by Jesse Bliss
Mentorship is an integral part of developing as an artist. We can be mentored officially, through mentorship programs or by merely engaging and asking a respected professional for guidance. And there are unofficial mentors who come into our lives when we most need the encouragement of someone who’s embarked on a journey we’ve just begun. They are powerful presences who impact the course of our lives and we cherish them for as long as we can.
Writer, educator, and mentor Jesse Bliss recently lost her mentor Linda Lowry. This Claps and Cheers is Bliss’s homage to her late mentor. – Ramona Pilar, Ed.
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It was a typically windy, cold to-the-bone yet electric San Francisco night. I was a 20 year-old walking up Market Street around the corner from the Tenderloin District where I lived next door to a Thai restaurant. Next to that was a known location for sex solicitation. I often cruised toward the train gripping the handle of a knife. The danger in that hood was not gangs, but unpredictable drug-induced violence. I had just left Sacramento and all that was trying to keep me from my dreams, and had shown up in the Golden Gate city with nothing more than a bag and a friend, ready to discover my soul as a professional artist.
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