Gina’s response to ‘does making money from theater make you feel like a real actor’ was ‘as long as I can make a living doing what I love I’m good’. At first it came off as she does musical theater just for money. But after thinking about it for a bit after, it made sense to me. Obviously, you need money to basically stay alive in todays society, so to be able to do what you love is awesome. Getting paid to do it is even better. Then there was the concept of once an artist starts making art for money, the art isn’t authentic. To be honest, I thought this way for a while, so discussing it kind of just informed me of the way I was thinking – which was silly. Another thing I thought was kind of interesting was how even though musical theater was Gina’s passion, it was still the side hustle to teaching. I know she said she is trying to switch that around, but it just stood out, I guess, because I don’t remember many other guest artists who weren’t still doing art as their main thing. When Ahava asked how auditions over Zoom worked, I was eager to know Gina’s answer because I was wondering the same thing, and if Gina has Zoom-fatigue like I already have Blackboard-fatigue. I thought Gina would say she hated it because it’s not in person, but hearing her list the positives was interesting.

Seeing as we have seen our last guest, I can’t help but reflect on the other artists as well. Although online, Art(ists) in NYC restructured the way I think about art as a whole as well as different genres and genres of genres of art. Rock music, street art, poems and a few others are just examples of types of art I thought I would never have an interest in. Now, thanks to our guest artists, I’m open to exploring even more art!