A love letter to The Works Festival - Erin Valentine

By Erica Valentine

I’m writing this on the eve of my last formal day of employment with The Works Art & Design Festival. I have been an employee for over four years, encompassing five festivals. I started on April 29, 2013. It was a blizzard outside, and I enjoyed the humour of walking to my summer job in the blowing snow. Little did I know how many times in the future I would walk to that office in the blowing snow.

My first role was Volunteer Coordinator. After the festival, I stayed on one day a week through the last year of my degree. After my second festival in 2014, I briefly thought I was done at The Works, but the phone call came a few weeks later. “Erin, are you available?” (I should have known it would happen when I wasn’t asked to return my key). That year, I spent periodic spurts in the office, filling in grants, working on the website, writing social media posts, writing newsletters, and preparing for the following year. When spring rolled around, my role formally became Marketing & Churchill Square Supervisor. That year, everything was new to me. I’d never marketed. I’d never dealt with media, or vendors, or AGLC regulations. But our incredibly supportive team worked it out, and I’m so proud of the tongue-in-cheek, Buzzfeed style campaign from that year – I got to be silly, and sassy, and talk about the festival in a really fun way, and learn so much. I stayed on staff full-time the next year, and in the 2016 and 2017 festivals my tasks were refined and streamlined until this year, my focus was on site logistics and vendor management – finally, probably, my best fit.

Festivals are wild and intense. You’re stretched in so many different ways – personally, professionally, physically. Your skills, stamina, emotions, and patience are all put to the test. The long days and short nights, the hours spent crunched over a keyboard followed by hours spent on your feet on the pavement, thinking ahead, thinking in the moment, planning and snap decisions. And being part of the most dynamic, passionate teams of young, inspired and inspiring people, artists, incredibly hard workers, with whom you weather literal storms to make the nearly impossible feat of the Festival happen. I love every second of it.

My degree is in Technical Theater: Stage Management, and it’s a very specific degree that taught me to do one thing really well. At The Works, it was the opposite. I learned to do a whole lot of things and eventually, I found some I could do really well. I was never told I couldn’t try anything – the moment I decided I wanted to learn something, it was open to me. This organization values hands-on education so highly, and I can’t express enough how lucky I feel to have had so many different experiences in one place.

Not only did I learn so much about festival management, I also learned about art. Public art. Art interpretation. The value in adorning our spaces with creative and original works. I had never thought much about these things before working at The Works, but my value system has changed and been enhanced. I’m more aware of the world around me – not just the art, but also the community/ies I’m surrounded by. Putting on a festival in the heart of downtown has opened my eyes to the diverse groups of humans that call this place and neighbourhood home, to issues faced by community members, to activism, to advocacy, and to using art as a voice, and a platform, to influence the world. The Works has taught me the vitality and necessity of art and I will forever treasure that.

In this moment, I’m overwhelmed with nostalgia. My relationship with The Works is longer than any romantic relationship I’ve ever had. I’ve spent longer with The Works than I did getting my university degree. I’ve lived in four different places since my first day at The Works, and the key to the office is the oldest key on my key ring.

I look at the beautiful heritage house that is our office, and I see home. I see quiet winter mornings and late summer nights, endless cups of coffee and extra food in the fridge just in case. I flip through old staff and festival photos and I see family. I’ll be travelling across the country this month, and half of the people I’m seeing and the homes in which I’m finding lodging are of former staff, because once you have forged the fiery bond that festival necessitates, you’re bonded for life.

I could go on forever about The Works. I could tell story upon story, about the infamous Christmas in July potluck or the incredible storm during our last overnight strike or that time after that event when…

But I won’t. Instead, I will wrap this up with a massive thank you.

Thank you to everyone who has touched me in my time at The Works. Thank you for letting me try, fail, grow, and succeed. Thank you to the incredible volunteers who have become my friends and people I look forward to connecting with every year. Thank you to my friends and family who took care of and supported me in those intense festival months, who visited me on site and even volunteered their time with the fest. Thank you to my colleagues for sharing so many moments of laughter and stress alike. Thank you for letting my coffee mug get more and more blackened instead of forcing me to wash it. Thank you to the most incredible boss on the planet. Thank you for investing in me from when I was 21, and watching me grow up. Thank you, to everyone, for all the mentorship and wisdom.

I don’t know who or where I’d be without The Works, but I’m sure grateful to be where I am now. Though the chapter of my life that includes showing up at the office every day is over, The Works is part of me now – maybe I’ll be back, and at the very least I’ll be around, so I can confidently still say – see you next festival.