The artist name “shea on air” was bestowed upon me by my friend Emily (aka Mengze), and thank god I didn’t have to come up with it, because I’ve historically found the process of naming a musical project to be torturous and humiliating. Nothing except my name really stands the test of time, but using my full government name felt too self-serious and confusing given that I also have a professional online presence as a designer using my full name. But I love my first name because if I get in early on niche internet platforms I almost always get the username @shea, which is why I have the gorgeous are.na URL are.na/shea. BUT my first name isn’t SO uncommon that it warrants a mononym. SO I was like, how can I incorporate my name without just using my name, and Emily proposed “shea on air.” And while it sounds really simple it actually contains a lot of easter eggs, which delights me personally, so it stuck. Including:
- it’s a wind instrument joke
- it’s a radio joke
- I’m an air sign with like a zillion air sign placements
- “on air” rhymes with my middle name
It also felt appropriate because I don’t necessarily feel like I’m making music as a persona or character, which is what a lot of artists and performers do. And I like “shea on air” because it’s not so much a persona as it is a container. At shows I’m usually like, “hi I’m Shea and when I play the flute I’m shea on air.” I’m not inhabiting anything outside of myself, I’m just moving to a different room in the proverbial house, and in that room I make music. My friend once joked that if I ever started tattooing I could be “shea on skin”, which made me laugh. So it’s kind of a system. And when I consider what I’m most interested in doing with the project, it’s not performance, but the system – behind-the-scenes wordlbuilding stuff like mixing, the visuals, this site…
