In 2019, after releasing music and performing continuously for over twenty years, I reached a place where I knew I needed to step back and rethink things. For a long time I had wrestled with conventional music industry ideas of success and I had come to realize how deeply these ideas had hooked in to my thoughts and feelings about myself, my work, and life. Even though my music has always felt motivated by inspiration and by the hope of offering something in service to a bigger picture, there were still parts of me that were caught up in the story that I wasn’t really legit as an artist until my music had attained certain kinds of recognition.
I knew this story wasn’t true and was taking up space and energy, making it harder for me to move forward with the real intentions of my work. I reached a place where I felt I had to free myself from these ideas—or at least take steps to free myself as much as possible from the hold they had on me. Around this time I had received an invitation from my friend, Laura Summer—painter and educator—to spend some time on her property in the Hudson Valley, NY, as a way to take a step back from things and reflect, and by the end of 2019 I was ready to take her up on the invitation.
I thought I would just spend a few months, but ended up spending over a year—including the first several months of the pandemic—in this rural, secluded space taking a deeper look at things. When I first got there I didn’t even know if I would write music, or if music would be the next step, but pretty soon songs started to come and I ended up spending a lot of time writing.
These new songs became the foundation for this new project, Love Bravely, and they opened the door to an inspiring collaboration with Laura and her work as a painter. As I finished demos of new songs, Laura started to ask what I was working on and I started to share them with her. This process has continued over the past few years, and Laura has been a really helpful and supportive sounding board.
During this process Laura also got inspired to paint in relation to these new songs, and has completed a series of over thirty paintings inspired by this music. I feel really honored that this amazing artist and friend has painted these pieces, and am excited to share that the original pieces are all becoming available to the public this weekend!
Laura is the founder of Art Dispersals—a new form for sharing art and supporting artists—and all of these paintings, along with several others, are now available through an Art Dispersal happening this weekend at Lightforms Art Center in Hudson, New York, and online here. The Dispersal will continue for the next two weeks online.
At an Art Dispersal, original works of art are hung and displayed, and people are invited to become their stewards. This means they are invited to find a piece that speaks to them and to take it home, and are in turn invited to make a contribution in support of the artist’s work. They can take a piece, keep it for as long as they like, and can return it to the artist if they no longer want to keep it. Contributions are made on a sliding scale, starting at $0, in order to make the art accessible to anyone, while also encouraging folks to have a direct relationship to supporting artists and to take the contribution process seriously as a way to offer this direct support within their means.
To see the paintings and participate in person you can visit Lightforms Art Center in Hudson, NY, this weekend (April 21–April 23rd) or participate online via Laura’s Flickr page.
Art Dispersals have been inspiring for me to learn about and participate in, and I’m excited to share about this form, and to invite folks to check out the beautiful paintings Laura has created in relation to this new music. Our first Love Bravely song, “Fire Pond,” was released in January, and several of these paintings were inspired by this song. The other paintings in this Love Bravely series were inspired by forthcoming songs that we’ll be releasing soon.
Laura and her arts and education nonprofit, Free Columbia, have run seventeen Art Dispersals over the past ten years, with over eight hundred paintings (as well as other works of art) dispersed. These events have taken place in many different cities and towns at different times, allowing original artwork to enrich countless lives, and generating financial support for the artists who created them. To learn more about Art Dispersals, and how they support artists and arts accessibility, you can visit https://www.freecolumbia.org/art-dispersal.
Huge thanks to Laura Summer for all of this beautiful artwork, for all her support of the Love Bravely music and project, and for offering her art in such a creative and widely accessible way. Hope you all enjoy the paintings!
Love Bravely is a cross-genre music project and creative community founded by rapper/singer-songwriter, Matre, in collaboration with a wide network of musicians, artists and creatives. For more information visit us on Substack.
Our work is made possible by a community of supporters. To join this community and help this work flourish, you can become a monthly contributor on Patreon or make a one time donation here. Thank you!