Ebony and Ivory Reflections

At The Atria

A shot I took of a fellow musician during our show at The Atria, a senior home in NYC.

A Smile Worth Sharing

There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life — happiness, freedom, and peace of mind — are always attained by giving them to someone else.

– Peyton Conway March

Midnight Contemplations of an Art Lover

We do what we love.  We do what we are.  It seems pretty simple.  But surrounding our intuitive and at times spontaneous actions as artists, we are all eventually forced to come face to face with perplexing questions.  Because our art matters so much to us, issues that surround it really matter to us too.  What are we aiming to create?  What are we contributing to?  What is the validity of our limitations?  Where does innovation lie in place of tradition and vice versa?  Who are we reaching out to?  Why does our art matter?  How can we sustain our various art forms?  …

Personally, I’m able to capture glimpses of answers to these questions in random moments, whether they come to me instantaneously or through years of steady reinforcement.  At the same time, I am also learning to be at ease with the fact that even an entire lifetime may not be enough to be able to answer some of these questions.

Whether we speak out into the world through spoken words, abstract sounds, movement through space, or shapes and colors, we are all creators and interpreters of imagination.  Collaborating with other artists beyond my particular discipline has made me realize the importance of being ambassadors in the arts — to different communities, in terms of geographical region, social division, and also artistic discipline.  I’ve been thinking about this more and more lately.  There is definitely more room for an increase of support and cross pollination between the different art forms.

Just some thoughts.  At the end of the day, though, I guess what really matters is that we still do what we do, and that we continue to celebrate our love for it.