She spoke through her dance

Annmarie Mazzini a dancer with heart and soul

When I planned and packed for this trip to Martha's Vineyard, I never imagined the things I would see and the experiences I would have while there. I met hundreds of people but many of them left me with a lifetime of memories and with a spirit that was soaring.

She danced with tremendous emotion. I could not take my eyes off of her as she told the story of love and loss with her movements; her leaps of joy, then crumpling to the floor with emotion. She had the ability to speak to your heart by moving her body. 

Annmarie Mazzini is a dancer with her own dance company in New York CIty and she was a part of the Consenses Project in Martha's Vineyard. She interpreted one of the songs into a dance and performed at the final show. Also she held a workshop on dance as a part of the project and my son Eric Erdman played his music (no singing, just instrumental). To watch them sway and stretch  and leap through the air as each chord touched them deeply, was like watching art in motion. Their reactions to this music made me see it in a new light. Now each time I hear him play these songs I can revisit that day and those dancers at the dance studio deep in the woods of Martha's Vineyard. It was magical to me as I watched the class and Annmarie understand and interpret the music my son created. 

Annmarie and her husband are our new friends and I know I will see them again. This wonderful project brought together a large group of very talented and dedicated artists and gave them memories to last for years. 

The Consenses Project by Sally Taylor is not over, it is moving and it is a movement that is likely to grow beyond anyone's dreams. I am a better person after the experience.

 

Great people I met along the way

Some people I met at the Consenses Project in Martha's Vineyard

This project I had the privilege to attended and observe was a life changing event. I came across some of the greatest people on earth. Many were artists that were a part of this huge project (there were 130 artists from 23 countries). I loved meeting the artists and hearing them explain their feeling when creating this art and I equally loved meeting the people who came to experience the project and to see these creations.

I met a group of 3 senior citizens who were loving life and happy in their own skin. She was named Evelyn and he said everybody calls him "Chop". Their friend was Sarah or SaraLee.
All three were short people, so it was like I had met "my people". After the Tuesday night show on Martha's Vineyard, I was standing, talking to Eric and a couple of the Consenses Project participants, when these three people approached us. You could not find a nicer group of folks. It was a man, his wife and their dear friend and they had driven from Connecticutt for the unveiling of Consenses Project. 

They loved my son, Eric Erdman's song for the project, "What's left of What Used to Be." Both the man and his wife said they were personally touched by the words and the music, unlike any song they had heard before. They hugged us and stood there talking for a while about life and such things as love, inspiration, emotion. It was then that their little friend spoke up, she said, "My name is Sarah Lee!" I smiled and hugged her too, then I asked her if she went by Sarah or both names Sarah Lee. 

She was a very short lady with snow white hair, dressed with refinement, wearing her pearls and diamonds; she answered my question like this, "Well you can call me Shit Head if you want, that's what most people do!" I stood there amazed and surprised, yet I chose to call her Sarah Lee. This same group was there for the entire time of Consenses. 

On the final night, the final show, I looked back in the audience and there they were, with big grins and waves. When they joined us at the edge of the stage I handed them copies of Eric's CDs and told them most of the songs he sang in the shows were on those CDs but a few would be on his upcoming CD. You would have thought I gave them the world; they happlily waited in line for his autograph on their CDs. Meeting these people and knowing how much they genuinely enjoyed Eric's music was worth more than gold to me. They were senior citizens who knew how to enjoy themselves and seemed to be inspired and happy. I loved them.

Safe and Peaceful

                                                            A great place to Visit

On my recent trip to Martha's Vineyard to participate in the Consenses Project I discovered a wonderful, safe, peaceful place on earth. The people were pleasant, the scenery was fabulous and there seemed to be no angry people, no impatient people, no rude people.

I feel pretty sure the crime rate in Martha’s Vineyard is O%. Even IF they counted rudeness or profanity as crimes, still O%. People were pleasant and pleasing to be around. I passed groups of teenagers several times and never heard the F word or any other curse word at all. No one in my vicinity ever raised their voice.

On Monday night as we rode in a taxi to our hotel, the streets were empty (it was a little after 11:00pm). Then we looked to the left and saw a long line, it was roped off similar to a ride at Disney. Eric asked the taxi driver about the line, thinking maybe it was a popular bar. Guess what? It was a midnight DOUGHNUT SHOP! That is right, these people were waiting for the late night doughnut shop to begin serving their hot doughnuts! 

The very next night our dear friend, Lynn was driving us back to our hotel and we saw the same line in the back of this doughnut shop, it was called THE BACKDOOR DOUGHNUT SHOP. It was located only a couple of blocks from our hotel, so she parked at our hotel, and the three of us walked to this shop to check it out. There were a few children in the crowd, two security guards were there to keep everyone in a straight line, they had no gun or billy clubs, just yellow vests that said “SECURITY”. The security guys laughed and enjoyed the crowd, there was very little crowd control needed, except that one time when a 3 year old girl skipped out of line and had to be corralled back into her place.

It reminded me of the Truman Show with Jim Carrey where everything was too perfect to be true. Only this was true. People were happy. Everything was real around me AND those doughnuts were pretty darn good too!

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How Sally was Inspired

My Musical Adventure- began with The story of the elephant

Seven years ago while in Thailand, Sally Taylor saw the story below of the elephant and the blind  men and it sparked something inside her. She feels that if we will open our eyes and hearts to the view point of others; make an effort to release our insistence on being right and hear how they view things and how they feel, the world will be a better place. This story below is what started her vision for the Consenses Project she opened in Martha's Vineyard and that my son Eric Erdman became a part of at her request.

ELEPHANT AND THE BLIND MEN

Once upon a time, there lived six blind men in a village. One day the villagers told them, "Hey, there is an elephant in the village today."

They had no idea what an elephant was. They decided, "Even though we would not be able to see it, let us go and feel it anyway." All of them went where the elephant was. Everyone of them touched the elephant.

"Hey, the elephant is a pillar," said the first man who touched his leg.

"Oh, no! it is like a rope," said the second man who touched the tail.

"Oh, no! it is like a thick branch of a tree," said the third man who touched the trunk of the elephant.

"It is like a big hand fan" said the fourth man who touched the ear of the elephant.

"It is like a huge wall," said the fifth man who touched the belly of the elephant.

"It is like a solid pipe," Said the sixth man who touched the tusk of the elephant.

They began to argue about the elephant and everyone of them insisted that he was right. It looked like they were getting agitated. A wise man was passing by and he saw this. He stopped and asked them, "What is the matter?" They said, "We cannot agree to what the elephant is like." Each one of them told what he thought the elephant was like. The wise man calmly explained to them, "All of you are right. The reason every one of you is telling it differently because each one of you touched the different part of the elephant. So, actually the elephant has all those features what you all said."

"Oh!" everyone said. There was no more fight. They felt happy that they were all right.

The moral of the story is that there may be some truth to what someone says. Sometimes we can see that truth and sometimes not because they may have different perspective which we may not agree too. 

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A little more than two years ago Sally put her ideas in action and reached out to artists she knew and some she found,  to accomplish this task of getting her vision of artists coming together and each seeing their own works expressed from a different view. All of her hard work and efforts were about to come to fruition at Martha's Vineyard and we were excited to see it.

We had just wrapped up the recording of the basic tracks for Eric’s new CD, it was early on Saturday, August 16th and though we had a fabulous week in Muscle Shoals, enjoying the local cuisine and the musical vibe that comes from being in such a place; we were not looking back but looking forward to the days ahead. We had breakfast and headed to Nashville where we had a flight booked very early the next morning. This flight was taking us on yet another musical journey that awaited us in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. 

More than two years earlier, Eric’s friend Sally Taylor had sent him a photograph. It was a plain black and white print of an old boat floating all alone. There was nothing particularly special about the picture, it was almost sad to me. She asked Eric to look at this picture and write a song. The song was not to be about the subject matter in the picture but about the feeling this picture created in him.

He wrote that song while sitting on the sofa in my den. It appeared that this picture just drew the words and music out of his soul easily and quickly.  Once the song was the way he wanted it, he sent it to Sally.

The picture Eric recieved and song he created, would become parts of this artistic chain that would travel through several art mediums and finally reach a film maker who would look at all of the contributions in the chain and make a short film. Eric’s picture was one of 22 that were sent to singer/songwriters worldwide. Each songwriter wrote and performed their song and when Sally received them back, she sent them to another art medium. Eric’s song went to a dancer/choreographer who created a dance. The dance was performed for a scupltor, who made a sculpture from feelings the dance evoked with him. The sculpture went to a perfumist who made a fragrance, based on how it made her feel. The group of artists that were in line in Eric's chain each performed their part until it reached its final art medium, the film maker. 

Each group of artists in the chain was inspired by what the previous artist had done, yet amazingly they all tied back without even realizing it.  I was fascinated as I heard many of the participants say that seeing their work from the eyes of others, helped them to see their own  work in a different light. It was amazing, for the visitors who attended the revealing of this Consenses Project, and it was amazing for the artists to see how their work effected other artists. Added to this, was tables placed throughout the venue that allowed those who were viewing the exhibits to use any medium of artistic communication to express how these chains or parts of the chains had effected them. It could be conveyed through writing, drawing, or painting. Paint brushes, pens, markers, pencils and lots of paper were provided for viewers of the exhibit to say whatever they wanted to the artists or perhaps just one of the artists in any chain as they viewed it. I saw notes and drawings that said  “this touched me deeply, I will never forget it”, “I was amazed at the way each chain unfolded”....all of the expressions of feeling or emotion that touched everyone was very special to see.

This wonderful project allowed the artists to see how their work effected the people who listened or touched or viewed their piece of the chain. 

I have never seen anything like it in my life. I met some of the greatest people that week. Several of the perfumists spoke to me and attended workshops with me. A couple of dancers and sculptors are now new friends. AnnMaria Mazzini danced to Eric’s music at a workshop where she taught dance during the Consenses Project. She is fantastic, look her up if you get a chance; she is located in New York City. The closest connections I felt were with the songwriters. I met a beautiful, talented, sweet young lady named Kori Withers who sang at two of the nightly shows. Eric appeared in the shows with her. Her song was one of my favorites. It was called “Stranded” and was pulled from her soul as she was going through a tough time when she received her picture from Sally Taylor. Kori’s father (who is now deceased), Bill Withers, wrote songs such as, “Lean on Me”, “Aint no Sunshine when she’s gone” and “Grandma’s hands”. She is a brilliant songwriter and it is definitely in her genes. I love Kori.

I also met two people, husband and wife, who are music professors at Burklee College of Music in Boston. His name is Mark Simos and I am not certain of her first name, I cannot remember. I spoke with them both at length each day. Mark teaches a graduate course in Songwriting and he had a couple of books he had written on the subject. Eric got one of them and they plan to stay in touch. His wife (I think her name was Heather), also was a part of the project. Both Mark and Heather received pictures, just as Eric did and they wrote songs. Heather’s was hands down my favorite song. Heather and Mark both  performed the first night. Her song touched my heart and I cannot wait until she records it and I can get it. She played the piano as she sang her song, “Even a caged bird sings”. It makes me tear up just to write the title down because it brings me back to her performance that night.

There were 122 artists from 23 different countries, including film maker Wes Craven, Songwriters, James Taylor, Carly Simon, Jimmy Buffett, and more. I loved the film and song by a singer, songwriter from the UK, but again, I will have to look him up. His song was excellent, though it told a sad story of being adrift and feeling alone, it was very moving. He said that when he received his picture, it was a time when most of his friends had moved to America and he felt so abandoned and empty. The picture brought out his deep feeling of uncertainty and it was beautifully expressed in his song. I could feel his emotion deeply as he sang. 

I met publicists, agents, dancers, quilters, tea makers, musicians, artists, sculptors, people from all walks of life, and all were so happy to be there to share such an enormous project of feelings and shared artistic abilities. 

This event was unlike any other. It enabled the visitors to participate and express how the work of these artists made them feel. There were workshops led by songwriters, dancers, photographers, and other disciplines of art that enabled us to better understand how they view the world and how they relate to the world. True artists are unique creatures to me. But I learned in one of the work shops that everyone is an artist. We all have abilities in one genre or another, whether it be music, painting, photography, cuisine, perfume, writing, poetry, quilting, glass-blowing, it is art and it is a means of expressing yourself. 

So I learned that even I am an artist, I never thought of it that way before. If we all could learn to accept our abilities and our art-self, oh what a wonderful world this would be for us and our children. Consenses Project is going to spread to other cities and many more people will have the opportunity to see, touch and feel it. If it comes to a city near you, I recommend it as an uplifting experience for your spirit and as something that will be good for your soul.

How Eric met Sally Taylor

Bubbles, Bubbles, Everywhere

It was a Friday night and Eric was the opening act at SouthSide on Dauphin Street. He was opening for a touring band that was traveling through Mobile. One of the reasons he was selected for this particular act was that he played a lot of James Taylor songs and the touring band was The SallyTaylor Band, (Sally is the daughter of James Taylor and Carly Simon). 

I remember the first time I saw her as she came in wearing sweat pants and shirt and her hair was twisted up and half down. Even through that I could see that she was beautiful. I was sure that she had been on the road all day with her band and probably for many days prior. She came in with a great smile and introduced herself to Eric. They talked a while and seemed to really hit it off right away.

She asked him about a place to eat nearby and he recommended a restaurant for them, then he got his things set up for the show. One of the items he used frequently in those days was a bubble machine. It always added a little magic to the show and most people really loved those bubbles.

Sally and her band returned to the venue to prepare for their performance. Eric began his opening act and they watched as he sang. Right away I could tell that they really liked him. In those days Eric was called Birdman. It was a nickname he had picked up while in high school on the baseball team. He made a diving catch and his coach (Coach Rollins) said “if you keep jumping like that we will stop calling you Erdman and start calling you BIRDman”.  It stuck and he was called Birdman after that.

Well he had the name “BIRDMAN” stenciled on the side of his road cases that held his sound equipment and lights. Sally and her guitarist, Chris were struck by that because, Chris was also nicknamed “Birdman”. Chris’ parents were “bird people”, they raised all sorts of birds and I understand they were ornithologists. So he grew up with birds all around him and his friends had dubbed him, “The Birdman”.

As Eric performed he activated his bubble machine a couple of times with a pedal that he pushed with his foot. The bubbles drifted into the audience and each took a different path. Some soared upward hastily, while others drifted slowly to the floor where they rested until they popped. Some lit in people’s hair and lasted a few seconds there before they too popped. It was fascinating to watch those bubbles, each living their own fleeting moments in completely different ways. They were similar to people, each choosing or drifting, using the time they have on earth in their own way.

Sally watched those bubbles and she loved them. She asked him could he leave the bubble machine for her to use. He said, “Sure”! Then he instructed her on how to start the bubbles and how to stop them.

When Sally took the stage she was adorable, She was dressed nice and her hair was perfect. Her stage presence was remarkable. She had been on the road supporting her newest album called, “Tomboy Bride”. Sally also told the story of living in New York as she grew up in an apartment on the west side. Their apartment number was 6S and her mother would buy groceries at the market and have them delivered to their apartment. She would say, “We live at this apartment building, in 6S”. As a child Sally did not understand that it was an apartment number, she thought her mother was saying we live in “Success”. She remembered thinking, “well we live in success, that is good!” It wasn’t until many years later that she realized what her mother had been saying.

As she sang her songs, she tapped the pedal for the bubble machine to commence sending those bubbles out to the world. There was a very redneck acting guy in the bar that night that was dressed totally in black. He wore boots and a cowboy hat and his hair sort of stuck out from underneath the hat with no real direction, it was something that made you take a second look. Well this guy was enamored with Sally, he seemed fixated on her beauty and her talent. So he stood up front and leaned against a post as he enjoyed the show. She tapped the bubble machine and did not understand the instructions Eric had given because she left it running. Bubbles, Bubbles, Bubbles were released into the air and they were flying, dropping, landing, popping, sticking to people and walls. Suddenly we looked up at the cowboy guy in black and he was just covered in bubbles. I don’t know if the black just attracted bubbles, or if the fabric of the clothes he wore was good for bubbles to land on and stay intact. I do know that was quite a sight to see this guy covered in all of those bubbles.

Sally kept a rode diary of her shows on her tour and she wrote a great story of her show in Mobile and the bubble machine. I always read her diary and enjoyed every story that she wrote. 

Eric and Sally became friends back then and they have remained friends over all of these years. As a matter of fact a couple of years ago she included Eric in a project she had begun, it is called the Consenses Project. It is a fascinating journey of the perceptions and creativity of artists in all disciplines as they express themselves. She sent Eric a picture. It was a plain picture of a boat. It was not a fancy boat or a new boat, just an old boat sitting in the water. She asked Eric to look at the picture and write a song based on the picture. Not about the subject matter but about how this picture made him feel.

He wrote a song about how this picture made him feel and sent it to her. The song made its journey down a path of several artists, there was a dance choreographer, a sculptor, a glass-blower, a jewelist, a perfumist, a chef and others, but the final artist discipline was a film maker. Eric was not the only songwriter involved, I am not certain, but I believe she sent pictures to a dozen or maybe even twenty and each group of artists did their thing in the journey of this wonderful process she created. There are artists included from 23 different countries, I think 133 total artists (don’t hold me to that, I am not certain of the exact number).

Well over two years have passed and the big event of revealing the progression of these songs (Eric’s included) to the final step of film maker, will take place in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts August 17-August 20 this year. It is very exciting and I plan to fly there with him to see him being honored in such a way.

The song he wrote for Sally’s project is named, “What’s Left of What Used to Be” and it is the last song on his second album, Color the Silence.

Her art touched me...

She was a sculptor, her name was Grace.

Another story of my time at the special art project that took place in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts a few months ago. It was an event that will always be with me.

I was there, in Martha’s Vineyard, wearing headphones as I viewed and listened to yet another of the 22 chains that had been created for the Consenses Project. These Chains were actually created by artists, for example, a songwriter would receive a photograph and from that a song was created; a dancer would receive a song and from that a dance was choreographed; then a sculptor would see the dance and from that make a sculpture; it was a chain of one artist interpreting the work of another.  

The song I was hearing at this moment was beautiful, lonely, even sad, yet still beautiful. Some artists have the ability to grab hold of your heart and hold it captive for days, this was one of them. I looked at the sculpture that was created based on that song, then I smelled the fragrance that the perfumist had mixed to express how the sculpture made her feel, it was another great experience for me as I drifted off into the world that group of artists had made. 

Suddenly someone tapped me on the shoulder, it was a very attractive young blonde lady. She wore a beautiful gauzy summer dress adorned with a brightly colored scarf and she wore greek looking sandals on her feet. Her enthusiasm was immense as she asked if I had any questions about this particular chain of artists. I said “no, but thanks”. She then blurted out, “What do you think of the sculpture?” I told her, I had just looked at it and read what the sculptor had written about what was in her mind when she created it. “Acutally, this is one of my favorite sculptures”, I told her. She literally bounced up and down with joy, as it turns out she was the sculptor and she was so anxious to learn how people viewed her work. Often in her line of work, you get to hear how your family and friends enjoy your work (which is a bit biased), but this kind of hands on, studied viewing of her work was a rare treat. I stood and talked to her for a few minutes and I saw her several times over the next two days of this event. She never lost her exuberance nor her joy about the  Consenses Project. I realized after meeting her that this project had given so much to these artists who volunteered their time and talent to be a part of something new and special. Each artist I met, (and I met so many) there were photographers, songwriters, sculptors, painters, dancers, perfumists, chefs, poets, a quilt maker, even a glassblower; each was happy that their work was being experienced by so many. This was an event unlike any they had known before and unlike any of us “non-artists” had known as well.

To see this beautiful lady’s creation that she had obviously put many hours into and to know that her art was like a child to her, just as the songs written by a songwriter and the fragrances created by a perfumist; I really cannot put into words how moving this was for me. Her name was Grace and she was one of so many that I will remember from my week in Martha’s Vineyard at the Consenses Project.