Artistic endeavors and all that it implies...

Spending the greatest part of my adulthood in the St. Louis area provided me with an opportunity to be exposed to some truly great artistic minds. In my twenties, I was fortunate to meet some extraordinary talents on the local music scene and was able to follow them on a somewhat regular basis. Thanks to the magic of Facebook, I've recently reconnected with some of those musicians and I'm reminded again of how much I enjoyed that time in my life and of how much those folks influenced me in my own artistic endeavors, however small they may be.

I would go to watch bands like Red Weather and The Unconscious and marvel at what they did, both as groups and as individual artists. My friend, Jeanne, and I would go see them whenever possible (much to the amusement of some of the Red Weather musicians) and became friends with some of them. They looked at the world in a way I had never seen before and it was fascinating to me. It made me want to work harder at being an artist.

How they aren't performing in the national spotlight is still a mystery to me, especially since there's a lot out there that doesn't come close to what I've seen and heard from them. I don't think that was ever the ultimate goal for them, however. They love what they do, and I'm thrilled to have been a beneficiary. So to Dan Rubright, Ted Rubright, Tom Fulton, John Taylor, Lisa Campell, Mike Apirion, Jim Mayer, Peter Mayer and so many others on the St. Louis music scene, I say thanks. I have been and am enriched knowing you.