The Session:
Music: Gino Meregillano
Artwork: Matt Beard
Artist's Statement:
Continuing to watch the world burn and thinking of fire. What a tragic thing, a good thing, a frightening thing, and a life-saving thing it can be. All at once in this one. Some of us are watching the fire creep over the hills and march toward our cities, our homes, our lives. Some of us are living through the fire of loss right now. Others are still relatively comfortable and watching from a distance- sort of like camping just out of range of a raging wildfire, only the difference is now we know this fire isn't only burning forests. It's taking lives, and stealing livelihoods.
I pray you all are well. One meaningful path forward I've found in this mess is to do what I can to help musicians. Contrary to popular belief, many musicians actually do make a living from performing shows, but the vast majority of them are not celebrities living lives of wealth and fame, but just playing their heart out at small festivals, bars, clubs, private events, arranging their own self-funded tours, selling their own self-produced albums. Just getting by.
No venues for them = no income for them. But we still have our spotifys, our youtubes, our itunes, our allofthat, and we can play all the music we want in our homes anytime we want so it's easy to forget about the music-makers because after all, we've still got the music.
Sales from these Lockdown Live Sessions will be split 50/50 between artists and musicians. I wish I could give them more, as a small independent artist it's not an easy season for me either.
I totally understand these paintings might not auction for as high as they might during better times. That's ok. It's not the point right now. The point for me is doing all that I can. And I hope these fire paintings, as oddly discomforting as they are, can serve to remind us all of all that we did to help others through these difficult times.
-Matt Beard
