I’m really not sure how it happened.  And this story will sound doubtful. I even wonder as I tell it, but there is no denying the affect this has made on my life as an artist… When all this started I hadn’t been able to listen to music for years.  It all just felt like an assault to my senses…thump, thump thump was all that I heard. 

By the time March 2024 came along, I’d been studying painting and using acrylics for two years. Suddenly I decide it was time to enter a group show at The Fraser, in Tatmagouche, NS.  This was a huge step for me.  I was now going to step into the cold, cruel world and exhibit my work even though I wasn’t sure what my work was. Now to this point I listened to podcasts or old TV shows while I painted, but I suddenly got the urge to order some earbuds and give music a try.  (To be on the safe side I didn’t choose anything fancy – just the basic bare bones plug-in model that works with my iPhone – in case I didn’t like this music in my head thing.)

So as I said, it’s March 2024 and the art show opens on May 31^st.  Work wise in the studio I have no idea what I’m going to paint as I’m still focused on finding my colour palette to use for the paintings I will create for the show.  That’s right, I had no paintings that I wanted to exhibit as I was still finding my voice as a painter.  Yet somehow I had committed myself to a show…I know…”give your head a shake woman!”

Then my world shifts…It’s a Sunday morning…St. Patty’s day to be exact.  I open Spotify, plug in my new earbuds and call up a playlist of classical pop…you know, Josh Groban type of music.  My plan for the morning is to mix some new colour combinations.  I work with a limited palette and had been experimenting with new combos for a few months now.  Then there’s a dramatic shift in my world.  I’ll try to explain it, but it’s difficult as it’s really weird.

There are these notes playing in my head from a song I was unfamiliar with…and then suddenly, in sync with the song’s rhythm, colours start popping in my mind’s eye.  I kid you not.  The notes in the orchestration were triggering me to see colours. As I said, I’ve never heard this song so all the note combinations and the orchestration were new to me. For me it was such a moving experience.  Downright spiritual!  Seriously.  A Hallelujah moment. I’m mixing colours on my palette and then suddenly these other colours start popping in my head.  Like soap bubbles.  They grow and expand then pop as tother appear.  I stopped everything and just listened and watched the bubbles of colours floating through my head.  When the song ended I felt this huge letdown as the next song started.

I quickly looked at the playlist to find what the song was.  A Million Dreams, recorded by a British group named Collabro – never heard of them or the song.  I selected the song to play again, desperately wanting the effect to repeat.  Bam!  It started.  I just stood there, listening and watching.  It was incredible.  When the song finished I quickly pulled out some different paint tubes.  I suddenly knew the colour combination that I needed to create the colours that I saw in my head. By the end of the morning I had listened to the song 5 or 6 times and my new limited palette, that was going to be used going forward, was created.

I have listened to other versions of the song, which by the way is from the movie and musical, The Greatest Showman – no colour bubbles – but suddenly I heard the lyrics and there is a stanza that resonated with me.  At this point in time, every night for over a year, I had been lying in bed painting in my minds eye while I fell to sleep. Thank you to the fabulous song writers – Benj Pasek and Justin Paul.

‘Cause every night I lie in bed
The brightest colours fill my head
A million dreams are keeping me awake
I think of what the world could be
A vision of the one I see
A million dreams is all it’s gonna take
Oh a million dreams for the world we’re gonna make.

BENJ PASEK AND JUSTIN PAUL

So each morning when I started painting, I would listen to this song to get in the painting groove. Then Spotify kept giving me these great playlists that had me singing, dancing and just floating through my painting sessions. By the time I finished the pieces for the show my painting voice had come to life. 

Now here is where it gets really weird, the music had me painting flowers. I looked at the grouping leaning around the room and said WHAT? Flowers? Bouquets?  Who knew?  Certainly not me.… The series A Million Dreams had begun and my habit of immersing myself in music while I paint continues to inspire my work.

[A little research tells me that this sound-to-colour synesthesia (chromethesia) has likely been caused by a change in prescriptions – there is one that I am no longer taking.  And since I have experienced it again with other songs, but not all songs.  That said, now music drives all my painting sessions.  Even if colours aren’t triggered, certain aspects of songs, a beat, a lyrical run, a riff or a group of tubas on their own little tangent, resonate with me and give me this feeling of joy that has me floating through the painting process.  It’s quite magical this connection and how music now drives my painting process.  And crazy.]

True story!

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