I told myself I would take the last week of the year off, it’s been a monumental year and I wanted to just relax and take some down time. That didn’t work so well. Instead I found myself with a clear week ahead and a studio with canvas and paint on stock. I got lost for a week. I had no idea where I was headed, no plan as to what to create. I just wanted to paint for the sake of the process, the feeling, and the freedom. It’s been a minute since I had the space to escape. While moving things around in the studio, my way of starting to build the work momentum, I heard a beat come on through the stream and it moved me. Enough to plug in the mic, and get lost in my thoughts. I haven’t recorded my words in sometime, I took a little hiatus from the records and put the words on the paintings instead, but something about the day, the song, the energy, its just felt right, music had been calling me back and this one set the tone. What came out was all subconscious stream of thought, no thinking or editing, just open and vulnerable, I really didn’t understand the words and ideas until the next day. That moments set off the rest of the week, a bold collection of work where what started as a lyric in my mind “It’s a long way to go when the coast ain’t clear, fog in the future forward we steer” to ultimately finding my way home and closing the year with clarity and an understanding of the next steps. Sometimes it’s the thinking that holds me back, and it’s the work that sets me free. I am not sure what the year ahead holds, but I am certain whatever it is I am ready!

Bisco Smith 1