This world is so contradicted that living in it may seem like trying to solve a puzzle with no solution. It just gets harder and harder. Or does it...? 

Today, I look forward to an upcoming trip to New York City and Princeton, NJ to sing with friends. It's been a long time since I've been in the City and I'm ready. Mentally so. After reeling from the bombing in Boston, I do find the prospects of walking around a major city a trifle unsettling. But I am not cowed by the fear. It's small and manageable. 

The excitement grows in me. We'll be singing for people more unfamiliar with us than familiar. I look forward to sharing our sound. Each step toward the others strengthens my own personal comfort in the process. The Artist in me is honing the Craft. Bring it...

If you find yourself at Trinity Wall Street on Monday, April 29th at 1:00 PM, please join us for some music to heal what ails you. Really. 

We are Marching...

I'm not really sure who would have the stamina of interest to follow a blog which regularly posts every 6 months or so. Perhaps an Ent, say Tom Bombadil. I know that I would not. Having made this quite off-putting statement, where can I possibly go from here? 

[New paragraph] Onward into the next paragraph, of course. That is life in a nutshell. We truly have no viable option of going backwards. If(and I say this with the real fear that I am now speaking to a 7 year-old Finnish girl in the year 2057) we could reverse the timeline and follow it backwards, how many of us would be left to take out the trash, clean up the baby, write the lesson plans and monitor the ACT exams? I daresay not very many. The world of tomorrow would gradually become the world of yesterday. Anyone stepping forward without ceasing their forward direction would enter a wasteland of missed opportunities and unfulfilled dreams and nightmares. So...

[new paragraph] Hello again. I see you've made it into the future. Not so hard now, was it? Imagine yourself , though, with the "Big DVR Button of Life" and the ability and freedom to use it at will. Got the picture? Could you imagine not using it? Really?

[new paragraph] Hei neiti. Olen tyytyväinen kommentit ja terveiset niille meistä, jotka ovat tehneet sen tälle sivulle... millä tahansa kielellä.

In the great scheme of things, my life will create no more than a mini-blip on the Big Screen. Given that I accept this caveat, I propose that this "fact" is of no consequence in the face of 

• "what  do I do next" and 
• "how do I do it?" 

I want to make a mark. Is that the reason I became an artist? To literally "make a mark"? I do make marks. I also make digital marks in the form of photographic images. Will the sum of my artistic parts add up to more than the whole body of work? And how is this even possible to assess? 

In the course of developing my artistic self, I have developed my musical abilities. Music does not exist except to be performed and heard. On the page or in a digital form, it means very little if not nothing. Nothing. 

Something from Nothing. This my Artistic Credo. I would propose each of us has one. The output of an Artist connects to the source of the efforts. There is an underlying precept or stimulus. This underlying structure will often be unseen and unheard. Even the chance artists and musicians have to have modus operandi to bring new works from their own personal voids. Nothing truly comes randomly into this world. 

We are not random. 
Our world is not random. 
Random. 
Nothing. 
Whatever.