Each Measure Feature: Michellar
FEATURE
“When a painting is shown, a story is born. The artist and the viewer become the characters.”
I had the privilege of speaking to the artist behind this quote on the phone today. Incidentally, in addition to being an immensely gifted painter, she also happens to be a prolific songwriter and musician. The artist, performing under the name Michellar, has been steadily releasing music since February of last year–there are two albums worth of singles available to hear on streaming platforms now. Having grown up in a “musically inclined” family and practicing as a child, Michellar was inspired to take up music again after achieving much-deserved attention for her paintings, thinking why not keep the momentum rolling?
Earlier this month, Michellar released a new song titled, LOVE EARTH, in which the artist drops the listener into a story that, as she sings, is “all about the giving and taking.” The song reminds listeners that the “earth is changing before us,” and challenges us to consider, what should we be doing and what should we be thinking?
There is a tenderness in Michellar’s voice that registers like the voice of a friend. Her vocal delivery never comes across like chiding, but it is firm. Our neglect of the earth has serious consequences and Michellar uses the chorus as an opportunity to poetically–yet, directly–highlight some of them. With her perfectly sincere voice, she sings, “Soon there won’t be any blue skies and seashells in the ocean / No air we can breathe, no water we can drink.” It’s not a reprimand, it’s not even a warning, it’s a reminder.
And Michellar makes a point to shift the onus of responsibility off of any one individual and onto a communal obligation to care for the earth, singing, “If we try to save all that we have left / We really should look at each other / And say that we are all in this together.”
Michellar’s paintings are abstract–drawing inspiration from Picasso and Kandinsky–and her music–well, it’s all over the map. Listening through her output, at times I was transported to the ‘67 San Francisco Summer of Love. Other songs made me think of the Beach Boys or the psyche rock of Animal Collective and Panda Bear. At one moment, I heard John Prine; then, with another stylistic zigzag, I was transported into the avant-garde musical universe of Twin Peaks.
The point is, Michellar is creating, following the winds of the creative spirit, because that’s what artists do. Michellar is a reminder that artists are storytellers–sometimes those stories are told through opaque abstractions, and other times through stark realism, as in LOVE EARTH–and she has reminded me that when we observe art, whether a film, or music, or a painting, we become voluntary participants in the story–duty-bound to interact with it thoughtfully, as we all must do with the planet we call home.
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