I have a question for you.
If you feel that art of any kind (music, painting, poetry, theatre, literature, dance, comedy) has “saved your life” (literally or figuratively) at a crucial time or lifted you from deep depression or hopelessness, will you please write to me with your story? and be specific. If you want it to be private, instead of as part of this blog, send it to lisa at lisa redfern dot com.
I have an idea for a collection of stories and a CD of songs created from the best of the stories…….
I’ll share one of my most critical examples of this:
One night not long after my mother died and my first marriage ended (in the same month) I was darker than I’d ever been and felt kind of invisible having lost two people who saw me so deeply. I remember thinking that I truly understood how a person could be in so much emotional pain that they could have a desire to die. I could not see any light that night and any path out of the deep, dark well that I was in. That’s in fact exactly how it had felt for many months. I picked up the phone and called a friend who gave me an assignment to pick up my guitar and sing and write a song—no matter how sad or lame the song was–just sing and play…anything.
I didn’t think I could do it but I picked up my guitar and sat there crying and a while later out came my song”In The Asking” and that soon led to me feeling well enough to book a concert which led to someone approaching me about recording and that led to a project that got me out of the house and out of my sweatpants and feeling worthy and alive again and led me to a relationship that was not long but very healing (with the engineer of the recording). I truly feel like music saved my life that night.
Over the years I’ve heard story after story of art waking people up, kicking them out of fear, hopelessness and depression, whether they were simply the observer of the art form or the creator and now I am excited about hearing and collecting these stories to share. Thanks in advance for whatever you have to write about along these lines.
