The first thing that stood out in this photo were the fiery, bright and brilliant colors which evoked so much passion and vibrancy. Then I noticed the nostalgic road trailing off into the distance. I sat down at the piano and these lyrics just leapt forth “I stood out on the road and watched as you were leaving. Leaves were dancing oranges and reds” and I thought Yep, I know this girl and I love her! I imagined her standing there, watching her lover leaving down this road with the wind blowing and all the leaves flying around her and I wrote “they circled all around me like confetti on fire.” I could feel the fire she felt for this man. In this song, my character is looking back at this scene from her life and owning her passion and her vulnerability. The bridge of the song is special for me ‘cause it reconciles my character’s childhood feelings about passion and fire being ‘unforgivable’ and her adult compassion for that child: “I went down to the church. I offered my confession. I swore I’d never do it again. I swore I learned my lesson. But every year the leaves appear, your memory comes sweet and clear. I never will forget you and I never did regret you.” I love her ownership of her past, her fire, her passion and the consequences of all of it.

Listening to the song the first thing that came to me were colors and the changing of the seasons. The song was about memories associated with first love, the excitement and joy and also the pain when that love goes away. I titled my painting Metamorphosis. Thinking of the change from one stage of life to the next, a girl and her innocence growing into a mature woman, a butterfly. The image of a young woman standing alone on a road, watching her love walk away was what came to me. The colors represent the changing of a time. I put the young girl in black to acknowledge that she has transformed into a woman.

For me the song was about Memory, Nostalgia, Heartache, Regret, Reminiscence, time lost, relationships and the difficulty of moving on. If I had to sum it up in one word I’d say bruised. I thought in moody colors. Deep purples. Crimson. The images the lyric evoked for me were expansive landscapes with a lot of movement. But the song as a whole: The piano. The singer’s vocal performance. The tempo. The tone. These ignited images indoors. Contained. Close up. A woman, remembering. I kept getting this image of a young woman, coming in and out of focus, remembering a past relationship. And looking in the mirror. I set my narrative at Christmas (which has always been a nostalgic time for me) and decided that one of my character’s most prized possessions is an ornament she was given by this boy (her first love). Her mind is especially on him at this time of year. At the end of the film she wraps a present… either for herself or for him. The recipient is purposefully ambiguous. Each object has a little meaning assigned to it, but I wouldn’t want to spell it all out for the viewer.

The red & blue brought to mind the aroma & taste of berries. I was impressed initially by the bold colors & the minimal, even starkness of the painting with prominent blocks of color (red, blue, black) interrupted sporadically by short dabs of a golden hue & a figure of a fair, young woman facing forward, gazing outwards. The painting depicted a captured moment in the woman’s creative process. It appeared to me as though the figure was the artist actually transforming into her work. I see what look like brushes in her right hand & her left hand is actually already melding with the colors of the piece, as is the left side of her face & hairline suggesting that this is a portrait of the artist herself in the process of becoming her art….an evolution. With this in mind I felt that my tea blend should not only be colorful (representing the visual palette of the piece) but that it should also incorporate the process of evolving. I attempted to layer flavors of varying intensities so that the blend would evolve in the cup & in the mouth….certain flavors would reveal themselves at different times, others would linger a bit……so the imbiber would contemplate the process. The Black Tea I selected as a base was used to represent the Black presence in the painting & like the black in the painting it provided an anchor, a firm foundation for the colors & the fruits.

The film, and specifically the accompanying music, suggests melancholy and a nostalgic story about first love. All that comes after influences the memory of first love. When I thought of what I’d create in response, I imagined an installation with tons of shelves filled with artifacts I’d made from clay that looked like they’d come out of the bottom of the ocean – out of a past experience. I thought about objects that are signifiers of the past that take on new meaning over time. The objects on the shelves represent collections, collecting, and memories that people hang on to. Placing a number of these objects in relationship to each other impacts their meaning and interpretation. The objects converse and share their stories. The pedestals, on which the artifacts are presented, invite the viewer to question what reflects and resonates as truth and which is more valuable: the artifacts or the display. These shelves are surrounded by ethereal prints on rice paper that mirror the sculptural forms and reinforce the suggestion of memory and the magic of those experiences that form us and shape that we become throughout our lives.

I found these really interesting overlaps between the pieces, mostly around particular colors (reds, blues, blacks) and a sense of memory and loss. I tried to create a space where some of those memories might have been created, with a feel of an attic or secret room where kids might have played together and made things.