Another one for the Music People. You know who you are. For the last few years I’ve been honored to paint the official artwork for the Redwood Coast Music Festival.  
  
Each year I put some thought (typically at the last minute) into just what this mysterious magic called music is all about. Where’d it come from? Why is it what it is?  
  
I’ve always connected water to music. I think most of us have at some level. Rhythm, flow, and all that. All of my paintings for them have explored that connection.  
  
As I pondered what to do for this one, I started thinking of the word itself. “Music” comes from the Muses, those divine goddess ladies that lured perfectly ordinary men into accidentally writing poetry, or making music, or art, or nearly any other creative endeavor undertaken by humans to this day.   
  
One account I came across explained the three original muses were all born of Memory, who was a goddess lady herself… (but no can remember who the dad was, which is ironic when you think about it since he married a woman who was the spiritual embodiment of Memory). Their first daughter was associated with the movement of water. The second with practice. And the third with the human voice.  
  
I’m no Greek scholar, but… Memory, Practice, the Movement of Water, and the Human Voice? Yep, sounds like the birth of music to me.   
  
So here she is, Mother Memory herself observing the movement of water, her mind well practiced in the movement of the stars like the frets on a stringed instrument, as the notes rise up in her vocal chords about to give birth to the very first song.  
  
Don’t quote me on any of this.