It's been hard to "yoga" my way out of this tough time too: (separation/impending divorce/midlife crisis, just the little things!)
I guess, maybe, because these things are not my purpose in life, they are just part of my life.
Art is my purpose, and I only know that because I never cared (like, in school) about anything but my art class. The art class I finally took as a senior!!! I just meandered for 4 years doing as little as possible prior.
There was that one literature class where we read Shakespeare aloud...that was RAD!
It's all I cared for and I had a nurturing art teacher that year (finally) that gave me some love, attention, and good vibes that I desperately needed to secure a path to the artistic realm. I needed it: I had started to get into a lot of trouble with drugs, boys in school, and I was going to the principles office a lot. That's about what I remember.
Let's just make it up as we go along!
There is one thing that I see over and over in artists (artistry) that inspires me so much. They live in a space in the world where it's ok to just make it up. Make it up as we go along. It comes out in the music, it comes out in their gigs and art.
Last night, Houser said to me: Oh yeah, I'm playing with Edie Brickell in Dallas (as well as with David Garza) We play early at 8- then Me and Hubbard are going to get in the car and drive immediately to play a gig with Golden Dawn Arkestra at Art Outside: we'll get there right ontime:: at 1am!
I was like, really? Aren't you going to be tired? He said, "It's all in your perspective, really - Isn't it?" Agreed. And, I'm sad I can't be at the Edie show, as she was a huge influence on me in high school. Kristen and I listened to "What I am" and that whole record incessantly...
Thank God I will be playing at Art Outside too, with Minor Mishap, and I will be in the front row cheering on my peeps.
Brad inspires me so much: So does this motley cure of brass below me: Salmon and Hubbard. These guys..............
This jam is what I needed. I needed to be surrounded by like-minded people. I needed the beautiful, made up in the moment artistry. I needed to feel it in the air, and on my lips! I needed to catch notes out of the sky and feel like a part of it.
The way Todd's jams work is someone will throw a tune out there, and we all hop on the bus. You pluck notes out of the air, you find the scale, you find the spaces in which to insert something pretty. Or in my case laugh, or be silly.
At one point I was making up a song on Bruce's Resonator - Todd MADE me. I had prepared no originals, so I put 3 chords together. Behind me, at some point, as I was trying to make up lyrics that sounded stupid to me, but what what I was feeling, it was more serious than I had wanted it to sound...
This girl behind me was shaking trash from a trash can - it was so rigorous, almost in time but not, that I turned around and was like, WTF is that? It was trash!
I laughed out loud, and then the drummer John Bush and I had another laugh about it as we recapped the irony:0
At another point Me, Bruce, and Hubbard got up and acted as a section, plucking out tunes together. Later, Hubbard walked outside with his accordian for a bit to play to the stars.
I nearly followed....
Todd told me to freak out, so I freaked out on the horn making it crazy.
OH! It was much to do about nothing.
Precisely what was inspiring about it.
PHOTOS by Sheridan
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