6.04.2014

Supporting Local Artists (and a new song from me)

This Friday I will be playing some music at The Art Garage, a local art studio that also allows kids (and adults!) the opportunity to explore their artistic sides and give them some lessons at the same time. The Art Garage is owned by artist Jessica Ball and she was gracious enough to allow the people of my church to put on an art show as part of the monthly Peoria First Friday event organized by Ciao (the Central Illinois Artists' Organization). You can see our event page here. We'd love to have you stop by on Friday night. The great thing about the First Friday event is there are a ton of great local restaurants nearby (like Broken Tree which makes some killer pizza and has some great artisan sodas and beers on hand) and a number of the participating studios have snacks and refreshments on hand as well. In other words, make it a date night!
There are a lot of artists in our church community, a good number professionally so and many others who aren't exactly making money at their craft but take it very seriously (uh...I think I fall in the latter category). This means that many of us at Epiphany (our church) are connected to and have lots of friends who are artists. In other words, we love the arts, we love artists, and they are a central part of how God is moving in our community. We are bold enough to believe that God's Kingdom can come through the various mediums through which we create. I'm excited because I feel like this event is only the beginning of amazing and beautiful things that are going to happen with our people.

So, I'll be doing a set of music (some originals and some Beatles covers) and so will Trey Mowder and Jessamyn Luong. In light of this being my first concert in about a year, I wanted to share a new song with everybody called "Sweet Little Baby Boy." It is one of three originals I'll be singing about our sons. They fit together as kind of a song cycle. This song in particular about one of the saddest and sweetest things I've ever written, a kind of lullaby lament. It details all the agony my wife and I went through the first two years of my first son's life in trying to get him asleep at various stages of each night. It's a kind of universally specific agony, one that continued for two years more with our second son. This version of the song is just a simple demo, but I think it does it justice. You can stream it bellow or download it for free through the link (please excuse the creepy artwork—it was somewhat intentional).


Other artists featured at our Art Garage event are:

Blair Jeffers
Heather Lockwood (she has a website here, as well)
Kent Wagenschutz (and here too)
Natalie England
Jillian School
Greg Lynn (our pastor)
Elisa Marchand (my illustrious wife)

Again, here is our

First Friday event page.

Here is where you can find a list of all the other

First Friday events and galleries.

And for those interested here's a list of all kinds of

Peoria area businesses, art studios, restaurants, etc, via The Whiskey City Collaborative.

And by the way, our pastor, Greg Lynn is in a band and they'll be playing down by Kelleher's around 9, that same night. There's plenty to do on Friday, for sure.



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