"As you get older, the questions come down to about two or three: How long? And what do I do with the time I've got left?" -David Bowie

When I found out David Bowie was dead, the words just hovered in space. I could not digest the information. I could not accept it as truth. How could this be? Bowie’s music has been present in my life for as long as I can remember. That day, I went about my life as usual. By the evening, the tears came. And they just kept coming. I felt his loss profoundly. His lyrics, for me, were always open to interpretation even if their meanings changed for me as I moved through life. His songs have served as anthems for a teenaged me who didn’t yet have her own message. And today his music still speaks to my mind and my soul. The moment I found out David Bowie was gone there was a shift inside of me. I paused. I thought to myself, what now? Am I happy? Am I doing what I need to be doing to create meaning in my life? If not now, then when?

His loss became the impetus for me rediscovering art. I had left art behind as something that I’d done before marriage, before children. Now, 25 years later, the need to create was back and it was acute. I began to paint shortly after his death and have not been able to stop. I began to memorialize my music heroes, starting with Bowie, then Prince, Allmann, Cornell…So many gone far too soon. I began to feverishly go to concerts, immersing myself in newer music as well as revisiting the music from my youth. I’d, then, paint my new and old muses in the days, weeks and months between shows. Painting is my cathartic way to celebrate music and how it touches lives and transcends all things, as its done mine. While painting, much like while listening to music, my worries and anxieties fall away. There’s only me and my art. This is exactly what I wish to do with the time that I’ve got left.

“This way or no way, you know I’ll be free” -David Bowie