Lockdown Lemonade #28 by Jeanette Lundgren

Busier Than Ever…

In January 2020, I had a wonderful new place to present my house concert series and went all out getting blue mugs and serving dishes from thrift stores, making a couple of different sized Two Blue Roses banners, blue Christmas lights, and more ….

I presented two shows there; my last in-person show was with Abby Posner and she was fantastic … Covid was already in our midst though and shortly thereafter, I changed my in-person shows to all online, and all of the fun stuff created for the physical house concert is now in storage in my attic. It’ll get used again, of this I am confident, but I don’t really know when it’ll be safe enough to do so, or even where those shows will be held as the building I was renting is currently for sale.

But yes, busier than ever …. Artists are home so they are working their craft in different ways and they still need social media support and I am happy to be of service.

FAR-West – for which I am Board Secretary and Online Communications Chair – has gone fully virtual and all programs need promotion while we beef up our online presence in a variety of ways. I thought I was busy when I was coordinating the yearly conferences but the busyness from those before times pales in comparison … Newsletter … blog … social media …. putting more systems in place … meetings on zoom … something every day for 1-3 hours, and then I need to take care of my clients for the rest of a days’ hours (till it’s done).

Along the way I realized that yes there are lemons but there is much lemonade to be made from them. We can reach people we’ve never reached before; offer programs to a wider audience that were only offered at in-person conferences before … Invite those from places in our region we’ve never been or who have never visited us.

I’ve always been an advocate for connectedness, diversity of culture and music and dance and stories … I’ve always felt that the word ‘folk’ is a melting pot of music of all genres from many places that can be played or sung or danced acoustically … and one morning I woke up with an idea to bring all of those and more to us and us to them.

And thus the Community series was born and after many discussions of what the series is and can be, we are launching on Monday, May 3rd with Lee Penn Sky and the Idaho Songwriters Association.

It’s exciting! We can visit virtual neighborhoods of genres, music associations, music that appeals to various age-ranges, folk-dance, Open Words storytelling, visiting with artists, venues, radio shows, festivals and more in the wide blue FAR-West region, each one curated by someone close to that area. Each showcase will talk a little about the organization or genre being presented and I’m hoping that it will bring our far-flung family (as Carey Appel dubbed us) closer together as we explore each diverse community, each genre, each state or city … that we may not have been able to explore previously.

That Lemonade is tasting better every day.

~ Jeanette Lundgren

Jeanette Lundgren is the “Mom Hen” in Mother Hen Promotions; affordable social media management with a side of music business advice, guidance, and research for quality independent musicians and music industry related businesses. Mother Hen defines herself as a nitpicking precise organized efficient behind-the-scenes support person, who attempts to put your best foot forward via all of your online presences combined.
https://motherhenpromotions.com/

In an attempt to keep us connected as we continue to find our way through these often stressful times, some in our extended community have been sharing their experiences, lessons learned and hope as they’ve dealt with Covid, lockdown, boredom, lack of inspiration, etc. We are all looking for ways to make lemonade out of the many lemons! This column will continue on a weekly basis and postings will be released at 10 AM Pacific every Monday, so watch for them! For guidelines and submission details, please contact Julie Zipperer at juliez@far-west.org or Marlynn Block at marlynn@far-west.org. Submissions will be posted based on approval from the Lockdown Lemonade Committee.