Today we’d like to introduce you to Reese Darko.
Reese, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I was born in California but grew up in Connecticut. As a result of my incredibly long, awkward adolescent phase, I took refuge in writing poetry from the early age of six-years-old to express emotional reflections on my life experiences. As a child, my academic reputation had been one of excellence and dedication, but as I got older and began experiencing unique hardships against my family, I developed a natural rebellion against most structures of authority.
“You don’t want to become a starving artist, do you?” This was a phrase which haunted me, making a mockery of my musings, and forcing me to keep poetry as nothing more than a forgotten paramour.
Flash forward a decade or so, and a couple of lifetimes later, at age twenty-five, I was then living in Las Vegas, my life vastly different from what I knew of my New England hometown. I was amidst yet another episode of my series of psychologically ill-advised relationships. A “some college” dropout, scraping away at the daily grind of retail management. Yes, I was still writing, always writing, but not doing anything with it but compiling notebook after notebook of thoughtful meanderings. Then in the summer of 2015, a young woman named Duwop, aka “Duwop Rose the Vinylist,” strolled into my sunglass shop and invited me to my first-ever Las Vegas open mic called Soul Sessions.
I fell in love with the community immediately. The openness to express, the art-rich culture immersed in practices of natural holistic living, emotional awareness, and spiritual synergy, Soul Sessions gave me a place to explore my voice and shake off the cobwebs of my poetic stagnation, exploring a new facet of performance art into which I had never felt comfortable venturing. I felt myself more independently growing into my own not only as an artist, but as a woman without the pretenses of my adolescent familial influence, and without the need to seek validation from a codependent relationship.
Once I began allowing these significant, cycle-breaking life changes to occur, they rippled in succession. I got myself out of eyewear retail (for the time being). I started building upon my career as an entrepreneur, networking within lucrative and creative avenues alike, such as the cannabis industry, as well as performance arts, and community outreach.
Not long after that, issues began to compound with my then-husband /son’s father, which lead to our unfortunate, yet inevitable separation. This was one of the hardest changes to ever happen in my life.
I was torn between my responsibilities as a mother and as a woman, deconditioning myself from decades of horribly culminated emotional behaviors. I was finally speaking up and holding my ground against anything which compromised my well-being for the sake of appeasing someone else’s wants or feeding into their hurtful judgments and projections.
I was done working for people who didn’t value my efforts; I was done being chastised for pursuing my artistic passions; I was done feeding into this life of shame, guilt, and obligation. I decided that to be the best mother I could be, I had to become more mindful in showing myself the kind of kindness and respect I believe I deserved. This had to start with my understanding of love being rooted first in self, Spirit, and community.
I have now spent the last two and a half years not only building up my reputation as a spoken word artist in the Las Vegas art community and beyond, but also creating and developing my own artistic platform called SNAPS Open Mic. SNAPS (Spiritual Network of Art, Poetry, & Self) is one of the first and only all-ages themed open mic events in town, which I co-founded with my friend Brianna Florian back in July 2018.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
The greatest challenge has been integrating my life as an artist, pursuing what I consider my fifth dimensional calling, with my life as a mother, ensuring my priorities to provide for my son both emotionally and financially are never compromised. It has been tough overcoming and letting go of people’s judgments. Of course, from the outside, I could see others watching me as if I had just gone “full Britney.” Uprooting over eight years invested in this career in retail sales management, to pursue my artistic passions in spoken word poetry of all things. It was easy for others to pass judgment and categorize me as a bad and selfish mother, though that was not the case.
For the first time in a very long time, I felt happy and seen for who I am. I realized that was the version of myself I wanted my son to grow up knowing, in place of the miserably depressed retail drone which I had slowly evolved into over the years prior. Sharing a passion for art and community with my son is one of the most fulfilling aspects of my life. Still, I try to constantly challenge my intentions, always bearing in mind that cultivating this artistic environment for him to grow up knowing and striving in is of utmost importance.
We’d love to hear more about your work.
Honestly, as a spoken word artist, I know we all aim to be the most emotionally and thoughtfully provoking. But for me particularly, when someone feels so moved by one of my pieces because I just awakened that repressed emotion they’ve been carrying with them for decades, trying to cover it up with smiles and dutifulness, but still with that pit in their stomach, and a twinge of guilt, shame, regret. That, that is what I do it all for. To pull out that thorn, and to tell you that it’s okay to love yourself again even with all your broken pieces.
With SNAPS, that was the basis of the vision I had when opening this community platform for free expression. It wasn’t about providing a space where people could perpetuate the abuse of our expressive freedom to spread hate/animosity and further segregate our communities. It was, and is, about being a place for honesty and growth.
I always encourage people to express freely and open themselves to the integrated communal discussion. Yes, there have been disagreements, but striving towards solutions of acceptance and change simultaneously. Trust me, it’s a work in progress, and we still have so much to learn from each other. But I see people of all ages discovering themselves, learning how to communicate their thoughts and feelings effectively, learning how to receive criticism or just generally shitty situations and allow themselves to grow from them. And, most of all, I see people forgiving themselves, and giving themselves the space to heal and be true to who they are.
I had never realized how reserved we are as a species in giving ourselves the right to be human. So many people are punishing themselves right now as you’re reading this for some crap that happened years ago that was an inevitable lesson they would have learned one way or another. I’m proud to say that these are how I lead my artistry and how I am best known—provoking authenticism and compassionate acceptance through artistic expression.
What were you like growing up?
It depends on how you define “growing up,” I guess. If you mean physically growing up as a child into adolescence and then into adulthood, I’d say that I started very shy. Like, couldn’t even look at other kids or people shy. Also, I was a little eccentric. A book worm who learned about sex from reading a biology book at age six who shared a love for Barbies, and microscopes, and Jesus. Yup, I was (and still kind of am) something of a “Jesus lover.” Spirituality has always been prominent in my life. If you ask anyone who knew me from anywhere I’ve ever lived (Connecticut, California, Nevada), the word “free-spirited” would probably come up at some point. Some might go as far as to say a little reckless. Also, quite talkative once I got to know them. As soon as I got out of that shy young phase, they couldn’t shut me up. I always tried to be a social person, even though I was kind of bad at it, to be honest. I was a spaz. *shrugs shoulders*
I played a lot of sports (mainly dance, cheerleading, and lacrosse), and partook in many school activities, but at the core of it all, I was a poet. I had a notebook everywhere I went, and would share my corny high school love poetry with anyone who would listen; at 7 am waiting at the bus stop for school, on the bus to an away game, passing notes in class with haiku or funny quotes. I was such a hopeless romantic. I would read Shakespeare all the time, or Edgar Allen Poe when I was feeling particularly dark and heartbroken.. E. E. Cummings when I was feeling obscurely deep. These written artists spoke to me in ways that helped me understand the many facets of my emotions. I continue to find solace in their old words even to this day. The only difference is now I have my own batch of “old words” to guide me as well.
Pricing:
- $10: Pre-order my audio book “Necessary Noise”
- $5: Pre-sale tickets to any future SNAPS events
Contact Info:
- Phone: 7027150566
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @rs.darko
- Twitter: @reseedarko
- Other: @snapsopenmic
Image Credit:
Glenn Guiao (@pinkpenguinst),
Connie Williams (@conomatic),
Shannon Dorn (@dope_foto),
Ferriez Johnson (@rez1k),
Angel Alonzo (@_aaphto)
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