Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Danae Anderson. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Danae, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
My sister and I were raised by my father, a UC Berkeley Professor of physics and my mother, a WWll refugee.
My mother’s traumatic and dangerous escape during the Nazi invasion of Greece caused her a lifetime of mental instability. When I was 7 years old, she experienced a profound nervous breakdown, receiving therapy of electric shock and islolation during her lengthy hospital stay. This childhood experience caused me to rapidly grow up, becoming my mother’s primary caretaker once she returned home. My child brain could only understand that I caused her trauma and so I struggled with self love for decades. In truth, my mother’s mental illness and the harsh bullying I received in elementary school gave me the gift of resilience. I had to find ways to preservere on my own.
Creating art, dancing and being in nature have been healing spaces for me, balms that have nurtured me since childhood.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
Since childhood I have been deeply moved by art. My parents took me to museums around the world. I am most interested in art in which I see the hand and soul of the artist, a Rembrandt or Van Gogh self portrait, indigenous objects, works demonstrating immediacy and expressive play such as Cy Twombly, Klee and Miro, Jean Michel Basquiat. My interest in performance art such as Mendiata and Beauys and the Light artists, Turrell and Irwin, inspired my performance and stage sets work. Being a student of Merce Cunningham dance technique, indigenous culture and my babies’ explorations of their new world with immediacy, random acceptance and abandon, gave me the seeds that have guided me through my life’s career as an artist.
I continue to nurture my creative process through experiencing deeply the world around me, inspiring my and work and exhibitions.
Following is my artist statement
In Indigenous cultures, things done and things happening (music/dance/nature) are one. Within action/process, chance associations arise from the immediacey of the non conscious and the sensory.
In the membrane of play, language, events, objects, the ordinary, the absurd, sense/nonsense, the seen/ the unseen, the ancestors and progeny, improvisation and memory, daily experience is recorded. Through this interplay, the artist documents the imperatives of life.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
My resilence is a gift of difficult experiences since childhood, never giving up and finding the sacred spaces that, over time, healed my wounds.
Additionally the gift of growing up in an adventurous, culturally diverse, funny and curious family who traveled the world empowered my creativity and courage.
Alright so to wrap up, who deserves credit for helping you overcome challenges or build some of the essential skills you’ve needed?
It was my parents, my children and my own endurance that helped me overcome doubt and find self love. Finding confidence in oneself and empathy for all has gifted me success, acceptance and confidence.
In giving, we receive. My Quaker great great grandfather was a conductor on the underground railroad helping fugitive enslaved people reach Canada. I am honored to carry on, in small ways, my family’s life work to perpetuate love, kindness and compassion towards all beings on our planet.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://danaeanderson.com
Image Credits
Danae Anderson
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
