A week ago today I attended my first Brit Floyd concert with my dad and life long friend Candy in Evansville, Indiana at the infamous Ford Center – Evansville’s brand new multi-use indoor arena that only seats 11,000 people. After being told Evansville’s Robert Stadium was too small for all the big name musicians and/or acts to make any money, the Ford Center was built after the powers that be decided our Roberts Stadium was no longer useful or worth vamping up. Did I mention there is no parking for the Ford Center? Roberts Stadium had plenty, in it’s own lot. Or that Evansville doesn’t have a hotel downtown to accommodate large crowds. Or that the old Roberts Stadium was centrally located and had easy access from the expressway. Call me nuts but I would swear the old stadium was bigger than this new multi-million dollar town splitting disaster. Oh wait, I’m not nuts. Roberts held over 12,000. Crazy. Anyway wasting all that concrete and tearing down Roberts well… that’s another post topic. Now sits a vacant field after no telling how much money went into tearing it down, not to mention all the stuff that went to the landfill.

But I digress… This post is about good music. If you’ve not heard of Brit Floyd before, they are a Pink Floyd Tribute band… you guessed it from England. I had heard they were great, but that’s not true. They are tremendous! Some of the songs you would swear Pink Floyd was right there playing. All of the members of Brit Floyd were extremely good musicians and some played many different instruments. It was thoroughly enjoyable. The light show was fantastic and I had a great time. I highly recommend the concert to any Pink Floyd fan. And if you don’t know who Pink Floyd is, well… go to youtube. Heavy on instrumentals and far out music, but they are (or were rather) a rock band.

Pink Floyd is on heavy rotation on my playlists especially when I am in the art studio painting. They have the long songs that go on and you can just get lost in not only the lyrics but the beautiful and sometimes disturbing and haunting music. I have many favorite songs by Pink Floyd like “Comfortably Numb”, “Learning to fly”, “Wish you were here”, “Shine on you crazy diamond” and on and on. I can’t think of any I don’t like. Their music sends me deep into my own head – and I love that. I have very eclectic taste in music and each genre evokes different levels, possibilities and visualization for me.

Pink Floyd had a great sound that surges my mind into overdrive when I’m painting. I am profoundly affected by music when I create and it just puts me in a very wonderful and euphoric state of different consciousness that allows my creativity to explode and reach out into the very crevices of my mind. It’s not unusual for me to hear the music visually. By that I mean I see what I can only call visions of scenarios which lead to ideas for paintings when I listen to music that I really like. Even music I don’t care for creates visions for me, it all affects me. Sometimes my art is very allegory – a picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning. I have lyrics and ideas scribbled on scrap papers and jotted down in notebooks for ideas of paintings that I someday plan to create. I feel the musician and the artist are intricately intertwined. At least for me it’s that way.

While I’m not a musician, I can play the piano and I took lessons for guitar and violin as a child but am not able to play them now. I can still drum out a tune on my old upright grand piano but I never have been good at reading music. I wish I could, but it seemed my mind didn’t want to work that way. So during my lessons as a kid, my teacher would play the music for me and then I would play it by ear when I got home to learn it unbeknownst to her. Or maybe she did know. I was horrible during the lessons, haha… and not her favorite student, I’m sure.

Music has always been such an important part of my life. I don’t ever remember a time of not having music playing. As a child I have memories of long hallways in the apartments we lived in with “Wooden Ships” playing and my mom and dad were of course big music lovers. I had a record player always. My Grandpa Shell gave me a record for my birthday one year I remember and it was Jerry Lee Lewis “DRINKIN’ WINE SPO-DEE O’DEE”. Not very appropriate for an 8 year old I’m not thinking but I’ve still got that album. My grandpa played the fiddle and mandolin and wrote music for his Bluegrass band way back in the day. Must be in my blood, even though it doesn’t come on in the form of making music. I make art with the music in my head. I dream with music playing in my dreams and wake up to tunes that usually get stuck in my head all day long as I’m sure a lot of us do.

I remember getting my first stereo when I was about 10 and Dad coming in my room and telling me to try this… bring in his gigantic earphones with curly cord. I remember plugging them in and laying on the floor and thinking wow as I listened to The Zombies “The Time of Season”. The music was just in the center of my head and I’ve never forgotten that feeling. I still get that feeling when I’m painting and in the groove with my music playing. He told me some music is just better with earphones. Pink Floyd is one.

I can just go on and on remembering all the beautiful musical memories of my life and I guess that is reflecting in the longer than average post today. I hope you’re not comfortably numb by my going on and on. If you’ve made it this far, you must get me… or maybe are trying to. I appreciate that! Sometimes I’m quiet for a long time and then other times… there is no plugging the hole.

Here’s a work in progress on my work table currently called “Blood Moon”. And yes, Pink Floyd was playing while I was painting 🙂

“Blood Moon” is an 8″x8″ acrylic on board painting.

Below is the finished painting.

UPDATE: The original has sold. Prints are available here.

If you’re new to my blog and website have a look at my ‘About’ page in the menu at the top. I’m an artist – a painter mostly and an avid gardener. I paint a variety of subjects including birds, koi fish, my gardens, ponds and flowers as well as anything having to do with nature especially trees and tropical scenes. I try to include a little bit of mystery in every painting. I also enjoy painting abstract paintings. If you’re interested in my art, join my email list which is mailed about once a month that gives you special status for invitations, birthday greeting and more. Sign up here for it.