Annie Lennox has been a musical hero of mine since she was of course part of the Eurythmics. ALL of her solo albums are amazing. My voice and her voice are polar opposites I fully realize, but I wanted to give this one a try despite straddling my comfortable vocal range into my falsetto voice within the song. Something I did not consider when embarking on this tune.

This song is one of my absolute favorites of hers along with the music video that features John Malkovich(!) I added harmonies and backing vocals to this scratch track as well as there were none on the backing karaoke track.

Please enjoy my scratch track version of Annie Lennox's "Walking On Broken Glass"

Today's studio closeup is of some past work that I had hung on the wall prior to the flood. There are a couple other survivors that stayed upstairs and I kid you not, I had just carted the rest of my work downstairs a couple weeks before the flood. Luckily, most of the work that was down there, I had taken slides of it, so perhaps I'll dig those out and share here if I'm brave enough.

My next move was going to be storing all the recent dioramas I had worked on downstairs as well, but something just told me no, and I was procrastinating BIG TIME but I wasn't sure why. Perhaps it was the thought of "paper" in the basement becoming warped or dirty that kept me from moving it down there, I don't know, but I am now so damn glad I procrastinated on that. During the aftermath of the flood, and after we were allowed back into the house, I hauled hundreds of my dioramas into a temperature controlled storage unit. Lesson learned. Now NOTHING is stored down there or ever will be again.

On a happier note, this piece was a prelude to a song Aaron Johnson and I had been working on during Sweet Jelly band times called "She's Just A Weed". I had this crazy notion that I wanted to make artwork for the songs we were writing at the time. Peter Gabriel's "US" album featured amazing artwork per song next to the lyrics inside the CD jacket and I know that's what inspired this grand illusion of mine.

Instead the piece itself turned into what you see here. I ended up never making artwork for "She's Just A Weed" but I am in the midst of making a diorama museum piece for that tune in modern times for therapeutic reasons.

The sticker on the back is left over from a show my dear friend Morgyn Stranahan and I had at her old art studio in Milwaukee - that night was such a blast! She's an amazing artist and an amazing person. It was the first time my artwork was going to be viewed by people I didn't know in a huge crowd situation and I was super nervous. What I was doing wasn't pretty lighthouses, flowers or birds that people naturally relate to and want to see, it was definitely conceptual and the focus was on color and storytelling.

Please enjoy this look into the past.

Piece Title: A Moment of Your Time (diptych)
Media: Acrylic and Collage on Canvas Board
Year: 2000
Size: Two 5"x7" panels - 1/4" apart

Today's Carolaoke tune pays homage to Canadian Rock 'n' Roll!

A long time ago, I was supposed to go to Ontario's Sheridan College International Summer School of Animation program. I think it was a two or three year program if I remember correctly. You needed two years of art school to get in, I was in fact accepted based on the portfolio I submitted, but that year there was some type of trade embargo between Canada and the USA which more than doubled the tuition for United States students and made it impossible for me to attend.

Before this, all through junior high and high school, I made animated films on my grandfather's Super 8 camera and dreamed BIG TIME of getting into that school. During high school, the animation studio I was working at at the time (Karen Johnson Productions) had many alumni from Sheridan, and they'd fill me in on how amazing it was to attend. Most of them were alumni from the 1970's (tuition was dirt cheap apparently) but this was now the 1990's.

Not being able to attend the program crushed me on multiple levels. I'd stare at my acceptance letter thinking what a cruel joke that all was. Luckily I was working at the animation studio as an assistant animator at the time, but my spirit was seriously crushed. Even my grandmother was super excited at the prospect of me going to Ontario Canada to continue my education, which is where she was actually born and spent her early childhood.

Why does this matter even in the slightest? It created a type of affinity in me for our northern neighbors, their culture, art and music that never left my heart. And in later years, a deep appreciation for their music (especially pop) and their musicians. This song was extremely popular in the states while starting my band. It's important to point out that all members of Sweet Jelly worked at that Racine, WI animation studio. I loved singing along with this tune to warm up for band practice in the car while commuting the two hours (one way, once a week) it took me to "get" to practice from where I live. It's feisty, snarky, angsty and just a really fun song to sing.

Please enjoy my scratch track version and rudimentary recording skills of Avril Lavigne's "Complicated" and all the baggage that comes with it.

Today's studio closeup is a Northwest otter "exhibit". The materials used are acrylic paint on wood panel, varnish, paper diorama and stones & sticks from the real world. The piece itself is 4in x 4in and I think that's the smallest I'm going to go in regards to the pieces in the museum series. In contrast, I'm current working on a 24in x 24in piece and I'm speculating that will be the largest dimension I go for these pieces. I get freaked out working big, and you need more paint ($$$) to cover such a large surface but I'm trying to test my comfort zone in such matters. I still prefer to work on the smaller side. For some reason it's far less intimidating for me.

The first photo is of the painting as a whole and the second photo is of the diorama that lives inside.

Please enjoy.

I absolutely adore Sheryl Crow. Sure, her name and my name are practically the same, that's not why, but it sure makes things interesting. She was a backup singer for Michael Jackson while he was on tour back in the day, her song "Leaving Las Vegas" was appropriately popular on the radio while I was living in Las Vegas working for Paramount Pictures as an art assistant in 1994, and in the early 2000's, while trying to achieve something with my band, I ran across her quote that really motivated me in a new way and offered some perspective of trying to create something:

"I was turned down by every record label in L.A. Perseverance is three quarters of the game. Talent's only a quarter. Being able to withstand the word 'no' over and over can build you a pretty tough skin. I knew if I just kept at it, at the very least I'd get better at my craft."

-Sheryl Crow

I have a few of her songs planned for Music Monday's; this is my scratch track version of Sheryl Crow's "There Goes The Neighborhood"

Enjoy.