Rediscovering Love

The joy of performing was reawakened in me this weekend.

For so long I have felt forced. I have been so focused on healing and finishing my work that I had forgotten how much I love what I do. How much I love music. I love hearing it, feeling it and giving it to people. The most amazing thing about any art form is that it has the ability to reach so many people at once, and it means something different to each individual. No two people hear a song, or see a painting or dance in the same way, and in a performance, when I'm up there I get the chance to speak to every audience member uniquely. I can carry countless messages, messages that I don't even know I'm sending out. I become a vessel for something bigger than myself. 

I am so lucky to be able to create music every day, to live an inspired life. 

Downtown Cabaret was last night. It made me remember why art is so important. It connects strangers, shoots straight to the heart and lifts us from reality for a little while.

Here's a clip of one of the songs that shoots straight to my heart. My Mama used to sing this to me as a lullaby when I was little.

Album art!!

The deadline for my new album is coming up quick, so last night I sketched up an idea for the cover art.

Check it out:

It's not a finished product but you can get the idea. 

The Album will be titled "Bad Shark" and will feature nine (if I counted correctly) original songs.

We go into the studio again today. I'm so excited to start putting the finishing touches on the tracks.

Yesterday James and I wrote a really pretty violin line for tumbleweed and today my guitarist Joe and I will be finishing up the guitar parts.

I'll update on our progress soon!

Hope everyone is enjoying the beautiful weather! I love spring! :)

Home again :)

Well, we're back from our vacation.
I had a really good time. I don't get to see my family that lives down South very often, so it's always nice to see how everyone is doing and to get a chance to spend a few days together.

In Hilton Head we went on a boat ride with some of my Grandparent's friends and saw a bunch of dolphins! A few of them swam so close to the boat that we could have reached out and touched them. It was pretty amazing. I have always loved sea creatures, when I was very little I wanted to grow up to be a marine biologist (until I realized that science and math were involved), so it was really incredible to get to see dolphins in their natural habitat.

In D.C. we went to the Hirschorn Museum of Art and sculpture garden which was really cool. I did a lot of painting in high school. I almost went to college for art instead of music, so I have always loved going to art galleries.  Here's a photo of me in front of my favorite Henry Moore sculpture "King and Queen".

I am glad to be back home now though. I still have a few weeks before I start college again and I'm determined to get some work done.

I wrote a full-length musical this year that was performed in my home town and I want to start revising it before I go back to school because I am thinking about putting it on at my college as my junior project. The show is called "Alice Unraveled". It loosely references "Alice in Wonderland" but deals with a girl suffering from post-traumatic stress after a sexual assault. I will be posting pictures, clips and music from the show as I work on the revision.