Meet The Artist

"And I sang with all my might."
 She said, "Tell me are you a Christian child?"
And I SAID, "Ma'am I am tonight!"
Marc Cohn; Walking in Memphis

When I was back there in seminary school, well elementary school, I had a spiritual awakening.  I was nine years old at a classmate’s house when I heard this primal scream, bellowing from down the hallway.  As if Yogi Bear floating on the aroma of chocolate windowsill pie, I hypnotically followed this beautiful cacophony into the older brother's room. Drowning out the profanities of the older brother ,was Judas Priest’s Rob Halford bellowing the opportune lyric “Oh that's the way to find what you've been missing.”  My record player would never see the likes of K-tel albums or Kool and the Gang again - just Zeppelin, Metallica, and of course the Doors . 

 
I don’t know what my life would have been like, had I not read ’NO ONE HERE GETS OUT ALIVE’, but it would’ve sucked.   The Rock ‘n’ Roll antics of an unruly Jim Morrison was easy reading for an angst-filled junior high schooler. But ultimately it was Morrison's commitment to the arts, that would have the most profound impact on my life and art. I began reading Nietzsche, Kerouac, and the poetry of William Blake. Most importantly I just began to read.  My eyes were opened to new realities; the allegories of Plato, the way of the Tao, the woods of Walden, and most importantly the masters of modern art. My passion for painting was furiously resurrected in the form of an expansive collection of crucified Morrisons that would cover every inch of my bedroom walls. 

It was never only Rock ‘n Roll to me – it was my salvation and my passage. Rock musicians weren’t my heroes but my guides.  Whether it was Zeppelin transporting me to the wastelands of Kashmir, or Metallica offering me a community of thirty thousand strangers engaged in synchronized headbanging - these bands crafted intense realities in which I could escape; or be born again.  They taught me the power and beauty in art; and awoke in me the desire to create. I only hope that I can capture a piece of their reality – and fuse it with a bit of my own. Long Live Rock. \m/