Where my feet take me at times..

Today I ventureddown to the Quarter. I wanted to give a cd to a nice guy I met at a gallery and ask himwhere I could display more of my work. Let me explain how I'm feeling about the world of art I've stumbled into. I have been painting now for roughly a year. I really don't know what I'm doing or if even if it's any good. In the music world the boundries are very well defined. If you hit a wrong note,sing off key or play a sour note EVERYONE notices. As Any Warhol said.."Art is anything you can get away with" but honestly...you can tell my viewing classic art that the Masters could really convey the world they saw and were able to reach out and somehow make that emotional conections to the viewer. As a songwriter,musician and soloist I understand the importance of this connection. Something happens when I make music and the audience is with me...we "Dance in the Fire" together..The challenge is to take what I do with my music and translate that to the world of art. All those many years ago what drove me to school was a desire to know the real stuff. I didn't just want to play by ear..I wanted to understand the language of music..music theory..harmony, counter point. It was as if I wanted to move to France and live there as a Frenchmen and to fully embrace the life. I had to learn the language and understand the culture. Think "French". Music was like that for me and now painting is becoming the same way..in short "If I'm gonna do this then by God I'm gonna be as good at it as I can..I'm gonna learn the art ...the "Jazz" of it" So today I headed to the Quarter to check on a few things. I was wandering down on Royal street and wandered into a gallery that featured this artist named "Bosso"..I like his stuff simple colors but wondeful paintings. As I was there I wandered down the gallery and noticed there were several prints..they looked vagely familar...turns out I was staring at original prints from..Picasso,Salvador Dali, Matisse...and then I wandered into a small room to find myself face to face with original drawings from.....REMBRANT...on the original paper and dated like 1665..I was dumfounded..and the emotional reaction was surprizing..to be so close to these "Masters" amazing..I could see up close each pen stroke,each shade and swipe of the pencil..I was weak in the knees and almost brought to tears...when I visited the "French"Gallery the guy there informed me that just down the street was a gallery with a special room that you could visit under armed guard where they actually have several original VINCENT VAN GOGH'S...10 TO 12 MILLION per painting!!!...UNREAL...you have to understand...these are works I've only seen in books...the power of their presence..in overwhelming.."Proverbs 16:9 states "Man plans his way but the LORD directs his steps"...very true today..

More Tolley tails..

The street car,albeit the "Trolly" has been an interesting peek into the day to day life of New Orleans". The other day I caught the trolly heading downtown to give a cd to a guy I met who may (or maynot) help me get a gig on Bourbon Street. I get on board behind an attractive 20 something lady who sits across from me. I look down the car and see a cross section of the city. Cooks,waitresses,construction workers. Black,latino,white. I wonder "What is their everyday life like"?..what are their hopes and dreams?I wonder..I observe the attractive young woman sits down next to a 20 something guy who is obviously a cook..wearing chef pants and sporting burns about his arms. Wearing a cap,with short trimmed hair and a beard with sharp features..good looking kid. The woman pulls out an illistrated novel.A sort of fancy well written comic book.The kid looks over and starts chatting her up over his love of such work. I'm sitting there thinking "Dude get her number,cuz she looks like a Keeper"..Finally she asks him what he does for work. He lights up and says he cooks. He launches into a description of his daily work. The passion he displayed was obvious to all within ear shot. Sitting next to me unaware was a guy probably around my age,who turns out is a life long chef.He broke into the young guys rant to tell him how much he appreciated his passion and prompted him to ever lose that passion. He it turns out trains all the new cooks who come into the Marriot's resuraunts and gave this kid his number. They were knocking knuckles and high 5 ing. After a few "Amens from me he turns and asks what I do. I tell him a bit of my story and he says this."This is a city that celebrates people like us. First you have to Survive,then you Thrive....then you suceed"...the young chef never got the young womans number but he may have gotten a new step up in his life as a chef...I love this town...