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[00:03:49] Rita Burke: speaking with Paulina O'Keefe-Anthony, who is an award-winning curator, arts educator and creative consultant.

[00:04:00] Rita Burke: She is based in Windsor, Ontario. Her artistic achievements include performances in when Sisters Speak, and Paulita has been a two time national finalist in the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word. Our guest today, Paulina, has been featured on TEDx and major outlets like the CBC, Huffington Post Canada, and Afro Global TV.

[00:04:32] Rita Burke: She has 20 plus years of experience in the non-profit and art sectors and owns her own consulting business. Paulina considers herself a champion for equity in the arts and has won many awards. As we say on SpeakUP! International, we prefer if our guests tell their own stories. So I will stop here and say, Paulina, welcome, welcome to SpeakUP! International!

[00:05:03] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Thank you so much Rita and Elton for having me on your incredible podcast. I'm so honored to be here. I would love to tell my story. I believe I could start as a child. I am a lover of the arts. I'm an artist, as you already mentioned, a curator and educator, a mother, but generally and a lover of the arts at heart.

[00:05:25] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: And I've always been a creative, since I was a little kid. But my professional artistic career, actually started when I was 18. I was introduced to spoken word poetry and it was part of a group called Rhyme led by some of my earliest mentors, Spin and Motion. And from there after the first time I ever performed on stage, shaking like a leaf, of course, because it was my first time my love for spoken word and storytelling really exploded.

[00:05:55] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: And I, discover that I could actually couple that with engaging in community. I love community. I love social socializing. I always have since high school and onward. And so when I got introduced to the world of Spoken word, I thought, ha, I really love the feeling it gives me as a young person to speak my mind, express myself, use my voice, but creatively, and I thought.

[00:06:19] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Other young people like myself would also benefit from spoken word as an art form and storytelling as an art form. And so I began to teach kids with the support of my mentors and using spoken word in schools in community center across Toronto, because that's where I was born in, grew up for most of my life.

[00:06:37] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: And used spoken word to empower. Storytelling to empower young people to express their own voice, find their own voice just the way I had been able to do when I was 18, and that was really the beginning of my professional artistic journey as an artist and an arts educator. And then since that time, I've performed in many places.

[00:06:58] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: I've taught, as I said, many communities across Toronto and then Canada and now internationally. I've been around with poetry, so don't let anybody tell you poetry can't take you anywhere. It's taken me everywhere actually. And as I continue to navigate that and find my artistic journey and myself I started coupling that with kind of community, nonprofit sector work.

[00:07:20] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: And then that's where I developed my arts administration skills, and those are the skills that I have around organizations, supporting organizations, grant writing, those types of things. Yeah. And that's where I began that part of my journey. .

[00:07:32] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Since then, those two have dovetailed always running parallel. So I'm always in community doing nonprofit work around the community arts sector mostly while also maintaining my artistic status. Working with new folks, new mentors such as Dwayne Morgan and Rand J. We have a collective called Spoken Soul Collective or with Natasha Morris.

[00:07:55] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: I have a collective with called Lost Tongues Collective, which focuses on more carnival arts education and art like through arts lenses. We have a play together there. And so that's where I've been able to connect with different folks like Amani RO Spencer, who's worked on our play and supported me into branching out into the playwriting aspect and just being able to connect with folks and create these really neat.

[00:08:19] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Artistic experiences. That has led me to a lot of places. And so I've done that for over 20 years. And it's been very balancing, a little bit stressful at times, but super rewarding. And as I said, yeah, that's it. That's my journey. 

[00:08:34] Ellington Brown: I can understand you being shaken or nervous to stand up and actually, use your voice. Thousands of people have that same problem of standing in front of an audience and being able to communicate. In your case, it's using spoken word. And I'm interested in knowing, since you said in eight, when you were 18, you started using the spoken word. Then later down the line you began to take the spoken word spoken and then combine it with storytelling. 

[00:09:10] Ellington Brown: I wanna know, do you prepare for an audience? And when I say that, okay, you go in front of an audience, maybe you start off by telling a story, and so you are looking to see how receptive the audience is. How do you go about reading the audience in order to know whether or not you should you've spoken word or just storytelling or a combination of both.

[00:09:42] Ellington Brown: And I'm asking you this at, because you are a veteran. To sum it up. 

[00:09:48] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: That's a really great question. I consider spoken word to be storytelling or a manifestation of storytelling. And when I'm performing spoken word, there's always storytelling interwoven. So there's the poetry itself, the poems I'll read on stage, but in between almost a little, those little buffers we learned how to create like banter with the audience.

[00:10:07] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: And so you're like telling stories that lead up to the poem or explaining the poem you've just done and also just. Bantering and connecting with the audience. And the way I prepare is usually I'm sitting in the crowd before I'm called on and I just observe. I observe what the audience is doing, how they're reacting to whoever's on stage, are they reacting to bigger personalities?

[00:10:29] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Are they okay with a more soft spoken? And just try to read the audience before I go onto stage. But generally I go onto stage being myself, and it's a combination of. Reading the, or performing, I would say, the poems that I'm gonna perform. And then telling the stories in between that connect those, that poetry performance together.

[00:10:47] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: And in my later time like more recent now, I usually put together sets of poetry that goes together. So like they all weave into one longer story, so they'll all be connected together. And so that's where. I've veered to more recently. 

[00:11:06] Rita Burke: Sounds like it is quite the positive experience for you to combine spoken work with storytelling.

[00:11:15] Rita Burke: So where did you learn to write poems? 

[00:11:19] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: I. I've been writing poems since I was a child. I attribute that skill to my father. He was definitely a writer and also my grandfather, his father, and I think I got that from them. He is avid storyteller. My grandmother, his mother was also an avid storyteller, and so I would learn to write these things.

[00:11:37] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Down. And then poetry in school always fascinated me. And so I'd practice with the different types of poetry that we learned. But when I was 18 and I got introduced to Spoken Word, which is a much more free form writing experience and expressing experience, that opened up the gates to figuring out how to create, poetry without such a rigid structure like some of the structures that we learned in school. So it was very open, and so that gave me the opportunity to actually experiment and create and then perform. For an audience and then see how they like that, and then adjust how I wanted to. So that's where I was.

[00:12:12] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: And then I had, as I said, my mentor spin in motion, and then later on, Dwayne Morgan and other such folks, my peers as well, who helped me in editing and figuring out how to put things together and make it sound, cadence. All those things came into play as we, as I was practicing and developing.

[00:12:28] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: So that's where I pretty much learned how to do that. And then I ended up teaching that myself.

[00:12:34] Ellington Brown: So far, this conversation I'm finding to be fascinating! And I can't wait for us to get to the juicy stuff.

[00:12:45] Ellington Brown: I wanna know about your experience. Working as a curator for the Scarborough, the backbone exhibit. What is the backbone exhibit? 

[00:13:00] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Yeah I think back in, I think it was 2021 during the pandemic the mayor of Toronto decided they wanted to put some money together and bring more art out. So that, as COVID eased up a little bit and folks were outside.

[00:13:13] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: There was public displays of art that folks could connect with. And so there was a call for curators for four main hubs in the city, Scarborough being one of them, which was to take place at the Scarborough Town Center and myself and my collective, the Spoken Soul Collective, which again includes Rand La J and Dwayne Morgan.

[00:13:32] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: We proposed this project called Scarborough the Backbone because the two of them are from Scarborough, and I have worked in Scarborough extensively. We felt that neighborhood in particular as a main stage of a lot of the immigration that was coming in from all parts of the world was we considered the backbone of holding up, Toronto in general because that's where a lot of folks come in and work the jobs, and then they have to go back to that Scarborough borough. And so we developed a pitch for a number of different artistic exhibits that would speak to that story of how Scarborough is the backbone, whether it's through food, through culture, through local heroes that have come out of Scarborough. And so it took we, we did that proposal, we got accepted to become the curators of that space. And then we spent a wonderful year curating and collaborating with a bunch of Scarborough artists to bring that vision to life. And it did, and it's by far today one of my favorite projects that I've ever curated or worked on.

[00:14:32] Rita Burke: So you are the curator for excellence. 

[00:14:36] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Yes. 

[00:14:37] Rita Burke: Now you performed in something called When Sisters Speak. I'm all ears and I'm sure listeners will want to hear you explain what that is about, please. 

[00:14:52] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Yeah, so When Sisters Speak is actually a spoken word poetry show, very professional, high level poetry show that's been put on by Dwayne Morgan for the last 25 years.

[00:15:04] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: That features specifically only black female. Spoken Word artists from Canada and the U.S. And I was invited to perform three times on that show. So I've touched that stage three times, twice in person. And once I was featured on the digital version during COVID. We couldn't host shows in person.

[00:15:24] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: And that has been one of the most honorable stages for me to be on because the caliber of artists that are brought and curated by Dwayne to be on that art on that showcase is huge and high. And and so as my mentor. He definitely, I will have to say, and I always say, tell the story. He made me work for it because I've been attending when Sister Speak since I was 18 and started in Spoken Word.

[00:15:45] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: And I asked him after one show, I said, how do I get on that and how do I get on the stage, Dwayne? And he just said, do the work. And it took me 10 years after that conversation, that first conversation. But I did it. I put in the work, I built my artistry and then. I believe it was 2017, I think was the first year that I was on that stage.

[00:16:04] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: But it's an incredible show and I hope people see it. The next one is coming up on March 29th. Actually. It's always done in International Women's Month, and I encourage folks to buy tickets to see the incredible artists that are gonna be there that year. 

[00:16:18] Rita Burke: Knowing Dwayne, I certainly wouldn't be, I'm not surprised that he tries for excellence and nothing but excellence. Yeah,

[00:16:25] Ellington Brown: You've mentioned Dwayne's name twice now, so I wanna know, how did you meet Dwayne provided that this encounter is not personal? 

[00:16:40] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: I actually cannot remember the specific moment. First, first time I've met Dwayne Morgan. I've seen him, I've been in spaces with him multiple times. I think I might have talked to him that first time at, when I went to that when Sister Speak show for the first time.

[00:16:55] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: And we had that conversation about working hard and putting in the work. And then from there, I just kept running into him in different spaces. Then I believe I was working on a project in which I was running a festival called Words By The Water Literary Festival and part of that project included a panel in which I wanted to speak to the history of Spoken Word in Canada and all the different people who contributed to that.

[00:17:21] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: And Dwayne was on that project. And I think it's really from that point that we started like communicating more and then working together and then him mentoring me alongside myself meeting him through his up from the Roots Poetry Slam, and. Slamming and competing through his from the Roots team and making the team.

[00:17:40] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: That's when we really connected. That's in 2015. 2015. We connected there. I was on his team. And then once you're on that team, you're with Dwayne regularly 'cause he is coaching and mentoring you to, to the excellence people know him for. And that's when we got closer and moved into that like more mentor mentee role.

[00:17:58] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: And now we're like. Really good friends on this on this collective. And we enjoy working on really cool projects, artistic projects together. And now we travel together. We're very close along with RDE, who also works with us on that collective. So we're like more like family now. 

[00:18:13] Rita Burke: Do you know, it's interesting that we interviewed Dwayne, is it about a year ago on SpeakUP! International?

[00:18:19] Rita Burke: We had him here, but I go back a long way with him because we used to have an open mic. Saturday nights at our bookstore on Sinclair. Many moons ago. Nevertheless, you were involved with TEDx, talk to us about that experience please. 

[00:18:41] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: So funny, because we're still gonna connect, Dwayne, who actually.

[00:18:44] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Passed my name onto the organizers. And so I was invited to a TEDx St. Mary's so St. Mary's Catholic Secondary School, I believe in the York region had invited me as part of their TEDx series. And that was an extremely, I was still very new to like I had been in the game for a bit, but this kind of level was new, like a pretty big deal for me.

[00:19:08] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: So I was very nerve. Nervous, I have to say nervous, but it was a fun endeavor. And so to combat nerves, I chose to actually a presentation. I know a lot of people often start, their speech by Speeching. But I started off with a poem and I wrote a poem specifically for that piece because that's the way I like to communicate my message.

[00:19:27] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: And then I followed up with a bit of a speech in the talking part. But it was the opportunity to actually connect with the audience because I do a lot of call and response sometimes in my poetry. That eased my nerves right at the beginning. And then it was easier to melt into that speech just having like hundreds of young people, say, speak poet and get engaged in the poem before I had to go in and give them this talk that's what it was.

[00:19:49] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: And so I talked about taking leaps of faith and jumping into your passion when you're young, especially because that's the time it's. It is to take chances and experiment as early as possible because it's easier to fail forward and build your life lessons while you're young and there's less, less to worry about.

[00:20:07] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: And so that's what that talk really was about, and about my journey of believing in myself and how art was, folks told me, what's your real job? Or art is like your hobby. And I really spoke more about actually art is the thing that's propelling me and pushing me and sometimes making me more money than my real job.

[00:20:23] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: And dispelling that myth and really speaking about your creativity can lead you in different ways. And so I still watch that video, even have myself talk to myself when I need a reminder, which now that I've been embarking on some a new journey, a new transition that requires a leap of faith, it's nice to hear myself tell myself that I can just take this jump.

[00:20:43] Ellington Brown: You are a two time national finalist at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word. So now we're going back to what, where we were at the very beginning of this conversation. So how did that recognition impact or stimulate your career? 

[00:21:04] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: That those experiences those experiences, period, were, I think. The experiences that took me to another level in my career again, 'cause both of those experiences were on the up from the Roots team, which is led by Dwayne Morgan.

[00:21:18] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: And when, as again, as I said, when you're on those teams, it's only a high level of excellence in writing, performing, rehearsing, those types of things. And so it was in those experiences that made me level up my poetry, get more creative. And the team was able to make it to the finals for both of those times.

[00:21:35] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: The first one in Saskatoon, and the second one in Peterborough. And so I think it just leveled up my career, not so much the title, although it's very nice in my bio and it's nice to know that I could make it to, that high level finals. But more it was the process in between that was molding me and chipping away and building me into a better artist, a higher quality artist.

[00:21:57] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: And that's what I appreciated from that experience the most. And traveling across Canada. 'cause that's fun too. 

[00:22:04] Rita Burke: That must be a lot of fun to travel across Canada and perform for Canadians. 

[00:22:09] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Yeah. 

[00:22:09] Rita Burke: So we're speaking with Paulina O'Keefe-Anthony, who is an artist, actually, curator and educator, a performer, a little bit of everything, but she's also a business woman, she's an entrepreneur, and I wanna hear about your business.

[00:22:27] Rita Burke: Talk to us about that, please. 

[00:22:29] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Yeah, absolutely. So I own the business. Oh. I co-own my business, creative Compass Solutions, alongside my husband, Carlos Anthony. Essentially we offer services like strategic planning, grant writing, infrastructure development for organizations, workshops, trainings and program evaluations for small businesses.

[00:22:47] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Individuals, nonprofits and charities. We also run all of our artistic work through there. If you're booking us for speaking performing screenings, we do a lot of art and it all goes through there as well. So how that came about was we actually had been doing our own separate consulting practices, meet for a very long time, and Carlos for the last few years.

[00:23:06] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: And once I was let go of my full-time job last year and said I want to try this. Staying full time. He said why don't we just combine our stuff together and just work under one business? And so that's how that happened, and it's been a very interesting learning journey, I have to say. And running an incorporated business which is a little different than a sole proprietorship and learning how to work with your partner as a business partner and has its own learnings and challenges and great things as well.

[00:23:34] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: But I would say it's been overall great. We like to share with others who might be starting out on their own. We have a really great newsletter. We have the main purpose of our work here is to. Unlock and open, un unlock and open doors reduce barriers, particularly for, black, indigenous people of color who need to access funds, resources skill development in how to run their own business or their own arts practice.

[00:23:58] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: So it's making money or organizations who, are doing great work on the ground, but run into a roadblock when they realize, hey, we might need a finance department or an HR and we don't know where to start. And that's what our, this is for mentorship and support in building those community organizations who who need it.

[00:24:16] Ellington Brown: Wow! That's absolutely a amazing, I read that you and your consulting firm, the creative conference solution. You've secured over 1 million bucks in funding for arts organizations. So what do you believe is the key to successful grant applications? 

[00:24:44] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: The key is knowing your story and how to tell your story in the way that the funder and the jury will understand.

[00:24:51] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: So the more clear you are, the more, prepared you are having a project that speaks to a need in your community and being able to back that up with, evidence, a strong budget, and also being able to say we have the infrastructure, we have the people we have the financial capacity to manage this money and do something good with it.

[00:25:11] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: And showing that through your arts, through your application is the best way. Of course, I always tell folks. Even if you have all that, it's never guaranteed because unfortunately, the arts is definitely a space that's definitely underfunded overall, all levels of government and is, funding is being reduced even further now.

[00:25:29] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: So sometimes it's not even about having the best application, it's just how much money is left on the table. And so we just try to support people with telling the best story and putting forward the best project that is. Full, complete. And that a jury would say, this is something that we think can impact the community and is well written and we understand exactly what, we can see the project from A to Z very clearly.

[00:25:53] Rita Burke: How successful are you when it comes to those applications and getting what it is the person wants out of those applications? 

[00:26:05] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Yeah, I'm, I find I'm pretty I don't know, I'm never. My average percentage, but I'm, I've been pretty successful in the past. Whether I've been work, whether I've been writing grants for my organizations, my personal self, I've achieved at least two.

[00:26:19] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: I actually received. All the grants I've ever written for myself. And I've supported quite a few people in act in supporting themselves in writing their grants or mentoring them while they're in coaching them, while they've written their grants. I've had quite a few successful mentees. But as I said, I've definitely helped secure over a million dollars in grants for clients, but, and or the organizations I work, I've worked for and I do take pride in that because I'm not just a grant writer, I'm an actual advocate and somebody who's really in, in ensuring an increase in access to these grants and resources for the folks who often don't get access to them because, they're either historically marginalized from that or it becomes very overwhelming because of the infrastructure. And so in addition to accessing and getting those grants, I try to do the work in advocating at those levels to say, how do we make the, how do we make getting grants better, easier?

[00:27:16] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: More accessible for some folks who are more marginalized from the process. But I would say I'm pretty successful. I have a pretty good track record and folks recommend me a lot.

[00:27:26] Ellington Brown: What inspired you to chair the Black Arts Granting program at the Toronto Arts Council, and what initiatives are you most proud of in this role? 

[00:27:41] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Oh yeah. So before their, when they were, when the Toronto Arts Council was developing that, I was actually asked to be the, one of the consultants to lead the community process to find, to figure out like what the community wanted from a black arts.

[00:27:55] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Grant. And I was really honored to do that and connect with the community and really ask the tough questions and bring a very thorough fulsome report to the Toronto Arts Council about what the black community wanted from a, a grant that would be specific to them. And so once that was done and I put in my report, which you can find on their website at the Toronto Arts Council, just about a year after that, I was invited actually to, and asked if I wanted to chair the committee. And again, because I'm really into that work I said yes. Very excited to be part of, shaping, reshaping, listening to the community. Around what the granting process is like. I've also been a mentor for artists who are applying to that same grant.

[00:28:38] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: And I think the main initiative that I'm most happy about is just being able to champion for more money into that pot of grant funding for black artists. Because again, even just having a grant is one thing, but I wanted to push and advocate that we should. Get more money for the pot to start, not start so small that we've waited a long time for this kind of access and support.

[00:29:01] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: And I think one of the more the most things I'm excited about in and most proud about in terms of initiatives around there is that the black Arts grant program isn't isn't s. Totally similar to all the other programs. That one thing, one piece of advice that the TAC did really well in my recommendations report is that they made it a holistic experience for black artists.

[00:29:22] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: So not only was there money available for black artists, but we talked about what kind of mentorship is available, what, are there spaces that we could connect with? And when I was working at an organization called Sketch Working Arts, I partnered with the TAC that offered free space on Tuesdays.

[00:29:39] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: From four to seven to black artists who were part of the Black Operating grants. Sorry. The Black Arts Program. If they'd received a grant they could come and book space for free because that's often a resource that's not easily accessible, especially in the city of Toronto. So I love that this grant program went beyond just giving the money and looked, we are looking at more of a holistic way to support black artists all around.

[00:30:02] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: And become a hub of support rather than just another fund and pool of money. 

[00:30:08] Rita Burke: As you were describing what you do and how you did it to support the artist, that's the word that came to my mind. Holistic. And it's so important in seeing the whole picture before, before attempting to help anybody. And so you developed a leadership program?

[00:30:28] Rita Burke: Yeah. Tell us more about that program, please. 

[00:30:31] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Yeah. So when I was working at an organization called Sketch Working Arts I developed a program called Next Step Leaders Lab, and essentially that program was developed out of an idea that was sparked by my own I. Experience as an up and coming leader in this, in the nonprofit arts sector.

[00:30:49] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: At the time, I just remembered how much I struggled to navigate some aspects of organizational leadership knowledge skills. Who do I talk to? How do I speak to a funder? Like those types of things. And so I wanted to create a program that helped others who were coming up after me access that knowledge and practice those skills, but in a more safe environment, less struggle more.

[00:31:10] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Focus direction and somebody that they, somebody and others that they could come to without having to fail as much right off the bat. So we created a program to focus on three pillars. Developing skills and knowledge through training such as, how to read and understand finances.

[00:31:25] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: The second pillar was on mentorship. So both one-on-one coaching as well as group mentorship opportunities to learn from other. Black executive leaders in the arts and culture sector, and what they learned from their journey coming up. And then three was social capital building, how to build and manage relationships and connections, particularly like practicing how to speak to funders in a.

[00:31:48] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Kind of more, again, safe practice environment where they could get coaching on how to build those relationships. And even though that program no longer exists as the organization is going through some transition I use these same pillars in my own work, in my consulting and mentorship work.

[00:32:04] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: And I look forward to continuing to use them through through the same lens. I'll continue to do that work because I ideated that, and that's that's the same pillars I do my work every day on anyway. 

[00:32:16] Ellington Brown: Wow. Wow. We baby. Okay. So the SI guess the question that I really wanted to find out is, okay, so you've done this thing where you were able to get this million, million bucks to help other organizations, which is admirable.

[00:32:35] Ellington Brown: As a mentor of as a mentor with the NIA Center for the Arts, what challenges do emerging black, indigenous and racialized leaders face in the arts and how do you go about helping them overcome those challenges? 

[00:32:56] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Yeah, so my mentorship through a Nia Center for the Arts is mostly supporting black.

[00:33:01] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: It's not, mostly it is supporting black artists who are navigating the arts and culture world. And then my mentorship through other organizations is also focused on extends that focus to, people of color and indigenous artists. And I would say my work there focuses on helping them to navigate everything from funding structures how to build and understand infrastructure building.

[00:33:27] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: If they're starting a, an organization or they have a grassroots organization and they wanna move to the next level, what does that look like? How to navigate. Conversations at institutional levels if they wanna partner with a larger institution or with the city, for example. And a lot of the work I do is taking some of those conversations and figuring out how to.

[00:33:47] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Repurpose them and use those stories to push for advocacy. How do artists advocate for themselves for more funding, for more support? And so that's a lot of the work I do. And then in the granting realm, I do work with folks to. My, my favorite thing to do is actually working with folks to take this dream that they might have in their head.

[00:34:06] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: So some people come and they're like, I have this project idea. I don't know how to put it on paper in the way that I'm envisioning it. And so helping them to craft that, take it out of their head and put it on paper in a way that will have a funder say, yeah, we'd like to fund that project. That's my favorite part about working with black artists and other artists in general.

[00:34:26] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: I see a lot of potential in a lot of folks, and I wanna help them get. That potential to the levels that they wanna be at. 

[00:34:34] Rita Burke: Paulina o'Keeffe, paulina o. Now you wear many. Anthony, I should remember Anthony, you wear many hats, but I want to hear about three things you admire about Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony.

[00:34:55] Rita Burke: Brag little bit about yourself! You're allowed to do that on SpeakUP! International. 

[00:35:01] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Oh, thank you. I'm very bad at bragging about myself, to be honest. But I will say just the three things that I admire about myself generally are my passion and. My passion for travel and adventure, I'm definitely an adventurer.

[00:35:14] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: And if you follow me on Instagram or my family's Instagram, I'm always on a beach or on a plane or on a somewhere or somewhere. Because I feel like we are all interconnected in this world and the best place for learning is in the, in other places and other cultures and other people. Like we can't just stay in our own bubble and think that we are gonna know everything.

[00:35:33] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: My, my other thing is my love for learning. I am an avid learner, and it's funny that I'm a storyteller because I'm also a story lover. And I will hang on to an elder's feet from even at this big age. And tell me about stories of your life and tell me about story. My, I think I like harass my father and Grandfa grandmother so much about stories from Trinidad.

[00:35:54] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: And they're like, didn't I tell you this already? I'm like, tell it again. I just love learning. I love, I have this hunger for learning knowledge and histories and cultures because I believe we can be better if we know the things that have happened and trans transpired from before us. And I. Then the last thing I would say I love about myself is I have a very big heart.

[00:36:13] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: And even though I'm learning a lot of boundaries I don't think I'll ever stop giving as much as I want to, to people in the world and the community that I live in or work in or whatever's around me because I just feel this need, this love to contribute and make the world a better place. So those are the three things I admire the most about myself.

[00:36:33] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: I would say, and I know that they're not like your typical awards or, cool things I've done, but I'm not really a person that cares too much about things. I think like that I'm more of a person that like cares about how I'm living my life and when I'm, on my deathbed whenever that is to say I don't regret anything.

[00:36:52] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: 'cause I've lived exactly how I want to live every day of my life. And so that's what I admire the most about myself.

[00:37:00] Ellington Brown: So what does equity and the arts mean to you, and how do you champion this cause in your work? 

[00:37:11] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Equity in the arts? Equity in the arts means a lot of things. To me, it means that there are folks who, there are folks who have historically had to struggle to get access to things, to get access to money, to get access to support, to get access to recognition, to get access to even having their own art seen not in comparison to a, a euro standard of art, but to as its own mastery.

[00:37:39] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Whether it's African or whatever it is, right? That's equity in the arts to me. And the work I do is to see how much of the systems that currently exist can shift change and move about to make space and room for those types of things to exist. How do we increase resources? How do we increase support?

[00:38:00] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: How do we increase, money. How do we increase our ability to see these works of art as mastery on their own, as standards of their own? And again, not in comparison to traditional European standards of art. How do we see folks who look like me and you sit at leadership in the arts and culture sector in a way that only our perspectives that come from our distinct.

[00:38:24] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Cultural connections or community connections can be the ones to like really shift what institutions, what organizations, what funders even or philanthropists are. Arts, patrons of the arts are seeing on stages or in galleries. There's a lot of work around equity in the arts, and it's really about bringing to me, bringing to the forefront and closing the gap for those of us who have marginally been excluded or overshadowed or hidden or have struggled to make it to the forefront of being validated as artists.

[00:38:57] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: And that's where my work lies. Whatever I can contribute to that. 

[00:39:03] Rita Burke: So obviously you are helping quite a number of people to get their work out there in front of audiences, and that's a marvelous thing to be doing now, Paulina, could you think of a time when you had to say enough? 

[00:39:21] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Oh, yes. I can say I can definitely think of a time as it just happened.

[00:39:27] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: I think that the best example of that would've been actually late last year in 2024 after I was released from my last job, and then subsequently about a month after my father died very suddenly and unexpectedly. And so you can imagine that I'm ending the year with burnout, grief, dealing with feel feelings of failure, go and essentially had a little bit of a mental and physical health problems that occurred since then.

[00:39:55] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: And I thought that at that point I had to, I felt like I was doing a lot of things to, do everything for everyone. Please everyone be the everything for everyone. And it was. Making me sick because I was still trying to do what I could for my community, for my family, for my husband, for my kids, and and then obviously my father's stuff in his estate.

[00:40:13] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: And it was just breaking me down. So in January I did say, where at the end of December I said, you know what? Enough. If I continue to do that, I'm going to, I'm no longer gonna be here to be something for everybody. January 1st I hopped on a plane with the blessing of my husband and went to Trinidad and Tobago for 30 days.

[00:40:32] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: I. And that's 'cause that's where my father's from and I was there with some family as well as myself and some friends. And it was a, I found it to be an amazing chance to reset my nervous system, my mental space. Think, reflect, grieve, heal. And it was the first time in a long time, I've taken that kind of time to actually be.

[00:40:50] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Everything for myself. Learn how to slow down, which is very hard for me. Anybody who knows me knows that's very hard. 'cause I'm a person who's like everything everywhere, all at once. I'm too ambitious for my own good. My husband says and so then when I came back at the end of January, I. I had to practice.

[00:41:07] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: So it was one thing to say, that's enough. I'm going here, I'm gonna slow down, which is very easy on a beautiful island by the beach and the sea with good food. Thank you. Shout outs to my family for that good up food. And. Then I had to come back and I, when I came back, I had to actually have a plan on coming back and to practice, continuing to reclaim space and time for my healing.

[00:41:28] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: And when you're doing that, then you actually have to learn how to say no to things because now everything can't fit in your life the same way it used to anymore because you've made space for yourself. And so I'm at an age in a stage where I'm seriously working on aspects of my own personality and character very people pleasing.

[00:41:46] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: That is really a disservice to myself and others and trying to live more balanced and authentic and helping folks without, burning out or being a detrimental to my own self. So I wanna work with folks within my own capacity, but it took a lot of very intense, experiences last year, I had to say a lot of losses as I said last year, to realize what I was losing in myself and where I had to be.

[00:42:10] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: That is enough now. 

[00:42:12] Rita Burke: So saying enough to some degree is a gift to oneself. 

[00:42:16] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Yes. 

[00:42:17] Rita Burke: In every dimension of one's life. When you say no, you're gifting yourself. That's truly one.

[00:42:23] Ellington Brown: You're at next Up Leaders Club. Leaders Lab. Can you tell us a little bit about that organization? 

[00:42:31] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Oh, so that's actually a program and that's a program I, the leadership program I explained earlier that is that program. 

[00:42:37] Ellington Brown: Okay. Good enough. And we'll leave that right there.

[00:42:41] Ellington Brown: You, spoke to 150 black women making history by CBC? How has that affected your career? 

[00:42:51] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: So I was actually part of a project that highlighted 150 black women making her story that was led by Emily Mills, who I love and hold dear. As somebody who's such a great leader in highlighting the work that women, black women are doing.

[00:43:06] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Women generally, but specifically also black women are contributing in the city of Toronto and beyond. And that did really help to highlight kind of the work I was doing in community. In the artist arts and culture world. And it was just really nice to be recognized as somebody who was contributing on this kind of high level.

[00:43:23] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: And so that was like a really great opportunity to not only be highlighted, but then be connected to 149 other amazing men, black women, making her story and being able to connect with folks. And some projects came outta that and some good connections came outta that to continue the work that I was doing or start new projects or just make really great friends who I could tap in and talk to and change things with. 

[00:43:46] Ellington Brown: Can I ask another, a quick question? Sure. Here you are with these, you yourself say that you are a go-getter. You have no, you're here, there, you're everywhere all at the same time. Your husband has already said, you're just probably a little too ambitious for your own good, but okay, what does he know anyway?

[00:44:07] Ellington Brown: So we'll just leave him over to the side. So what do you wanna do, or where do you see yourself, let's say a year from now? 

[00:44:22] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Oh yes. I've been thinking about this recently, so I definitely want, and I see our the work I'm doing through my company. I'm doing more again, I'm, I wanna say on an international level, but I'm already working with an international client.

[00:44:37] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: So more of that, how can we influence and continue to support artists advocate for arts and culture in Canada and beyond? And so I see, our company. Really getting up there. But me personally, I have a few creative projects that I'm working on and I would love to get back a little bit more deeply into the artistry side of me.

[00:44:59] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Finishing my play with my best friend and co-writer, NA Natasha and seeing that play Workshoped on stage in Toronto, maybe Windsor, but definitely in Trinidad because we need to go home and have that play on stage. That is our dream and aspiration. And then a couple of other creative projects that I wanna do with Spoken soul our spoken Soul collective and some of the work we're doing in and we're doing in communities in Ghana and across the world also in the like African continent.

[00:45:28] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: So yeah, getting back into my creativity and balancing that with the support and work I'm doing in community as well. So getting back to me as an artist in a year would be so lovely. 

[00:45:40] Rita Burke: On SpeakUP! International, we seek to inspire, to inform and to educate. And there's no question that Paulina or Keith's Anthony story is helping us to do those things.

[00:45:55] Rita Burke: Now Paulina, you are a business woman and you're an artist. And if we weren't, if we weren't recording, I would've called you a hustler. 'cause that's what my want. Was before the word inter entrepreneur became popular, people were known as hustlers, and that was a positive way of describing what they did.

[00:46:16] Rita Burke: So what if you were to talk to a graduating class of business women? What three nuggets, what three gems would you wanna leave with them about business, 

[00:46:32] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: about entrepreneurship? Absolutely. I think my top three gems I would leave is the one I said in my TEDx talk is just jump. Especially as young as you are, take this time to experiment and try things out, and you might fail nine out of 10 times, but you only need that one time to succeed.

[00:46:51] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: So don't be afraid to fail. I was very afraid to fail in the beginning, and that held me back. So don't be afraid to fail. Embrace failing as learning. As a negative thing, but as a learning thing that's positive. That's giving you data in what to do next or how to move next. The second thing is. Think about and build infrastructure around your dreams.

[00:47:11] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Early so often we wanna jump into things. We start a grassroots organization. We start a podcast. We started this, we started that. Just wanted to get it out there and do the work. And then at some point we realized we need some kind of system or infrastructure because we're either burning out or we started something with our friends and we don't know how to.

[00:47:28] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Navigate friendship and professionalism. Or we some, somebody asked us for a budget or like this policy and we're like, oh, we don't have any of that. So as you're building, try and build these systems, build this infrastructure on the side and understand like document your processes. Like figure out there's, AI is amazing right now.

[00:47:47] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: So they can create templates for everything while you're building these things and going through the motions. Find the right people, build the right systems, find the right people. Have a good budget and the work will become easier, more pleasurable, and you will see success faster without burning your own candles at both ends, which we love to tend to do, especially in our community.

[00:48:05] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: And then finally, as cliche as it sounds, you have to believe in yourself. This was one of the things that held me back so much in my younger days but now I'm definitely dispelled that. You have to be your biggest cheerleader and don't seek approval or validation from anyone else because other people's opinions people need to know are layered with what works best for them or their fears, or how they're gonna con, get some, like how whatever you're doing, if it doesn't affect them in the best way, they might steer you the other way because you know they want to be with you.

[00:48:35] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: But in a way that kind of. Values them and what they wanna do. So you do what is best for you, even when others are doubting you. And even when you doubt yourself, just keep going. Trust your gut, do the work, and let things speak for themselves.

[00:48:54] Ellington Brown: I just have one question and it's only because you've said this and think now three, maybe four times about doing the work. What does that mean to you when you do the work? Let's see. Dwayne told you that when you said, let me in, and he said, do the work. And I'm not asking you, I go into any great detail, a very high level, but what is that?

[00:49:22] Ellington Brown: When pe when he said, do the work, what did that mean? 

[00:49:28] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Yeah, it just means put in the effort to, if you're an artist, to build on your artistic practice when nobody is looking, when the cameras are not on, when the media's not looking at you, when you're not on a big stage, what are you putting into practice to advance your art and even maybe the art form itself?

[00:49:45] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: What research are you doing? What, how? How often are you in the dance studio per week or in your artist studio? How often are you practicing painting and technique? How often are you. Getting in front of the mirror and working on your performance technique. Do the work. How often are you getting out there, connecting with folks, getting on stages, getting in galleries, pushing yourself to move your work into spaces and do the things you wanna see, and not being stuck on scrolling and comparing and seeing where other people are and being like I deserve to be there.

[00:50:17] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Because I'm a great artist, that's great. But if you're not gonna put the artwork or if you're not gonna put the hard work behind getting yourself out there, then you're not gonna achieve the same things. And that's the thing I admire about Dwayne. He's never he's never shied away from letting us know, like he was not, wasn't calling people on the phone before social media existed to get his people to his shows and build his name.

[00:50:38] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: And so that's the work that nobody sees on social media do that work so that when you are. When the things come, what work it took to get there. And additionally, shadow work. Do the work on yourself. Do the work to strengthen yourself, your faith your skills all of those things take work.

[00:50:55] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Like people think. It just comes natural. No, people practice these things. People put like try fail, they read books self. Whatever it is. Skills books put in that work on the people skills as well as your own professional skills as well. Those, both of those things are important. 

[00:51:12] Ellington Brown: We have talked about many things.

[00:51:14] Ellington Brown: I can't believe that this 45 minutes an hour conversation at this point, has. We talked about your artistic journey and how it got started and parts of it. We talked about, a little bit about your artistic experience, public appearances, and media exposure. I think you and Rita talked about a little bit about TEDx there which was an interesting nugget.

[00:51:45] Ellington Brown: Something else that we got to know about you. About creative consulting, what you and your husband are doing to help our community become better when it comes to the arts or using the arts as a way of communicating a little bit about leadership roles, membership and and for emergence emerging leaders.

[00:52:11] Ellington Brown: I'll never get that. Never say that word. It's very important that all of these things that we talked about, it's we're going, I'm gonna go back to that word, holistic. So we have all of these irons kinda like in the fire, but the result is that we come out with very polished individuals that have done the work and have now can go off and do their own thing.

[00:52:39] Ellington Brown: Establish themselves. They actually know exactly how to put together a form or a collection of thoughts and spoken word, which is very important. I love spoken word, by the way. I really do. And I just always enjoy the way they take the music and they incorporate it in with the words, so they're, even though they're not singing it, there is a rhythm.

[00:53:06] Ellington Brown: There, and that rhythm is very important in order to carry the content. So I just had to, I had to say that before we enter in the, in this, but thank you so much for what you do, what you and your husband do for our community. Is there anything you wanna say, Rita, before we say goodbye?

[00:53:29] Rita Burke: I want to pause and say a huge thank you to Paulina Eff Anthony, who is an artist and performer and spoken word genius, and to some degree educator. I would say it was amazing that we've done some name dropping and I think. Even though we are here to speak about you, Paulina, we were able to bring Ebony Mills's name in and I guess she got her talent and her abilities and her community leadership from her parents who I know really well.

[00:54:08] Rita Burke: And you talked about Motion, who we've been trying to get on this show for a while now and she said yes. It's just to nail her down a ton. And you talked about he's obviously your mentor in. Coach and we've interviewed Dwayne on this show as well. So I wanna say to you that I'm really happy that you joined us and that your story makes my life rich, and I appreciate that.

[00:54:35] Rita Burke: Thank you so much. 

[00:54:36] Paulina O'Kieffe-Anthony: Thank you!

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