously back in the day, it was a very high barrier to entry, now it's a little lower because anyone can get into visual storytelling. What counts as a filmmaker? How do you know you're actually a real filmmaker? Define it for us.
Alexis Clements:
It's interesting because I had that little bit of new media background at Emerson and I actually had taught kids how to make film, well, how to make videos, let's be clear, I wasn't teaching them film processing. So in high school and in college, I had done media making in general, some audio projects and some video projects. So I had that language. And then at various points in my day jobs, since that time, it would become necessary to make videos because as we all know, as you pointed out, visual storytelling is just sort of part of everybody's daily life at this point. But the question of making a documentary really came down to wanting to tell a story that would reach a wider audience, but also just something that was aimed more in a journalistic frame, maybe, than some of my other work. And so documentary answered those two needs and the needs came out of a desire to tell a story.
Terri Trespicio:
But was there a moment when you were like, now this is what I do, like I can identify as... Even writers, anyone who does any kind of art is like am I real or not? And I just find that question comes up a lot. It's very interesting. Like am I really doing this? When was that moment for you?
Alexis Clements:
I mean, it's definitely took a while, especially because that film was my very first film. I didn't make shorts before-
Terri Trespicio:
[inaudible 00:17:13].
Alexis Clements:
Yeah, I started with a feature-length film.
Terri Trespicio:
Wow.
Alexis Clements:
Why not just jump right off that cliff.
Terri Trespicio:
Seriously.
Alexis Clements:
So yeah-
Terri Trespicio:
That was your first big feature-length film?
Alexis Clements:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, feature-length documentary.
Terri Trespicio:
And you just hit it right out of the park.
Alexis Clements:
Yeah, I was lucky. But yeah, it definitely took me a while, during the process, to have the confidence to call myself a filmmaker. You're touching on something that I think a lot of people do struggle with. And especially there was a sense of a little bit of imposter syndrome because I hadn't gone to school to study film in a formal way. And I have friends who are documentary filmmakers and filmmakers, and I was like, oh, well, you know, I'm taking on this form in order to tell this story, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I get to claim this as a title. So it really wasn't until the film was finished and out into the world that I was like, oh, I get... My friends were literally like you are a film, you should call yourself a filmmaker because you are.
Terri Trespicio:
You're a filmmaker, yes.
Alexis Clements:
Yeah, so it wasn't until was done, the first one was done.
Terri Trespicio:
Oh wow. All We've Got, of course, award-winning documentary in which you look at the LGBTQI women's spaces, specifically at the ones that are thriving and asked why, right. This was the thing you were like, not always and they're horrible all these spaces are going away, which is, but why are these thriving. And you said, in an article, you were talking about that what you found was that they didn't thrive because they were identical and agreed on everything, but because they don't. And this moves us into the topic of community. Talk about that a bit, if you would.
Alexis Clements:
Ultimately, one of the reasons that I made this film is to investigate the question of what community is. Because as someone who moved around a lot and didn't have a lot of access to what that word actually meant in real life, not just theoretically, I was really trying to understand what do we mean by this word. We use it all the time. We use it in these really generic ways, these ways that I don't feel like I fit within, so what are we really talking about when we talk about community. And for me, part of what I came to understand through making this film is that community is a small group of people engaged in a shared goal or a shared project. And the reason that that shared goal or shared project is important is because that keeps you in there, even when conflicts come up.
And for me, that was really important because as a military kid who moved a lot and changed schools a lot, I was that person who was sort of like, this is difficult, I'm uncomfortable, I don't like what's happening here, I'm just going to leave because why should I stay, I'm going to leave anyway. And so being part of some of these communities really pushed me to confront a lot of my stuff and continues to push me to kind of confront the things about myself that I would like to change, that I would like to improve on, that I would like to grow around.
Terri Trespicio:
Yes. Now something else, you have a podcast called The Answer Is No, and tell us why you called it that.
Alexis Clements:
Yeah. I mean, so one of the challenges of being, especially when you're that person who's coming into your adult life no longer in school or shifting away from support systems and moving to taking care of your own stuff, is that, especially if you want to have a life in the arts, it's very hard to say no, because you want the thing, that you want that career. And so the assumption is I have to say yes to everything because that's the thing that will get me to that eventual career level that I want to achieve. And so you start with that as a young artist, or someone who's just entering the field, even maybe later in your career, and you have to learn to say no.
Kudos to the people who learn to say no early in their career. I haven't met very many of them because it really is a skill, it's a muscle that you have to learn. And the reason to say no, the motivation behind the podcast is just to help individuals understand that you shouldn't accept working conditions and terms from other people that are untenable and that are going to disadvantage you. But by saying no, as an individual you actually are participating in a collective project of improving the working conditions and the terms that we all work under.
Terri Trespicio:
Yes, you're voting, you're voting for whether this sucks or this doesn't.
Alexis Clements:
Exactly.
Terri Trespicio:
And specifically, I was listening to one of the episodes where you're talking about how artists, a huge percentage of them, are invited/asked to present their work with no money at all, no payment, no perks, no nothing. And it's like, well, you're an artist, you probably just want to show everyone your stuff, so you should just do that. And that artists tend to say yes to things because everything looks like an opportunity when really it's just free labor and it's not fair and it lowers the value of that thing. And the reason I thought that was so fascinating, given the way you talk about community, is community is what can we say yes to, but you can't say yes to things without saying no to others.
And so it makes total sense to me that you would have a podcast that's drawing the other side, the other line of that boundary. Because a community in order to exist, has a kind of boundary around it. And it's not just, oh, we're all inclusive, everything's inclusive, like an all-inclusive resort, everyone's welcome. Well no, actually they're not all welcome. And if they can't work to make this work, then they're not. But that no is as much a part of community as yes, maybe even more important.
Alexis Clements:
Yeah, no, it's true. Because the thing, and this gets down to this question of... I can speak to one of the community that I am assumed to be part of, which is queer women's community, LGBTQI women's community or lesbian community, and there is this sense, oh, that is a community. It is not, it is communities, right? It is-
Terri Trespicio:
Right, it's not just one big party we're all at, right?
Alexis Clements:
Yeah, and we don't all agree and we don't get along and we don't have the same politics, at all. And in particular around politics, it is very often assumed that there is a shared politic in some way, shape, or form. I think this is true particularly for queer community. There's this assumption that everybody's going to be on board with certain political ideas and it's just not the case. And it's really dangerous when we do assume that because not only does it create conflict, but it also creates a mythology that is not true and can be very reductive and prevent us from moving forward on certain issues because as you're saying, we can't say no. If everybody has to be at the table, even people whose politics aren't on board with ours, if we're engaged in a political project, then we're actually holding ourselves back politically because we're trying to accommodate people who aren't there with us, on the same page. And that is a limitation, actually. And it is not going to move us forward.
Terri Trespicio:
But when you zoom out on the way you see community, through the lens, through the Alexis lens, how do you imagine this will change or challenge our sense of community since we have now known what it was to be kind of without it in the way we were used to?
Alexis Clements:
I mean, I think for me, it just actually has really reinforced this notion that it's about shared values, shared goals, shared projects, because we had to pull back, we had to not just... There's a lot of social activity, at least for me, as someone living in Brooklyn, there's a lot of social activity that you just do because you're out and about. There's just things you get involved in because, oh, I'm here and people are talking about da, da, da, da, da. But when you have to take an actual literal risk in order to participate in community, it means you are sort of really committing. Like, oh, if I'm going to go do this thing, like I'm going to go engage in this protest in the middle of a pandemic, that's a bold choice. I am taking a big risk in that moment, but the reason I'm going to do it is because my commitment is that strong to this thing. And I feel like for me actually, it created a lot of moments in which priorities around what are the shared projects I want to engage in have become stronger and not weaker, actually.
Terri Trespicio:
Absolutely. Let's go back to Emerson, tell me a little about how the Emerson experience for you informed your sense of community. What was it like?
Alexis Clements:
The absolute truth is that I really struggled at Emerson socially.
Terri Trespicio:
Tell me why?
Alexis Clements:
Yeah. I thought that Emerson would be a place where weirdos like me would be, and then I could like make friends with the weirdos, but I had some other stuff to deal with.
Terri Trespicio:
That's why a lot of people go to Emerson.
Alexis Clements:
Yeah. So it took me a while. Mostly I came out of Emerson with a couple of really good friendships, and I think that those helped and served me later. I definitely came out of Emerson with a stronger sense of how to pursue my intellectual curiosity. But I don't know that it was Emerson's fault in any way, shape, or form. I was an 18 year old who had a lot of shit to deal with. [crosstalk 00:27:23].
Terri Trespicio:
Were there not enough weirdos at Emerson?
Alexis Clements:
There were plenty of weirdos, but yeah, being that age, it's a very tender and difficult age, moving from being in a home place to being in a not home place.
Terri Trespicio:
First of all, no one arrives, very few arrive like, hi, I'm ready to make friends and grow my life. It's a horrible, awkward thing to be 18 and having just left home for the first time. There's no question, at any school it would be hard for sure. I mean, it takes a while for anyone. I think maybe, you might be the only guest I've interviewed who spent time at Kasteel Well. And for the uninitiated, for the fall and spring terms, there's a 14th-century moated medieval castle in the Netherlands that serves as Emerson's European campus for 90 Emerson students. Was that your first time abroad? What was that like?
Alexis Clements:
Yeah, I did two semesters abroad when I was at Emerson, one at the castle and then one with a program through BU and just got my credits transferred. But I had never traveled abroad. I had been-
Terri Trespicio:
Oh, wow.
Alexis Clements:
... in an airplane once, I think, before Emerson. So for me, on a really pragmatic level, I was like, oh, well, it costs about the same amount of money to be overseas at Emerson as it costs to be in Boston, I really want to learn how to be a citizen of the world. I wanted to understand what was beyond the corner of the world that I had known. And it seemed like, well, I have this opportunity, let me just go for it. And I met one of my best friends, one of those two friends that I came out of Emerson with, I met my best friend there. We met accidentally. We came thinking we were going to travel with other people and then we ended up bonding and traveling together. I just spent two hours on the phone with her last night talking about life.
Terri Trespicio:
Oh my gosh [inaudible 00:29:39].
Alexis Clements:
Yeah, so for me, the two semesters abroad, maybe it's my own way of answering the question of community. I think for me, it was about experiencing the world and introducing myself to new experiences and getting out of my little circle and what I understood. And as uncomfortable as I was, it's that 18 year old that also was what that was about, let's just keep building the courage to jump into a new situation and learn how to navigate that. And so for me, that was a big, big piece of my experience as an undergrad. And those trips abroad were big piece of it.
Terri Trespicio:
So in a way you've always been pushing a boundary of community because, as you've pointed out, it is not in any one place with any one group. Is there something you would say to people who are thinking about wanting to follow that itch to create for a living or as a way of identifying, whatever that means?
Alexis Clements:
Yeah. I mean, I think for me exactly what I said before, in terms of starting this documentary, it was the story that led, it's the story I wanted to tell, it was the story I wanted to learn more about. And so for me, it's a little dangerous to want to do something because you want to identify as an artist. Dangerous might be putting too strong a point on it, but have something that you want to know more about in the world. That's my approach. Everybody's entitled to their own, but my approach is really a research-base approach. And then you realize, when you start to do that, that there's 10 different things that you're researching or 10 different things that you're exploring or learning about because it's never just one thing. And so for me, I think that's the biggest-
Terri Trespicio:
Using your art as the tool, as opposed to the goal, in and of itself.
Alexis Clements:
Exactly.
Terri Trespicio:
What does it mean to you to make it and how will you know when you get there?
Alexis Clements:
I mean, I think this is something that I touch on a little bit in the podcast, actually, I ask some of the guests about their ideas of success as well. And I think the chuckle comes from those ideas that we have as a young person, looking out at other people's success and being like, oh, making it means making all your money from your art, or making it means getting tons of awards and like being celebrated, or making it means people call you up and want to know what you think about things all the time. And the chuckle comes from recognizing that even if you manage to get some awards or even if you manage to get invited to be on podcasts now and again, the rest of life is still happening and it is not a nonstop glamor parade in any way, shape, or form.
Terri Trespicio:
Life is still happening, life's still happening.
Alexis Clements:
Yeah.
Terri Trespicio:
Alexis, thank you so much.
Alexis Clements:
Thank you, this has been so much fun.
Terri Trespicio:
Thank you so much. Check out her podcast, The Answer Is No. Just so fun to talk to Alexis, thanks so much for being part of it.
Alexis Clements:
Thanks so much for having me. I loved being a part of it.
Terri Trespicio:
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