The Artful Life Questionnaire: Lawrence Carter-Long (Oakland, California)

What we know for sure: We all have a story, and engaging with the arts helps all of us to tell our own stories on our own terms. We also know that there are ways to engage with the arts other than in formal cultural venues, and that sometimes is more about the process of art making than it is about the end product. We also know that living an artful life, which is to say, living a life in which the arts and arts engagement are a priority means different things to different people based on their own interests, their communities, and many other factors, including equitable access. The Artful Life Questionnaire celebrates the diversity of ways we can make the arts a part of our lives, and, hopefully, inspires and encourages us to live our own unique versions of an artful life. In today’s edition of the questionnaire, we’re speaking with Lawrence Carter-Long, disability activist, actor, and co-director of DisArt.

NEA: Please introduce yourself.

LAWRENCE CARTER-LONG: With the benefit of hindsight—which is always 20/20—I’m a little shocked and equally amused that even though I’d studied theater in high school and in college, co-hosted and co-produced a radio show for several years, toured the world as part of Heidi Latsky’s modern dance company, curated my own successful film series for four years in addition to programming and co-hosting three different showcases on the history and evolution of Disability In Film for Turner Classic Movies, and have almost three decades working in message framing and media—which is an art form in and of itself—that I resisted calling myself an artist until recently.

At the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic when we all had a lot of unplanned, unexpected time to suddenly slow down if not stop and think, I was turned down for a grant that would have likely opened new artistic options for my work and my life. I stopped to ask myself, “Am I an artist who engages in advocacy, or an activist with an artistic bent?” Thought about it for probably 10 seconds before realizing that the answer was, and is, “yes.”

It struck me then, as the question does now, that I didn’t feel like I had earned the designation, even though friends and colleagues argued the point differently, and had ample evidence to illustrate their position. So, in my case, as I suspect is true for many folks with creative inclinations, becoming “an artist” largely involved embracing what I’d been doing all along, stretching beyond my comfort zones, and getting out of my own way.

NEA: Do you have a current art practice or a way of regularly engaging with the arts?

CARTER-LONG: I’ve always been compelled to find out more about the thinking and the process that propels artistic expression. For example, it is a common misconception that inspiration, especially as it relates to disabled artists, is a warm and fuzzy response that, in this context, a non-disabled person feels about everyday, normal things that disabled folks do. This is a totally passive response, non-threatening, that requires nothing more from them.

If we dig a bit deeper into the root of the word inspire, it means a compulsion to act, to foster, and to facilitate change. And so, if we use that definition, inspiration becomes a verb.

Inspiration, for me, often comes from memoirs or interviews of other artists, from the unplanned asides that reveal something about why they do what they do in the ways they do it. If a subject sparks my interest or curiosity, I can’t help but dive deeper into the work, the artist, and the process that created and refined it.

I consciously, deliberately, and actively engage with that impulse, invite it to challenge, guide, and to change me. It isn’t always easy, mind you, but I find it essential. When lacking oomph or energy, I try to remind myself that “inspiration without perspiration equals aspiration,” which means a lot of hot air. *laughs* That helps get me started.

NEA: What are five words that come to mind when you think about the idea of living an artful life?

CARTER-LONG: Attention, emotion, process, integrate, and evolve.

NEA: Pick just one of those words and expand on how you see it as part of living an artful life.

CARTER-LONG: Attention. Everything begins with attention. Genuine engagement with art, artists, and artistic expression requires a willingness, if not a commitment to lean in, expose a nerve, and invite art to move and ultimately change you. If we can endeavor to get comfortable enough with the uncomfortable to allow a shift in thinking, perception, or understanding to happen—not by forcing anything, but rather by having enough faith to engage and allow—art becomes its own kind of alchemy. A process and a practice one can tap into at any time whether it is viewing artwork in a museum or a gallery, feeling a performance, allowing a rhythm at a concert or in the grocery story to move you, or noticing the butterfly that just landed next to you or the sparrow as it flies by. Equal parts attention and evolution, I reckon, are essential in living an artful life. They need, feed, and inform each other.

NEA: Where do you currently live, and what are some of the ways that your community tells its story through the arts or through creative expression?

CARTER-LONG: My current zip code is in West Oakland, California, but my communities, and the artistic expression I engage with has been almost exclusively virtual for four years now since the height of the pandemic. What that lacks in audience participation is counterbalanced by the kinds of, and levels of, engagement I tap into using technology.

For example, and most people don’t know this, but music has been an almost constant companion of mine, dating back to the AM radio I listened to in my bedroom as a child before I started walking at age 5. These days, through ingenuity and advances in technology, I can and do listen to noncommercial and public radio stations from around the globe which bring an almost infinite array of rhythms, perspectives, and points of view right into my kitchen, living room, back deck, phone, or ears on command and on demand almost daily. You could say the same about streaming media, that does the same with movies from different eras and approaches—a similar lifelong passion and companion.

Is it the same kind of interaction I get when performing, or as an audience member at a live event? No, of course not. But it is its own thing, and something I am grateful for. The means and the opportunity to dive in, absorb, reflect then share, and engage. That is valuable in and of itself. I likely would not have rediscovered or explored those things with the degree of richness I have, if the pandemic did not reveal them to me in the ways it did.

NEA: How do you think that living an artful life can improve the well-being of your community?

CARTER-LONG: Personally speaking, artful living keeps me connected, part of something bigger that enfolds and extends beyond what I perceive as “me.” This feeling, in turn, provides a wellspring I can tap into, and becomes a source of strength that fuels me whatever highs or lows I might be experiencing any given hour, day, week, or month.

In turbulent times like these, where simply existing as you are (or aspire to become) can be threatening to those trapped in fear, whose response to anything different than what is familiar is to reject or to threaten, a sense of belonging is essential. No longer a luxury, or anything we can take for granted. Like a garden, it has to be intentional, tended to, and taken care of. A garden that, in turn, takes care of you too. It goes both ways, as it should. As it must.

NEA: Is there a particular place in your neighborhood that is a creative touchstone for you?

CARTER-LONG: The dog park! I live a couple of doors down from a dog park that never fails to delight, move, and teach me. Dogs, even if they’ve been abused or neglected, have this remarkable ability to be completely present if humans allow them the time and space to adjust and regain trust. I love how whatever the weather (and that holds true both literally and metaphorically) dogs are almost always keen to engage, make friends, and play at this exact moment in time, on this exact day. They’re not concerned about politics or personal problems. They aren’t forcing themselves to let anything go, either. They simply let things be, which is a different way of relating. Humans, artists included, can learn a lot from dogs when we can manage, if only for an instant, to put our egos and prejudices aside.

NEA: What’s your favorite informal way or space to engage with arts and culture?

CARTER-LONG: Word play. Much of my career has involved working either directly or indirectly with the news media. This has provided ample opportunities to rephrase common concepts, words, or phrases in ways that forces people to rethink, reframe, or reconsider an assumption they’ve adopted or simply taken for granted without ever really engaging with it.

For example, about a decade ago I co-facilitated a workshop with David Perry at the Society of Professional Journalists annual conference in New Orleans. Instead of banging on about the various issues with antiquated phrasing like “wheelchair bound,” I reframed it, referred to wheelchairs as “Chariots of Independence” while illustrating all the various ways that wheelchairs provide the means for folks who use them to go about their everyday lives, with the autonomy and self-direction that everyone craves, and that people who walk tend to take for granted. Several journalists, then and since, have remarked how they never thought about it that way and have endeavored to employ similar, if not the same, phrasing in their own reporting.

Same could be said for the word “disabled.” #SayTheWord which is a concept and accompanying hashtag I first used in 2016 that has been written about and reported on extensively, and continues to be used today. Rather than focusing on what disability is not—think of a politician or convicted criminal saying “I am not a crook,” which only reinforces the negatives we’re trying to get away from, I reframed it by saying “Once upon a time, disability was just a diagnosis. Today, the definition has expanded to include things like history, community, constituency, identity, and culture. If you’re not using all those definitions, odds are you’re leaving something important out. That includes the people who have embraced those larger, broader, more expansive, definitions. Words and their meanings are always evolving. Wise people evolve with them.

In my communications work, what I try to do is provide direction in areas where people are confused or afraid, give folks permission to ask questions, then open up the mental space to expand one’s thinking not by focusing on what’s wrong, but by illustrating a new way forward. It’s a subtle distinction, but an important one. According to linguists like George Lakoff, reinforcing the negative—the thing you’re trying to move past—doesn’t work, despite the best intentions. It makes more sense to start where most folks are likely to be, acknowledge that, then reframe or replace it with something better.

NEA: Can you share an arts experience or moment of arts engagement that has had an identifiable impact on your life?

CARTER-LONG: Back in 2006, I launched a monthly film series, an experiment of sorts called “disTHIS!” to showcase movies about disability through a whole new lens. Everything we showed was counter-programming to what was expected and to most films that were commercially available at the time. I remember telling a reporter we wouldn’t screen anything that was “sappy, safe, or sentimental.” He paused, was silent for a moment, then asked, “What will you show then?” With no budget, and no guarantee of success, this was the affirmation I needed. If entertainment reporters couldn’t imagine disability any differently, then a film series that promised “No handkerchief necessary, no heroism required” was not only needed, it was almost a necessity. What emerged was a six-month experiment focused on independent, international, and obscure films about disability that lasted four years and, in time, led to a valued partnership with disability studies scholars at New York University.

During the four-year run of “disTHIS!” we also screened a handful of older films, many of which had long since been forgotten that despite the odds broke the mold or bucked popular trends. This led me to wonder, “how did we get here?” and sparked an obsession with classic films with disability themes. Along with colleagues at Inclusion in the Arts in New York City, we eventually pitched a showcase on notable classic films about disability to the folks at Turner Classic Movies and in 2012, I was asked to not only curate, but to also co-host a month-long series to give the movies additional history and context on the channel. This led to media coverage on the series and engagement with Turner Classic Movie fans at their annual film festival in Hollywood and on social media in popular forums like #TCMParty on what was then Twitter [now known as X] with the goal of reintroducing people to movies they already loved from a disability-centered perspective.

The series was so popular that we showcased a different selection of films in 2021, and most recently, aired a special spotlight on carefully curated double features in 2023 with everything from a neo-realist Spanish film about a wheelchair-user from 1960 called El Cochecito—the cinematic embodiment of a “chariot of independence”—to an authentically cast cult classic kung fu film called The Crippled Masters that led to a 2K remastered and reissued release of the film on DVD and Blu-ray in July 2024, accompanied by a new booklet with liner notes written by yours truly.

On July 13, 2024, I was part of a successful day-long celebration of disability representation in film at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures that was pitched to, and developed in partnership with the museum by myself and James LeBrecht, co-director of the Academy Award nominated documentary Crip Camp. A portion of the program was devoted to a showcase of international short films, presented in partnership with the Reel Abilities Film Festival and my colleagues at DisArt, that reveal new talents, new directions yet to be fully explored or realized, but with the very real promise of something more. Something different. Something better.
Similarly, I'm frequently reminded that the path to progress isn’t always linear or straightforward. Sometimes it is the twists and turns you don’t see coming that make the journey worthwhile. 

It seems to me that is the epitome of living an artful life: Embracing the detours that lead to an exciting, unexpected destination while staying true to what set you down the road to begin with.