orange horizon and classic rock painting

I have so many works-in-progress and ideas in the pipeline lately that I would need weeks, if not months, of uninterrupted days to complete it all. I enjoy the excitement of all that creative energy buzzing around me, but I feel a bit chaotic having it caged inside me with very little time to let it out. Here's a look at some of it:

I'm really loving the orange in this painting, it makes me so happy! But, I don't quite feel like this piece is "done" yet. Leaves or no leaves? What do you think?

The next project is something I've been thinking about for months. It combines two of my loves: art and music. I am forever a voodoo child......a confusing phrase unless you listen to Jimi Hendrix and know that in the days when classic rock was being made it was seen by many to be the work of the devil (voodoo). Well, classic rock is in my bones. I grew up being sung Janis Joplin and The Beatles in place of normal lullabies, and my dad was always quizzing my sister and I about music in the car as we listened to classic rock. All that conditioning really made an impact on me. I grew up feeling like I identified more with the hippie generation than my own.

So, a couple of months ago while listening to Led Zeppelin (my FAV), I began to visualize the songs instead of hearing them, imagining the verses and phrases as pictures.....a series of paintings. I am super excited about this project! I have since begun to do this (visualize) with every song I listen to so I have a stockpile of painting ideas waiting in my brain. I'm starting with that first ah ha! moment: Led Zeppelin's "Going to California." Here are some (very rough) sketches for the phrase that stuck out to me: "Someone told me there's a girl out there with love in her eyes and flowers in her hair." I'm not sure where to go with the flowers yet (all daisies or a mass of different varieties?), but I am set on the idea I went with for the eyes.

And colors! Oh my, it's going to be a tough decision. Some ideas:

My Sunday afternoon (there is one other painting in the works here):

Happy Monday!

musical inspiration

I've been listening to a lot of my husband's music this week, which has renewed my awe, inspiration, and let's face it, attraction for him. He comes from a very musical family with a former concert pianist mother, a prodigy guitarist brother who can pick up any instrument and learn how to play it immediately, and a genius guitarist father. Alex's talent was always his voice, singing in choir throughout his life. But a few years ago he jumped on the family guitar train, and given his additional talent of writing (he has a masters in writing), he's really found himself a creative niche: song writing.

I decided today that I need to start sharing his music, because he doesn't.....and I think that's such a tragedy. My first selection is "Time Tided," which you can listen to here, on my Tumblr page. It's the January 29th posting (underneath the picture). You won't regret it!

worth the wait

Photo by Natalie Schlegel

I've shared one of the songs I've written and recorded a few months ago, and lately have really been wondering where that impulse and passion to write and record music has gone. It was an every day part of my life when I learned to play a few years back. But, now I stare at my guitar perched on its stand in the corner of the room and I can hardly bring myself to pick it up. I want to, and sometimes I do; but the easy, exciting inspiration I used to feel when casually strumming away late into the afternoon that would result in another song written, has slowly declined and vanished from my expressive inclinations.

Photo by Natalie Schlegel

I've written about "shadow artists" and I certainly am one when it comes to music (these days). A shadow artist is an artist who is ignorant of their true identity as an artist, while shadowing declared artists (click here for a better description). I suppose I began to shrink farther and farther into the background when I found myself in the daily presence of my husband's music. He sang in choir from elementary school through college, his voice is talented and beautiful. And to me, he is far more creative when it comes to creating variation and excitement in his guitar parts. Hello self deprecation!

My hubby, breaking in his "man room" the day we moved in together.

It's really too bad that I instinctually felt inferior and stopped playing guitar with my husband. Everyone around us thought we'd have some wild, obsessive, constant music making happening in our apartment when we moved in together. We were certainly like that in the beginning of our relationship, writing each other songs back and forth, but we aren't anymore. And I've been saying the whole time "I have to get back to my music! I'm going to start again." But, it hasn't happened yet. I think I'm writing this to put myself on the hook to actually pick up the darn guitar again!

On that note, below are the lyrics to another one of my "songs." I don't put that in quotations to mock myself, but only because I never recorded the cut version of this, which is about 1/4 of the length (much shorter verses) so this rough draft is rather lengthy and unfinished (if you stick it out, the end is better than the beginning). I just "never got around" to finishing the recording.

The interesting thing is that I wrote this song only a few months before Alex came into my life, and it is about the "one" that I would end up with....and I really did feel the way I said I would in this song. It has a very sullen, painful feel to it though, because it was an emotional piece for me to write.

You can listen to the song on my Tumblr page (the Jan 22nd posting). Both vocal parts, and the two acoustic guitar parts are your very own Lola Rain! The bass part, electric guitar and drums are members of the band Lazy Sunday. Here are the lyrics:

Worth the Wait by Lola Rain

I'll find a cement mixer

fill in those old ruts
then it can finally be
just the two of us
Adjusting the rearview
as I maneuver this old machine
wiping my slate clean
So take your last breathe and
eat your last meal
The beast has had his last day
telling me how to feel

Let's take our regrets honey
bury them in the backyard
watch something magical
rise from the seeds
of what was hard
Take my hand but be warned
you'll never let go again
the reasons why I'm certain
you'll learn soon my friend

Because I'm worth
this love my dear
cast away my fears

I thread together
the things that you say
a blanket to curl up in
at the end of my lonely day
Your words wrapped around me
as I drift off to sleep
Darling this feeling is everything
I want to keep

I may have messed up baby
but I did it for you
all my mistakes leading me to this
something new
An obstacle course across
my soldiering heart
The wrong way was the right way
from the very start

Because this is life my dear
wipe away your tears

Your face looks just the way
that I wanted it to
as if I imagined it before
ever laying eyes on you
So whisper anything in my waiting ears
whatever it is I'm sure
will erase these fears

I want the flames of my soul
to burn from your eyes
I don't care that it's taking us
47 tries

Because you're
worth the wait
this waiting
is my fate

the consequence of DNA

Photo by Natalie Schlegel

I must be feeling more comfortable being imperfect in front of an audience, because I've mustered up the courage to share one of Lola Rain's original songs. I have to preface it by stating that this was a one-take, rough draft that I never went back to edit so it is highly imperfect (gulp). The guitar is totally off, and I don't want to even discuss the vocals because with only one take of the song I'm left completely vulnerable and feel quite self-conscious about it. Enough self deprecation though.....you can use your imagination to fix all the flaws and pretend it's perfect. I'm hearing myself stamp this disclaimer onto a piece of my artwork, by the way, and all I can think of is the quote I ended yesterday's blog entry with: "To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong (Joseph Chilton Pearce)." I need to suck it up and work through my fear of being wrong!

About the song: To listen to the song, go to my tumblr page. The song is posted under the November 19th entry. I have been trying to figure out how to add a music player to my blog or within a blog posting all day today, and it's been maddening! I have tried a handful of different music hosting sites and music players and cannot get it to work. Grr. If anyone knows how to do this, leave me a comment!! Please and thank you.

More importantly, I always love to provide some background on my music a la VHI Storytellers. Personally, when I listen to a song I'm listening to the lyrics, feeling the emotion, analyzing the words, and wondering where it all came from. Like a lot of my artistic expression, I found that when I began to write music it was an outlet for my darker feelings and thoughts. The very first song I wrote was super peppy and upbeat, but after that my music began to mirror the difficult pieces of me that had always been locked away and numbed out. Penning the lyrics was an emotional and psychological purging for me, and performing them provided SUCH a release! I had always struggled to communicate or even recognize my pain, but when my guitar was in front of me the words floated up from an inexplicable, mysterious place as if they'd waited all their lives to be sung. It was exactly what I needed. At any rate, this song was written a few months after I learned how to play the guitar when I was in my dark and tormented phase:)

The Consequence of DNA is about my struggle with my inherited genes that have tormented me. However, it's more than physical strands of DNA (nature) that I'm referring to--it's the nurture part of me, the learned behaviors and psychological maladies (such as the good old GAD, my anxiety that I discussed a few days ago). In the past, these things left me feeling trapped in a life I did not want. I will say it bluntly and succinctly: I was raised by an alcoholic mother. The song is fairly straightforward (I think?) once you have that information. It's a large topic, which is why I'm leaving it simple (for now). As a side note, though, I'm currently toying with the idea of writing a book about alcoholism from the perspective of a girl who was surrounded by it all her life, but (thankfully and gratefully!) was never afflicted with the disease herself (only the learned behaviors, thank god for Al Anon!).

Let me know what you think of the song (lyrics below)!

The Consequence of DNA

Can't get outta my head

Can't get outta my bed

apathy is wrapping around me

serpentine and laughing

wish I could talk to myself

put these neurons on a shelf

The consequence of DNA

thought I killed it yesterday

head is climbing up the walls

emotions gushing waterfalls

heart descending to the floor

soul is pleading nevermore

Can't get outta my head

cant' get outta my bed

sabotage is wrapping around me

serpentine and laughing

wish you could just let me be

but I'm my only enemy

The past is creeping in again

just as I began to mend

ghosts are taunting their long reign

voices driving me insane

wanting off this island now

but mama never taught me how

living in the light

"Parents seldom respond, "try it and see what happens" to artistic urges issuing from their offspring. They offer cautionary advice where support might be more to the point. Timid young artists, adding parental fears to their own, often give up their sunny dreams of artistic careers, settling into the twilight world of could-have-beens and regrets. There, caught between the dream of action and the fear of failure, shadow artists are born....Artists themselves but ignorant of their true identity, shadow artists are to be found shadowing declared artists. Unable to recognize that they themselves may possess the creativity they so admire, they often date or marry people who actively pursue the art career they themselves secretly long for."

Hmm....how true! When I read those words in The Artist's Way (by Julia Cameron) I had one of those "ah ha!" moments of clarity. I was a shadow artist. Period. I was so drawn to and enamored of artists of all kinds, feeling such envious awe as I watched them live their creative lives. I wouldn't say I dated artists (although there was one musician/actor), but I certainly found friends and groups of people to live through vicariously....until the fateful day that I stepped out of the shadow (read my posting below about the day I became Lola Rain!).

Blue Bear School of Music in San Francisco.....where it all began. Oh I miss that warehouse right on the San Francisco Bay (see the water in the background?)! Beautiful. Nothing like watching the sun set over the Golden Gate Bridge as you drive home after class.

Meet Sloane (you didn't think I owned a nameless guitar did you?)

So, as I mentioned, I did date a musician once upon a time....we'll call him Aldous...and I don't think it's any surprise that it was during our relationship that I called my father and broke the news to him that my path to becoming a lawyer was no longer passable. My father fought my reasoning and used his own attorney skills in an attempt to sway me back to what he felt was "the perfect path" for me....but, I know that he was mostly talking to himself, a shadow artist in his own right.

I still was not ready to step into any sort of spotlight back then though. I would sit in the corner of the bars where Aldous would play. I would write furious poetry.....or I would close my eyes and dance all night, feeling so drawn to make music of my own.....and of course, I always had my camera with me, capturing the expression of art. It was a small beginning; the seeds that had been planted in the soil of my soul at birth had finally begun to squirm and open up. I wouldn't break through the ground until after that relationship though....Aldous's light was too glaring for me to see my own (you know what I'm talking about if you've ever dated the frontman of a band, haha!).

I was shooting with a film camera back in these days, as you can tell by the delicious graininess of the photos. And I was also REALLY into playing with light, color and movement. Obsessed.

I found myself at a crossroads shortly before I signed up for guitar lessons. A long-term relationship with someone much different than Aldous, who left me deeply conflicted and unsatisfied every day for years, was coming to a close. The bubble burst one day as I looked this man in the eye and told him that the life we shared together did not fit me, and he did not fit me. I, at once, began to purge my life of all the pieces of it that were not inspiring, genuine or supportive of the bohemian life I longed for. And I filled those empty spaces with guitar classes, photography projects, yoga twice a day, painting, dancing.....the list goes on. And I began to spend my Saturdays locked in my apartment WRITING MUSIC!! That was something I never thought I'd be able to say. Sigh....

I became a rambunctious, loud, animated character the second I entered the doors of my guitar class every Thursday night. I couldn't believe it.....but, I suppose I had a lot of light to shine around after a lifetime of living in a shadow. And my guitar teacher ate my energy up. We had breakfast on Sunday mornings with one of my other classmates, and we'd sit and chat about our artistic dreams, providing support, encouragement and inspiration to one another. It was glorious. On top of all that, my teacher took me under his wing and taught me how to record my music....perhaps I'll share some another day (we'll see, I've never perfected any of it to the point of not feeling self-conscious about it).

If you haven't noticed yet, I am a left-handed guitarist! Of course. Hence the "weird" backwards guitar. Smile. Also, please notice that the graffiti on the wall behind me reads "damned if you do, bored if you don't." Amazing.

Photos by Natalie Schlegel

It's interesting though, because I have found that recovering from that shadow life and from the effects of a society that generally does not support artists as they grow up, is neither linear or clear cut. I have bounced back and forth a few times before landing in the more solid artistic place I am today (where I truly identify myself as an artist). Even though I gave up on becoming a lawyer, I did end up working for an investment company for almost 4 years (really no better than becoming a lawyer). It's a little bit like dipping your toes in water when you are cold and shaking---you touch it and pull back in fear, and then try again. But, eventually you grow comfortable with the temperature and you'll be damned if anyone's going to pull you out of that pool then! Remember the days when your parents had to force you to come out of the pool/ocean/lake at the end of a hot summer day of swimming?

Well, I am now married to a writer/musician/former actor/singer/song writer and I admit, I have had my moments of ducking back into the shadows. When we were falling in love we spent our days writing each other songs and playing guitar together. But, I arrived upon a day when I put my guitar down (literally and figuratively "in the corner") and only felt comfortable shinning the spotlight on his music. And I did the same with my writing. He graduated from Dartmouth with a Masters in writing, how could I be so silly as to think I was a "real" writer? It's all part of the bumpy road toward living a genuine life though. And thankfully, as I'm sure is evident from this blog, I am getting back to my artistic roots and flourishing in the light now.

"To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong."

~Joseph Chilton Pearce