Artistic Leadership Founder Featured in VoyagerRaleigh
To read the original article, click here. Bold text represents the voice of VoyagerRaleigh.
Today we’d like to introduce you to Tiffany Thompson.
Hi Tiffany, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I’ve always wanted to write songs the whole world sings. As a preacher’s kid, I loved seeing people close their eyes, feel the music, and experience a deep connection to God. My mother made my brothers and I take piano lessons, but at 12 years old, I switch to guitar, wrote my first song, and never looked back. Over the past 25 years, I’ve written 100s of songs and independently released over 50 tracks. My most recent release is a live album recorded at one of my favorite venues in this region, The Ramkat. My inspirational song “We are the Dreamers” is cult classic in the show “Dance Moms,” earning over 500K streams on Spotify and millions of YouTube views. I was a semi-finalist in the Song of the Year competition with my song, “Direction,” and in 2022, I won first place in the Be Still Media competition for my collaboration with local spoken-word poet Spencer Aubrey.
Interestingly, I started my music career in Norther Virginia while working as an analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency. (That’s a story for another time.) Then moved to Nashville, TN to go full-time as an artist and enter the world of co-writing. I wrote a lot of pop music and released an album called DANAE, but life led me to New York City and finally, to North Carolina in 2021.
All that to say, I am still on the journey of finding my voice. Writer and professor George Saunders wrote, “We’ll find our voice and ethos and distinguish ourselves from all the other [artist] in the world without needing to make any big overarching decisions, just by the thousands of small ones we make as we revise.”
Each day I try to write, connect, revise, and spend a little bit more of my life in the world of music. I believe music is a universal language that can help us build communion and bridges in a divided age. And I am grateful to be a practitioner of the craft and voice of connection in the region.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
On my journey as an artist, there have been two great struggles and a million daily challenges. But let me focus on the big rocks.
The first is the act of creation itself. As much as I love singing and songwriting, the battle to sit down, face the blank page, and create something new never gets easier. I think the only difference between how I felt doing that at 12 and how I feel doing it now at 37 is knowing that everyone has to fight Creative Resistance. (Well, I’m not sure if Dylan and Tolstoy did, but use humans tend to unite around this point.)
The second struggle is trying to build a career out of a passion. 10 years ago, my friend sent me an email with the subject line: “The Market.” He is a best-selling author and has successfully aligned his interests with a national audience, and I had shared my fears and struggles in not being able to do that. He wrote, “Each artist has a core interest that is either a mass interest or a niche interest, but that within that interest it is creatively useful (not just financially useful) to try to adapt it to the market.”
Keeping one eye on the market and two eyes on yourself is tough. Cause if you chase the market, you’ll lose every time. If you have no idea what is happening in humanity and resonating with culture, you may be performing for an audience of one (well, four if you include your parents and the dog.)
I have no solutions here, but I can say that the songs in my catalogue with the most “market success” are evidence of my friend’s insight. They are personal to my journey while clearly resonating with broader cultural movements.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Organizations know creativity and trust are crucial for overcoming obstacles, fostering innovation, and propelling growth, but figuring out how to develop connection and collaboration in teams is tough. That’s why I started Artistic Leadership (AL).
AL designs and delivers team-building experiences that deepen relationships, reveal new perspectives, and empower human collaboration. Our unique approach leverages artistic modalities to bring diverse groups of people together on personal levels in a professional context.
Our team-building experiences plug seamlessly into pre-existing events and convenings like strategic planning retreats, team off-site, church retreats, and conferences. We also offer virtual programing to serve distributed teams.
If you are bringing people together and want to surprise and delight them with a truly unique and creative way of connecting with other people, AL could be your perfect team-building partner. Visit our website to learn more: https://www.artisticleadership.com/
We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
Testimonial like this: “By writing a song together and collaborating on the story, we achieved stronger bonds, increased trust, and a deeper appreciation for each other.”
“We wanted to inspire people to be kind and humble leaders, and this experience made people feel a connection to these essential traits.”
“Our workshop took people outside their comfort zone and empowered us to do something I never thought possible: write a song together. It demonstrated to us that to be creative and innovative means taking risks.”
“To be honest, I was skeptical of doing a songwriting activity with my leadership team at a tech start-up. Some of us aren’t exactly “creative.” But Tiffany skillfully facilitated a novel experience that brought the executive team closer together in a way other team building activities haven’t. She also took the time to refine what we created to really show the team how their individual contributions tell the story of victory. I’m impressed, and strongly recommend the service.”