Everyone has a spectrum of masculinity and femininity inside them. In every individual, a war of misogyny is raging. Every man is repressing and oppressing the femininity within themselves, raising up male values as governing values. Because that's what we've been taught to do, just as every woman has. Misogyny isn't just something that affects women. It affects men.

I just feel like [creativity] is a reflection of the world around me and I don't think you can divorce yourself from that. So I don't really think in terms of, 'Do you still have it?' Even if I was doing something new, I think I would be engaged in the same process.

I went to New York to be where the beautiful people were and it didn't disappoint me. It's so open. It's a great platform to do your own thing or start new things. When I got there, I started living for the first time.

No matter how public your work is, it's just a relationship with yourself. And you have to create a little sacred space inside yourself to treasure that... because when you die, that's still what you have. It's what you're born with and what you leave with. It's kind of a story of the way you accompanied yourself through your life.

I feel very grateful that for some reason I was raised to believe that I had permission to explore the creative world. I'm very aware of what a privilege that is, because most people don't grant themselves that permission, and I really think that's the only thing that separates people that call themselves artists from the rest of the world. It's suspending self-judgment for long enough to do something expressive.

I think what really separates artists from the rest of the world is that artists feel like they have permission to keep exploring and expressing their process. Most people censor that because they don't think it's good enough. Everything is measured against this patriarchal hierarchy of value, as if one person's singing voice is more important than another's.

When I was a junior in college I moved to New York and went to this performance school the Experimental Theatre Wing. We had singing class and again, some of the other students would cry when I was singing, and I really didn't know why. I started to realize that there was something in the tone of my voice that was evocative for them.