Cartwheels in the parking lot

Last week we had family visiting. All other activities were put on hold for some delicious vacation time. My niece, who was one of our guests, attends a kiddie circus school. She loves doing cartwheels. In fact she will do them constantly, on any surface. However, for everybody’s safety I had to stop her when she wanted to do cartwheels all across the huge parking of our local grocery.

This made me think of the pursuit of an art form. We get hooked and then we work to acquire the skill. This is where it becomes the pursuit.

Rarely do we catch our art. In fact usually one lifetime is not enough to fully master it. And maybe that is the thrill. The pursuit. There is always something left to try and explore. We’d be bored if we actually caught it.

I have tried to catch several art forms. I started in theater. This led to dance studies in India. I had to give up dance due to a back injury long before I felt I had caught the essence of the dance, but I continued with storytelling, which led me to singing through traditional ballads. So this is where I do my cartwheels these days. Each art form is a journey, complete with meeting of magical helpers along the way. An exciting journey with no end in sight.

So what is then the goal with art? I have a passion for digging up old, half-forgotten songs. I look at them from every angle, learn about their past. Then polish them, interpret and sometimes translate them, before offering them to an audience.

A very old and dear friend of mine recently said she had listening to our last CD while she was ill, and that this music feels like being caressed by a soul. That made me very happy. Maybe that is then the goal. The possibility that our art reaches another person’s soul to caress, wake up, calm down, inspire dreams …

On October 23 we will give a concert at the Apple Mountain Music with special guests Dain Forsythe and Chris Carlson.

The video below is from our CD release last year at the Outpost Performance Space.