Singer-Songwriter Candace Hastings on Living a Good Way (Mno-Bmadzewen) Through Creativity and Purpose

Judy Oskam: 0:26

You've been listening to Soft Place to Land, the title track from Candace Hastings' new album. I'm Judy Oskam. This is Stories of Change and Creativity. And today we're talking with Candace Hastings. She's a university leader, a singer/ songwriter, and a citizen of the Potawatomie Nation. And we talk about creativity and how it can be a compass for purpose. So if you're trying to live and work with purpose, and you hope creativity can be part of that equation and that way forward, well, this conversation is for you.

Candace Hastings: 1:01

My name is Dr. Candace Hastings. I'm the Associate Vice Provost for the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Scholarship at Texas State University. I am also a singer-songwriter in the Texas Hill Country and pursue both avenues with extreme passion.

Judy Oskam: 1:19

And I love that. And I am fortunate enough to been able to work with you as a colleague over the last how many years? Seven years. Seven years. Wow.

Candace Hastings: 1:28

We've been together. We've we've we've come up yes, we have gone through it. We've gone through it for seven years together and always had fun.

Judy Oskam: 1:36

Yeah. And I've I'm always so fascinated with your um your passion of your projects and your the way you mix purpose and creativity. Has that always been something that kind of resonated with you?

Candace Hastings: 1:50

I I think so. I think that um even when I was really, really young, um I think that I was very different and I didn't know why I was different. I never thought I was different. But I um I I remember in even as a very young child, just at the top of my lungs singing commercials, and people would look at me and my I have a big family, and um my auntie would say, you know, everybody they call me candy. Everybody likes candy. And I would smile, and she said, but too much candy makes us sick. That's what happens when you're raised by a Norwegian family.

Judy Oskam: 2:40

Yeah. Well, and Norwegian family, that's in my background as well.

Candace Hastings: 2:45

Yes.

Judy Oskam: 2:46

But your background is a little bit interesting.

Candace Hastings: 2:48

Yes, I was adopted uh at birth and raised by a Norwegian family. Um so don't make too big a scene about yourself, right? Uh that uh that Norwegian and had a lovely upbringing, no complaints. Uh I I was I'm a very fortunate, I'm a very fortunate person to have been raised by a loving family. And then, though, um years later, I took care of my mother, my adoptive mother, and she passed when I was in my mid-30s. And it was then that I started to want to find out more about where I came from and who I was.

Judy Oskam: 3:23

Because you always knew you were adopted.

Candace Hastings: 3:24

I always knew I was adopted. My my folks were very transparent about that. We didn't know much, um, but had a couple of names my mother gave me, and so I started to pursue it. And then when the when the internet became bigger and they had all of these DNA testing things, that's when I knew I could probably locate somebody that I was related to. Right.

Judy Oskam: 3:47

And how much does that past feed into kind of what you're doing now creatively and your songwriting? And how do you do you draw from that?

Candace Hastings: 3:58

I think you know, it's an interesting thing. I don't think you can um you can write a lot of you can write about a lot of things. You can write a about lots of different topics. But if you're really a songwriter, I don't think you can go too far from who you are. Um even if I'm writing about something that didn't really happen to me, there's a modicum of truth or something in my identity that's in there. And it's interesting that there's a couple of through lines, I think, in my work that has a lot to do with being adopted and finding my family and finding out who I am, uh, who I look like, um, because I didn't look like the six-foot Norwegians in my family for sure. And um, but this idea that I think it's all about um trying to find out who you are and trying to find a home. Where do you belong? And so for me, um, when I found my birth family, my sister Matt of faculty told me I have lots and lots of birth sisters. I was number four of um nine, number four, number four child of nine children. I was the only one given up for adoption, so my mother raised the rest of them. So when I found my older sister, um, she said, Oh, well, you know our Potawatomi. It's uh, you know, um Native American uh tribe. And I said, No, I did not know that. But it explained a lot. And uh so um when I got my tribal membership and I started studying the language and my culture, everything kind of came back center. And how old were you then? Oh, I was in my room. It was only about uh maybe six years ago, five or six years ago. Okay. Very recently. Okay. Yeah, four or five years ago, actually. Maybe it's four. I think I found out about four years ago. Wow. Four or five years ago, yeah. So it was very late in life, and I met all my birth siblings and everything. But to me, um going uh finding out about where I came from, and I have other heritage as well, um, on my father's side and so forth. But this this idea of being uh indigenous explained a lot about the way I view the world.

Judy Oskam: 6:21

Okay. Go with that a little bit.

Candace Hastings: 6:23

So you and I have talked about the universe, some of the universe, yes. The universe, the universe speaks. Um I've always been um, I think, um community-based. Um and so the way a lot of people around me thought was different from the way I thought. Um and when I grew up, I always thought a little bit differently. So for me, when I and our tr our the band of our tribe, uh I'm a citizen Potawanami Nation, and we're in Shawnee, Oklahoma. We were uh quote air quotes relocated, um, Shawnee, Oklahoma. And when I went and I started participating in tribal activities in Shawnee and started going to ceremonies and started learning the language, um, to me, it did feel like going home that I was finally at peace with who I was. Um, not that I can't walk in a lot of different worlds, we all do, right? Sure. Um, but it kind of came full circle for me. So as a songwriter, um, I don't think I ever wasn't, you know, I was always mindful about being myself and who I am. But that kind of brought things together in a way that I knew more about what my purpose ought to be. Right. And uh actually we've talked in the past about the other inter the the interview you had. A lot of um what we what what what we think about is how do we live mno-bmadzewen? How do we live mno-bmadzewen which is how do we walk in a good way on this earth? Right. So when you think about creativity and passion and whatever project you're doing, it's it is fulfilling. I'm not gonna lie, it's fulfilling. And I have a mortgage just like everybody else. Sure. You gotta, you gotta feed your kids, you gotta feed your family. But I grow weary if I have uh to spend a lot of my time in things that I don't find are broadly purposeful.

Judy Oskam: 8:42

And yeah, and I I see that in your work. I see that everything you do is in service of the faculty to make them then the best they can be in service of the students, right? Which is why we're here. Uh but I see that, and I've I've always wondered how much does that all just flow and where does that come from, you know?

Candace Hastings: 9:05

I I think it's um I don't know. And that's okay, I think sometimes, right? Yeah. But I think it is definitely um the times I feel at peace is the times when um I feel like um I am able to reconcile um mno-bmadzewen living, walking a good way on the earth. When I can reconcile that with the the daily things that I do, it's when I'm most at peace. When I'm most um at odds with my own self or my creativity, or if I'm having like this really kind of like shallow time in my life or whatever, then for some reason some balance is something's out of whack. Something's out of balance, right? So it's interesting you're saying that I came over here for this podcast because we're doing the uh a conflict management course for our um administrators and faculty and and some of and you know, just and it's it's been beautiful to watch them work through that. Yeah, yeah, because we live in such challenging times. Yeah. And it's it's hard to stay calm, focused, and engaged with each other right now. And so uh I think in these times, um it's it's the most important to to be in service. And and it and it makes me feel more fulfilled like that.

Judy Oskam: 10:35

Exactly. Well, and and to your music, I mean, I love your stuff, and I've seen your perform. Yes, you have thank you so much. Of course, of course. But I I I love your the style is how do you describe your style? And we were chatting with that little about that a little bit, but how do you describe your style?

Candace Hastings: 10:52

Yeah, that's interesting. I was talking to a uh uh a promoter the other day because I have an album coming out in the spring, and she said, uh, well, tell me a little about how you would describe the genre. Um and I said, Thank goodness Americana is now a genre, because it clearly um centers a lot of different kinds of music in the same genre. And I told her, I said, I just consider myself uh a brick alure uh in that the song tells me what it needs to be. And so it's whatever's at hand, you make art out of whatever's there in service to the song. So um that might be, I have a Christmas song out called Lone Star Christmas. I love it. Yeah, thank you. Uh it's a swing song. It's swing, it's so much fun. Right. And I actually wrote that song when I was having a really hard Christmas.

Judy Oskam: 11:52

Uh-huh.

Candace Hastings: 11:52

And I'm, you know, I was like, I don't know why you're writing a Christmas song, but I just was so tired of all of the heavy songs that made me ache, you know, around the holidays. Around the holidays, yeah. Because I mean, a lot of us have complicated Christmas times, right? Or holiday times. I mean, I'm sure, you know, um, I'm pretty indigenously traditional, so Christmas is, you know, but anyway. But so I was thinking about, um, I was having a rough time, and I was like, all these songs just make me depressed. And I started writing, well, let's write a song just this for fun. And I just started playing with it. And I said, it's a Lone Star Christmas tonight, and the stars are big and bright. Uh, we don't worry about tomorrow because in Texas we're all right. We have a lone star Christmas uh good time. And I wrote it as a country song, but I was like, no, this needs to be swing. So I put all of the crazy sixths and the seventh and the progressions and stuff. And I have no idea why it turned out the way it did. It just seemed to be like, okay, well, let's get a little bit of this, let's feel a bit of this, let's go get a bit of this, and let's have some fun.

Judy Oskam: 13:06

Yeah, but you have to be open to that creativity. Yes. So I think the fact that you're open to that and you know that it will take a life of its own, right?

Candace Hastings: 13:16

I think what you said is so pivotal because I think about this a lot because I teach classes in uh how to teach, right? I teach um uh I've taught college teaching, whatever you name it, I've taught college teaching or teaching and learning in higher ed is pedagogy and all. I teach a class, a master's class in teaching and learning in higher ed here. And um every I think our traditional model of teaching and learning is all uh is we want students to learn, but we focus on product.

Judy Oskam: 13:55

Yeah.

Candace Hastings: 13:56

And for me, um the process is everything. And so when I work with students, um anytime I work with students or if I work with faculty, you know, I'm like, could we stop talking about the product for just a minute? And think about the time in your life that you were the most curious. And actually, this is kind of my new area of research, is this idea. And when was the last time you were curious? And a lot of people go all the way back to their childhood. Yeah. Like I was five and I saw this ladybug, or I asked why the sky was blue, or something like that. I'm like, okay, that's a big gap between when you were four and now that you're, you know, 24.

Judy Oskam: 14:52

Yeah.

Candace Hastings: 14:53

And unfortunately, we have schooled the curiosity out of people. Yeah.

Judy Oskam: 14:59

Yeah.

Candace Hastings: 14:59

And so the next question I ask, which is uh another new line of research of mine. So we talk about music, but we're also, you know, of course it's all the same thing ties together. It's all ties together. I ask my students, I say, what's the difference between work and play? And that's a hard question. It's a question we that is you have to think about that. Yeah, it's a question we tackle the whole semester. We that's our wicked question that we pose, that I pose the first day, and then we look at it all the way through the course. And to me, I I think that came from the idea of how do you write a song? And it is literally three minutes of inspiration and 13 hours of ditch digging. Sure. And then people are like, oh, I wrote that song in 10 minutes, I'm like, I don't know. Because there's a lot of layers and they might think they wrote it, but they actually they were thinking about it. They might be top-down thinkers, they might be bottom-up thinkers, who knows? But when you do that, how do you determine the difference between work and play when you're creating? And we are all looking for the flow state. Because as hard as we're working, so if I'm working on learning jazz chords or I'm working on trying to make that, do I need a bridge for this song? Oh man, that rhyme scheme doesn't work, or whatever. Whatever that happens to be, I'm struggling, struggling, struggling, but I'm not going to give it up. Right? So I don't have to. I have a nice day job. Exactly. So why would I agonize over writing this song? Because I'm hunting that flow state and I'm in the process and I'm and I'm and I'm loving that process. And when it's done, I will take it out to open mics. I will perform it. Not, I call my songs my children. Yeah. Love them all. Not all of them leave the house. Yeah. Yes. Right. Sometimes you can put orthopedic shoes on a couple of them and then redo them. I have a song that I've just redone and I love it now, but I had to let it percolate mature for a few years, right? Yeah. So this idea of like being creative and getting in this flow state and understanding that the journey is what is what really, really matters, is to me the heart of everything I do.

Judy Oskam: 17:41

Yeah.

Candace Hastings: 17:41

Whether it's teaching and learning, whether it's singing or whatever. And when I told this promoter, um lovely person decided to take me on anyway to promote my work. But I but I was like, uh the song has to decide what the song is going to be.

Judy Oskam: 18:00

Um I have something on my mind. But being on the journey is the magic. It is. It is. Right? So the journey then is leading you to releasing a new album.

Candace Hastings: 18:14

I have a new album. Uh it's coming out um in the spring, late spring, probably we're gonna do the the uh the waterfall releases and and then um some some radio promotions and so forth. And so this is a group of songs uh that I've been working on for a while. One of them I wrote a long quite a while ago, actually, in like 21 or 22. But I've been fortunate enough to do a lot of side hustling outside of the day job and playing uh on the weekends and testing. And testing. Yeah, and I just I also love performing. Um and a lot of songwriters will say they like listening rooms. And I love listening rooms because everybody's there and they're watching you and they appreciate you. And if you do this kind of turn of phrase, they appreciate it and they kind of get everything. So that's kind of your your it's a great audience. But to tell you the truth, I love playing in bars where there's somebody loud at the end of the bar and you you have something in your song that makes them completely turn around and speak to that you sp you can speak to them. Yeah.

Judy Oskam: 19:28

Yeah.

Candace Hastings: 19:28

When they did not come in that bar to see you. They didn't know you were gonna be there. They didn't know I was gonna be there, which is typical for me. I'm not that famous, right? But they're in there on a Friday night and I somehow we connect. Right. I've heard, okay, I just heard this, so I might be making this, but I just came from the conflict mediation certification course, and the faculty in there are giving l mini lessons. They have to do mini lessons. So the mini lesson that I heard can't cite it except for the faculty member who said it. But she said that when we when we're involved in active listening that the brain imaging of the speaker and the hearer is similar. Wow.

Judy Oskam: 20:23

And so that could relate to your singing too. Yeah.

Candace Hastings: 20:25

Yeah. I was thinking about that. It just came. But I was thinking about like why do you play music and why do you sing music and what does that do? And if we're walking Mino if we're if we're living mno-bmadzewen and we're walking the path and we want to support our community and it's not that we're separate from our community. We are part and parcel of the same. And that means the the trees, the land, the all of the natural elements and and and you know animals and so forth, then what does that look like for us to be in community?

Judy Oskam: 21:04

Interesting. So music becomes what a tool? A vessel?

Candace Hastings: 21:10

Uh yeah, I I'm happiest when I'm just the vessel that it flows through. Um yeah, if I get too in my head about anything, then it doesn't turn out the song doesn't turn out. Uh let me tell you about a st uh uh about one of the recordings. Um so there are eight songs on the album. The this might relate to something I said previously, but the title track is called Soft Place to Land. And it's about being out in West Texas in the big band area in Marathon, Texas. Um, and it's a place I love to be. It's always as like restorative and so forth. And I had um been divorced for a while, had not been dating, and I thought, well, maybe there's a possibility that I'm not as jaded as I have been for the past seven, eight years. And I went out there and I this song just came to me, and basically it says, uh, you know, um if you can love someone you don't understand, you could give me a soft place to land. And I just think about that as the title track in that in these times that we are in right now, whether you're talking about personal relationships or relationships and community, we just all need a soft place to land. Yeah. Yeah. But another song I wanted to what I was saying about this, the song tells you and kind of track back. There's a song I wrote called Horses I Left Behind. And it's about that time when I was making a lot of trips to Oklahoma. Um, and I was uh learning a lot. And my brothers and sisters don't really know much uh except for the things that my mother told them about her heritage and so forth. So I was kind of connecting with that and trying to do a lot of historical research and archival research and so forth. Um and um I was driving up the highway to Shawnee and about maybe about 30 miles on the road before I got to Shawnee. I just it was at nighttime and I just started feeling some something. None it was, I don't didn't know what it was, but I was like, okay. And so I wrote the song uh about coming home. It's called Horses I Left Behind. And um when we went to the st and uh let me not bury the lead on that one. Um I found out later that I was driving by the town, it was a little bit farther in from the road. I was actually driving parallel to the cemetery where my grandmother was buried.

Judy Oskam: 24:05

Oh wow. And that's when you're feeling that.

Candace Hastings: 24:08

Yeah, yeah. And I was like, something's happening here, right? So this song is about that time of discovery and lots of complicated feelings and so forth, and lots of complicated discoveries about um uh my family. And um I wrote that song. And when we went to the studio to record it, you know, like Long Star Christmas, Kitchen Sink. We've got I've got Lloyd Maines on Pedal Steel, I've got, you know, um Dennis Ludaker on fiddle, you know. I was so uh lucky, fortunate, blessed to have the some great musicians. We just threw the kitchen sink at that because it was fun.

Judy Oskam: 24:54

Yeah, yeah.

Candace Hastings: 24:55

So um I was in the recording and I put down the the vocal track and the guitar track and um when Fujinaba was Fujinaga was the bass player and he listened to it. It's a very different kind of song, you listen to it. And he said, Okay, you know. So he put he put down the bass line. We said, Okay. What else should we add? And I was like, I'm not sure. It seems it's telling us not to. It's telling us to stop. Um but let's try. You know, let's just try some things. So we tried some percussion. We even tried, um, I even draw brought a tribal drum I had, and we tried that. It wouldn't the song would not have it. And so that song is uh probably the most minimalist song I've ever recorded. It's me, the guitar, and a very, very slim bass line. Wow. Because the song said, No, I know better than you do.

Judy Oskam: 26:00

So have you always been able to be open to what the song tells you? Have you always kind of had that nature of being open to what's next?

Candace Hastings: 26:13

I think you do shoot yourself in the foot uh if you don't listen to the muse or whatever you call it. But I also think that there's a push-me-pull you um with writing a song. So you have to always listen to what the song needs to be and what the song wants to be. But that doesn't mean that you don't put a lot of craft into it. Craft is everything. So that's the skill, right? That's the skill, right? So one of the things I have in Horses I Left Behind is um I have an allusion to Black Elk, um, who talks about horses and dreams of horses. And it's in Black Elk Speaks, there's a lot of sections of that. Black Elk Speaks, you you might have, I mean, people might have problems with the the the way that book was written, but the fact is that in his speaking, he does talk about horses and and the visions of horses that he had. And then I've got a uh Robert Frost allusion uh to Death of the Higher Man, because home is the place that has they have home is in the Robert Frost poems home is the place where they have to take you in. And so I think home, I say um uh I use Padawami language in that too. I say indebashi, which means blown somewhere by the wind. Indebashi, I was blown here by the wind. Bodéwadmi, which is the Potawatomi word for Potawatomi, Bodéwadmi , home is where they take you in. So for me, the work is in service to what the song wants to be, but that doesn't mean you abdicate your responsibility for putting that in. And how do I communicate that? So that's where the 13 hours of ditch digging comes. Yes, yes. And sometimes, you know, I mean, I I played that song for people and they're like, I don't know, Candace. And then I just kept working on it and they would say, Do this, do this, and I was like, nah, I don't think so.

Judy Oskam: 28:06

Yeah.

Candace Hastings: 28:07

And now it's it's definitely my favorite song to play.

Judy Oskam: 28:11

Yeah, I love that. Yeah. Well, and and when we get the album, what are we gonna what are we gonna hear on that album? You have, is it a mix of it's a mix of lots of different it's a mix of Americana.

Candace Hastings: 28:24

So um I have um kind of a jazz swing that starts uh the album. It's called Love and Cowboys. So there's a lot of cowboy, cowgirl uh references. Yeah, I used to live on a on a I used to I used to live in the country and I had my own hay operation and I showed horses and stuff like that. So this is kind of real life for me. And so uh I've got that. I have one song. I wrote all the songs on the record except for one, and my daughter wrote a song. Cool, yes, called Call Your Mama. One time I called her and she didn't pick up. And she's busy, right? Sure. And so she called back a few days later and she said, Hey, mama, I'm sorry, I was so slammed. I totally forgot to call you back. But it was always in the back of my mind to call you back. So I had this kind of thought in my head, call your mama, call your mama, call your mama. So I wrote this song. It has nothing to do with me. It's about an old flame who contacts an old girlfriend to so she can forgive him for his transgressions. And so the the tagline is call your mama, don't call me. Oh, yeah. Right? So uh I love that song. And I said, I have to record that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Judy Oskam: 29:47

She was fine with that, I'm sure, right?

Candace Hastings: 29:51

Yeah.

unknown: 29:53

I don't know.

Candace Hastings: 29:54

The the mother-daughter relationship is complicated. But yeah, I think she's okay with it now. Yeah, we'll see. I said, I told her, I said, if you if we if we can both retire on it, we'll both be happy. That's right. Yeah, that's right. And so I have songs like that. Um, I have some, like I have um Soft Place of Land, Horse Left Behind, I have a couple of other songs. And then I end with um everybody's, I think if you don't like the song, I I don't know. If you don't like the song and you live in Texas, then I don't know where you are because it's called It's Too Damn Hot.

Judy Oskam: 30:25

Oh, I love that song. And it's people and I was I was looking at that the other day on your website, and and people in the audience sing with that. Yes, it's a call and response.

Candace Hastings: 30:36

It is a call and response song where I say it's too damn hot, and everybody goes, It's too damn hot. Yes. Yes. It is uh, and uh I'm I haven't gotten merch in the past, except for CDs.

Judy Oskam: 30:50

Now I'm getting I think that's the merch right there.

Candace Hastings: 30:52

Yes, yeah. I am getting uh trucker hats with my logo on it that says it's too damn hot.

Judy Oskam: 30:59

Yeah.

Candace Hastings: 30:59

Even if you hate my music, we're gonna buy that. Yeah, everybody's gonna buy the back.

Judy Oskam: 31:03

Oh my gosh. Well, you know, you know, I love hearing all the variety, but it all kind of comes back to creativity. And I love the kind of the way your spirit is open to that in service of the audience, whoever the audience is. It might be someone in a bar, someone in a classroom, academics that are kind of trying to do better all the time. But I love that. And I wonder, look ahead five years. What are you where are we in five years?

Candace Hastings: 31:33

Oh, that's a really good question. I've been asked that before. I try not to think too far ahead. I I you know, a lot of people are planners, and I am a planner. I am a planner. Um I am um as I get older, I'm very committed to doing um what it is I think um is purposeful and meaningful work. Makes a difference. Yeah. Yeah. I don't I don't have time to mess around anymore. I really don't. And that doesn't mean I won't do, I mean, I'll I I'll I'll do hard work. I don't think when we're talking about the difference between work and play. Yeah, oh yeah. I think that when you play and you're serious about something, you work really hard, but it feels like play. And if something's meaningless in your life, it could be trivial, but it feels like work. And so I guess my goal is to play the rest of my life. Yes, I love that.

Judy Oskam: 32:27

And I think we'll be able to listen to you play. I hope so. And watch and come see your shows and perform all over. And I love that. Well, hopefully we'll take take take us home uh with a song. So which song should we should we listen to on our way out?

Candace Hastings: 32:45

I don't know. I think that I let's let's uh do Horses I Left Behind. I think that that's uh uh a capture of um, especially since I talked about it quite a bit about the history of it. And it is very different. Uh it is you've got the swing, uh, you've got some folk, you've got some country. Um and this one is kind of me on a plate. I love it. It's a great plate. Thank you.

Judy Oskam: 33:14

Thank you so much, Candace.

Candace Hastings: 33:15

Thank you, Judy. So for an amazing, uh amazing host. Fun.

Judy Oskam: 33:19

Well, we're gonna we're gonna listen to

Candace Hastings: 33:21

Horses I left behind.

Judy Oskam: 33:22

 Candace Hastings

Candace Hastings: 33:22

🎵 "Great can say I was blown here by the wind. Cross the Canadian river just south of Shawnee. Nothing but traveling spirits on my mind. Between the wide lines and the stars in the night sky above me, I started believing lost forces found me just in time."🎵