Transformation

This painting is the third of 3 in the series for Art That Blows 2019.

transformation:
the act or process of transforming.
the state of being transformed.
change in form, appearance, nature, or character.

This was originally going to be called triumph. Think summiting a mountain kind of thing. But it was too static, too much of a one-time success picture. Life doesn’t work that way; we never really arrive. It’s about the journey and process of continual growth. As a universally understood symbol for growth, and a fairly challenging application for flute keys, the image of a tree finally felt like the right thing to do.

After transcending circumstances and finding community with a positive trajectory, the end result for the kids who participate in Band of Angels is hopefully self-confidence in their own abilities and a life-long process of learning and growth.

As someone who has made it a practice to hang out with teens and preteens, it’s amazing to hear the stories some of “my” kids will tell about how we did some small thing this one time, and they still remember it. My favorite might be the kid I apparently taught how to code a website from scratch using basic HTML. I have no memory of this, but now he’s a web designer. That certainly wasn’t my doing, but maybe when that opportunity to learn web design came up he remembered that little thing we did and how it was actually pretty cool, and that was the push to pursue what’s now a successful career. There’s no way to know the impact you might have when you invest in a kid’s life, and that would be my hope with the work Band of Angels is doing – that it reaches a lot farther than the ability to read music.