Intern Reflection by Wade Sharp

Wade Sharp

Spring 2024

Epiphanic moments of self-worth; this is what Daybreak Arts gives to artists who are dealing with housing insecurity, a profound realization about one's own value and significance as a human being. It’s something that cannot be purchased on Amazon. The most important thing that I witnessed during my time working as an intern with Daybreak Arts is the astounding amount of effort it takes to procure for a human being one of these “epiphanic moments of self-worth.”

See, what art does for the spectator is it gives them something pretty to feast their eyes upon, a garden to tend for the mind, a chance to learn something about themselves. But it’s not all about the spectator… Art certainly does something for the artist as well. Via the act of creation and self-expression, the crafting process gives to the artist a sense of completion, a moment of unified wholeness, a feeling: “Even if I don’t have anything else, I have my ability to do this.” That is a precious feeling.

Housing insecurity for an artist turns that upside down. It imposes a sort of blindness on the artist. There’s no time to create. There’s only time to worry about where you’re going to sleep, what you’re going to eat. The artist is forced to put their ability away, and after a while it’s as though they’ve lost a piece of themselves.

I can’t say I was entirely aware of all of this when I first started at Daybreak as a social media intern. I was certainly impressed by all that the organization does for artists who are dealing with housing insecurity in Nashville. The office is chock full of art supplies, which the artists get to use at zero cost to them: canvases, colored pencils, oil paints, pastels, and so much more. Daybreak also gives to artists a way to sell their art, a way to make money for themselves. I’m proud that a part of what I did for the organization was to market the artists, to help by exposing them to the public on social media. They give them community and social support. It’s not an over-exaggeration to say of Daybreak Arts that they literally give everything they can to their artists. But it wasn’t until I attended the 10th annual Daybreak Arts Illuminate Art Gala that I realized this certain non-tangible gift they present to the artist.

Over the semester, I watched the Daybreak team plan the gala. It was an amazing thing to see. As a social media intern during that time, I was empowered by Nicole to build awesome social media posts in Canva, to learn how to plan posts on Social Champ, and to build relationships with the artists, talk with them, and support them by promoting their work on Facebook and Instagram. In the wings, I watched Nicole plan the gala ever so diligently. I was exposed to what it takes to plan an event of that nature, and it’s certainly no easy task. She had to coordinate sponsorships, work with her board, coach us interns, go location hunting, coordinate volunteers; there must have been so much. It was an incredible experience for me to be around all of this, to see just how much work it takes to help people. I loved working to develop posts with the other interns, but my favorite part of the whole experience was the inspiration I got in watching the team do their work, out of nothing but a desire to positively affect homelessness in Nashville.

When the gala day finally rolled around, I was amazed as I watched it all come to fruition. After all of the planning, all of the posts we’d created and sent out into cyberspace, everybody showed up, and the night was electric. The band, featuring an incredible xylophone player, sent the reverberations of jazz music through the room, while the other interns and I walked around doing our best to capture the moment for social media. A huge learning experience for me stems from the way I had to push myself to talk to people I didn’t know in order to ask them for interviews, and then to later attempt to put it all together as a compelling social media post. It was an incredible experience.

However, the most pleasurable part was to watch the enormous group of people centered around Maj’s art all night. The art she had prepared in the months leading up to the gala was radiant, beautiful, and as patron after patron purchased her paintings, her face positively glowed. It was an incredible thing to see; “an epiphanic moment of self-worth.” With all that artists go through, whatever it may be, Daybreak Arts enabled them to continue to improve and expand upon her art, to arrive at that these moments where they get to realize their own significance. 

I’m so incredibly grateful to Nicole for giving me the opportunity to witness what it takes to arrive at that kind of moment. In one fell swoop, one night, all of her planning and diligence came to fruition, and through it she helped a lot of people. I’ll always have the skills and abilities I gained from working on social media with Daybreak Arts, but the most important thing I gained, what I hoped to gain from the experience more than anything else, is knowledge of the type of effort it takes to help people. Nicole certainly exposed me to that knowledge, and I couldn’t be more thankful to her.