Brisbane may be small in the scheme of cities but it has some big hearts and creative minds doing rad things in the art and music scenes. One particular guy, Nayt Housman, has taken on a small project he likes to call 'The Medicine Cabinet'.
What is it you ask? “I like to think of myself as a music therapist (not really) and write a weekly self-help piece called 'The Medicine Cabinet' for a local music blog. This involves me reaching out to friends, family and strangers who I then ask six questions about how they involve music in their lives. I then draw a portrait of them and as "Dr Nayt", I analyse their answers and come up with my weekly prescription for how we can all incorporate music in our lives the way the interviewee does, or ways they can remedy their own use if it is lacking. Sometimes it's quite serious, others it's tongue-in-cheek.”
Always interested in how people come up with these ideas and what propels them to do so, Nayt describes his inspiration. “Well I'd only been writing for the blog for a year and it was time to think of a new weekly contribution but I'd already become sick of talking about myself and my own music likes or dislikes so I needed to stretch my wings. Through a moment of desperation I decided I wanted to know about people I mostly had little to no music knowledge about. Also I've done a lot art in the past but had grown tired with it so this has been a challenge to get something good done in the space of a week. These needs all culminated in 'The Medicine Cabinet'."
Wondering how Nayt's relationship (or lack there of) with his interviewees had an effect on his writing and portrait of them he replied, “Well some weeks I'm just 'ON', some 'OFF' regardless of who I'm drawing and writing about. I mean there are always people I'll interact with who I'll click with and it does make the whole experience more enjoyable, but on the whole I find when I'm deconstructing someone's features while drawing and then portraying small parts of their personality through their answers it's always interesting. I see them not just as a random person but as an entire world and emotional being."
It's inspiring to see someone reach outside of their own creative sphere to involve others in their community. It doesn't need to be the most life changing experiences we read about in order to take something from the lives of our peers, both familiar or strangers. It's enjoyable sharing music loves and it's fab to read about how similar or different it is to others in my city.
You can read The Medicine Cabinet at It's My Kind Of Scene.
