Photo by Laurence Philomène
During the winter of 2022, PAF spoke with Eve Parker Finley, an artist based in Tiohtiá:ke|Montreal who was working on a collaborative project with PAF member and visual artist Stephanie Hill for Art Beyond Borders. This project was part of PAF's programming related to artists + artmaking from a distance during COVID.
Eve Parker Finley is a noted Montreal multi-instrumentalist and upcoming Indie Pop Superstar. Braiding a dense and deliberate web of string arrangements and classical naturalism into a former raver’s penchant for programmed beats and four-on-the-floor grooves, Finley has been a mainstay in the Montreal independent scene for nearly a decade. Her debut album Chrysalia was released on December 4th, 2020 with Florafone Records and Coax Records.
This conversation is from a virtual studio visit that PAF communications lead Lissa M. Cowan had with Eve Parker Finley. The interview was originally recorded on the unsurrendered traditional lands of the Algonquin people.
When Covid happened what was going on for you?
In March 2020, I was at a very transitional part of my life. I had just taken a step away from my full-time job at McGill with the idea that I wanted to pursue a career in the arts more concretely. Then Covid happened, and it was this huge like whoaaa….I already was very unsure about how to do this, and now a lot of the performing opportunities and things like that all of a sudden disappeared, so I had to, after a while of like you know, adjusting to the new reality, I had to figure out some new ways of making stuff and sharing with people, which I ended up doing, which is very cool.
Yes, you sure did end up doing that. I was just wondering, because I follow you and watch your comedy and just the different things that you're doing with your music, which is so exciting. Were you doing as much digitally before Covid or was it in the works and you amped it up because you weren't doing as many live shows, or any live shows after March?
I mean, as an independent musician I always knew that social media was going to be a part of my life strategy. But it wasn't until a few months into Covid that I found a new relationship with it, and one that I found creatively interesting and exciting. Once I found that, which I feel happened in October of 2020, that’s when things really started to move. That's when I started making comedy. I hadn't really engaged with comedy that much before. I think I had done one open mic stand-up show in 2019 or 2018 just for fun.
I was thinking about how music has really helped me deal with the pandemic and I’m sure I’m not the only one. But I wake up in the morning and can feel totally bummed out and then I’ll put on some music, and it will change my mood pretty much instantly. Have you had many people post-Covid reaching out and saying, gee you've really helped me over this time?
Yeah, it’s been wild to meet people who have engaged with my comedy or music. I think one of the things that makes it exciting to be an artist is to see the impact you create on people. You never know what that's going to be, and you can't control it, and you have to just let go of that.
Throughout the darkest part of the pandemic so far, we had a curfew here and we had to stay inside all the time, and it really has been amazing to feel like those things that I was just creating from my bedroom have really been impactful for people.
In the first couple weeks of the lockdown in March, I really felt like I was supposed to be doing something in the collective. Though all I could do was something with music, so I recorded a different little music exploration each day and paired them with calming visuals.
That's wonderful that those musical pieces were because of you wanting to reach out and help people. So, you're working on Art Beyond Borders with PAF artist Stephanie Hill and I was in touch with her a couple of days ago, and she said you have a plan.
We do have a plan.
That’s very exciting. It takes time, and you didn't really know each other before this, and then you're coming together. And it's like, okay what's your jam, what's my jam: what are the similarities between the two of us and how can we work on something that's collaborative?
What are some differences between not having a live audience and doing live shows and performing digitally?
I didn't fully understand how different it was until I played a show with people again, which I did in September. I felt like it was another level when I did a show that was inside with people. It’s just the experience of having people present. I forgot, and it's weird to have forgotten such a central part of the art discipline I engage with. I'll never take that for granted now.
But at the same time, I really love doing things for people online. It's just very different and you can speak to different people and hear from them directly in a way that you can’t always do in person. And to have like a bunch of people from different parts of the world, all engaging with the same thing is just so cool. I remember doing a livestream and there were 10 people watching. Someone was from Montreal, down a few blocks from me probably. Someone was from a small town in Ireland, and someone from Siberia.
That sounds so cool. There’s some magic there, right? I wonder, in terms of your artistic process, how it’s different from before. You know, obviously being more isolated and not going out to clubs, and that sort of thing.
That was a big change. With the lockdowns it took such an adjustment to go so slowly, and I remember people talking about this a lot in the first couple of months or the first half a year. And I feel like there was this idea that we’d always retain the kind of slowness that a lot of us needed.
It just made us realize how fast modern life is sometimes and how it's nice to go a little bit slower. But I have to say, once things started reopening it kind of just felt like I went right back into it. I'm in this stage now where I’m trying to adjust so that I don't have to say yes to everything, and I don't have to go to everything. I can spend time alone in my creative bedroom studio and just see what happens.
Absolutely. I was looking on your website and reading about your new album Chrysalia. That’s a beautiful word. Can you explain what it means?
It's a combination of a couple of words. I was looking at interesting words and I found this word chrysalism*, which is the feeling of being inside during a thunderstorm. The joy you get from hearing the pitter-patter on the roof and knowing you're safe. And obviously, the chrysalis which I think people often think is this calm place where a caterpillar turns into a butterfly. But it's really a space of chaotic transformation, where a caterpillar has to lose its entire shape and become corrosive goo before it can form into a butterfly. I wanted all the songs to evoke those two feelings.
I love that. So, we’re on the outside looking in and thinking, oh there's this moth or this worm, or whatever it is in there, just sleeping. Then, once they wake up it'll be just like OK. But instead, there’s chaos in there, but we just can't see it.
I remember living in a cabin in the woods on Vancouver Island and there was a tin roof. And I’d hear the rain on it, and it was just so calming. It's melodic. Speaking of spaces, I know you do a lot of work in your studio, so can we have a peek?
Yes, right behind me, is my little creative zone. And this is the keyboard that I just purchased. I always have microphones and other things. If I have an idea, then I can go and record it right away as it’s all set up. There are also a few pieces of inspiration like this blue painting in the background that belonged to my grandfather. I just think it’s so beautiful, calming, and peaceful.
*Chrysalism is defined in John Koenig’s book The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows as “The amniotic tranquility of being indoors during a thunderstorm.”
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Art Beyond Borders brings together six artists working in pairs (three duos) in a virtual space on a common project for three months as they create synergies, share knowledge, and techniques. The artists are working remotely, using digital technologies to meet, exchange, and develop their work that spans painting, sculpture, ceramics, textile arts, dance, theatre, music, digital art, writing, etc. The project sprung from the forced virtual context that artists locally and globally have been faced with since the COVID-19 pandemic began.
Learn more about Eve Parker Finley, or find out more about the Art Beyond Borders project on our Programming page. Watch the complete virtual studio visit here.
We’d like to thank MRC des Collines-de-l’Outaouais for their support for this project.