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Pray for peace
Love unconditionally...
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Here's the latest and the not so latest too!
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NOTE: You'll find my day to day info on Facebook, & Twitter. I've all but given up attending my page at Myspace, but I still have a presence there. When I can discipline myself enough to blog regularly, I'll send you my new(er) blogspot address. For now, myspace still has the latest of my blogs.) It seems facebook has changed my habits in that I start there, and work my way (slowly) to my other sites. It's so easy and that's where the action is these days.
We were home when the flooding began in the Nashville area. We had to leave town as the rains continued to fall and the water continued to rise. The roads closed behind us as we drove out of town. It was frustrating to be so far away when the national news was sparse about the disaster that turned Music City upside down. Our friends and neighbors kept us informed as best they could, many of them without power, and fading cell phones batteries.
Arriving home to see the extensive damage first hand was overwhelming. After driving past house after house that had every belonging piled in a soggy discarded heap by the road, we found our home much as we left it, dry and intact, a safe haven. We are so lucky, so blessed. Nashville is working hard already. The clean up will take month, perhaps years. The good people of this and surrounding towns have shown their true colors and stepped up to help their neighbors as well as strangers. They so perfectly personify the words of "We are all in this together" with which I close nearly every concert.
So now we're home again. When we're home (which we haven't been much lately), I spend every spare minute in my studio painting. Click here to view some of my work. (I still haven't further developed that area of my website, sorting the paintings into "galleries" and such, but that's because that would take a lot of time, and it would keep me from painting and working on the portrait commissions that continue to come along. (I love doing the commission work, but I must also allow time to paint 'just for me'!) You will see some of my earlier paintings are now sold. Remember, if there is one you have interest in, please send me an email and we'll find a way to work it out so you can build your collection of original art. For those of you who have been asking, I haven't yet decided if I'm going to sell the Thai Waterfall painting. Perhaps I'll make prints available in the months ahead. I'll let you know. That is a special painting for several reasons and I'm still not ready to let it go.
This Spring we've been busy on the road playing music. We just returned from a fun tour in mid Michigan where we helped the Capital Area District Libraries launch their summer reading program with concerts in elementary schools throughout the area. Please check my tour schedule to see if I'm coming to a town near you anytime soon. And if I'm not, perhaps you have a suggestion for a venue that we can look into. I have all but stopped sending out postcards. If you'd like to be on my email list, (I send out tour and album info just a few times a year), please send me an email: Barbara(at)BBHsings.com. (If I hot link my email address, it increases my spam even beyond the wild amounts I already receive!) I promise not to share your address with anyone else, and will only use it on occasion, to keep you abreast of BBH happenings.
That's about it for now. During these tough economic times, I'm grateful for my loving husband, our sturdy shelter, and food on the table. We are blessed, life is good, and my cup continues to overflow. Wishing you a new season of beauty, joy, and renewed prosperity. May your days be filled with music, art, and much love. (And affordable health care!)
Peace
Here are some pics of my Close Up Close workshop for school students age 10 - 14. I've been teaching this class at Young Scholars Institute in Franklin, TN, for several years and it's been so well received, we decided to take it on the road.
During this residency, the students create a 4' x 4' class project as a warm up exercise. They don't know who they are drawing or what the photo looks like until all the pieces are assembled. They then move on to their own larger than life self portraits. This is all accomplished using the grid system employed by one of America's premier artists, Chuck Close. I love the underlying lesson, that they can conquer a big task by breaking it down into smaller pieces.
Here are a few photos of my Close Up Close artists' work and class projects. I love to see their enthusiasm grow as they begin to realize their portraits really look like them!
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This 2009 YSI class is standing with their finished portraits.
Behind them is their class project, Taylor Swift.
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President Obama
YSI Close Up Close - Week One - 2009
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Taylor Swift
YSI Close Up Close - Week Two - 2009
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Indiana Jones - Harrison Ford
YSI Close Up Close - Week One - 2008
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This 2008 YSI class is standing with their finished portraits.
Behind them is their class project,
Teacher of the Year - Marnie Cotton.
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That's an update for my career as a visual artist. I'm still very much a performing musical singer songwriter entertainer! As a matter of fact, we just finished 6 performances for the Manistee Library system in northern Michigan.
Family shows are easier to book so they heavily populate my schedule at the moment, but don't be fooled. As much as I dearly love bringing my music to kids and families at schools and libraries, my first love continues to be my "grown up" audiences. Be sure to let me know if you think you know a perfect venue for me and we'll see what we can do to route it into the tour schedule.  |
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Please check my tour schedule from time to time either here or on myspace. I've gone green and stopped sending out postcards, so if you want to stay in the loop, send me your email address along with the state where you live. Don't worry, I don't send out many emails, usually about three or four a year. And yes, we're still working toward moving to Thailand, so come to every concert you can!
About our Thailand connection... In 2005, we participated in a series of Give and Live Benefit concerts with Scott Jones. The concerts raised some much needed funding for food, shelter, clothing, medical care, and school supplies for orphans in rural Thailand. While we were there, we fell in love with this beautiful country and it's wonderful people. There's a reason it's known as "The Land Of Smiles". Every day we miss being with our friends in Chiangmai, playing with Abu at Children's Garden, going to the market to buy pomelo and mangosteen, the brilliant sunsets that reflect in the freshly planted rice fields, the glittering Buddhas, the monks in their saffron robes, the water buffalo, the elephants!! We continue to plan our return, intending to spend a year there next time. We'd like to see what it's like all year round, and if we love it as much as we think we will, we'll make the move to settle there.)
You can still check out some of the pics of our Thailand adventures farther down this page and on the photo archive page. We continue our support of Give and Live, an organization started by our good friend Scott Jones. There is enough to go around in this wide world and we are all in this together. No one can do it all, but we all must do what we can. Thank you for keeping your heart open to the possibility of continuing to provide assistance to our global family, even those who are not included in the nightly news.
And now for a little shameless self promotion...
I have begun the process of making more of my music downloadable (is that word in the dictionary yet?) The day will come when we no longer manufacture CDs. (This time is probably closer than we think.) So now is a good time to complete your BBH CD collection or stock up for future gift giving. (I actually had a request for a cassette yesterday. They are all long gone now.)
My most recent CD "Breath by Breath" includes "God Is In", "Gandhi/Buddha", "All Kinds of Kinds", "Happy Little Trip Around the Sun" and more. Remember, an autographed BBH CD makes a lovely gift! We also have the perfect CDs for brand new babies and their siblings. I have different "package deals" available to save you on cost. If you want a large quantity of one particular CD, contact me by email and we'll work out a discount for you. Be sure to tell me if you want the CDs autographed and for whom.
Following a recent concert, one of the younger audience members said to me, "Have a beautiful life!" It reminded me of the young boy who carefully put his mother's stack of mail into the box at the post office and before he closed door to the box said, "Have a nice trip!"
I think of those young well wishers as I wish you much joy and happiness. Take care of each other and of strangers that cross your life path. If you know someone's story, you will love them.
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My sweet Abu
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We returned from The Land of Smiles enriched, inspired, and in awe. As we anticipated, it was a life changing experience and a breathtaking adventure. Here are a few photos. Click here for more. When we visited two of the schools, Children's Garden and a Hmong school at the top of Doi Sutep, we were greeted by smiling wonderful children and their caregivers.
These kids don't have much, but they welcomed us, included us in their games of tag and dodge ball, shared their dinner of rice and vegetables, and let us "help" them with their homework! (I think we were more of a distraction than a help!) We wanted to bring all of them home with us, especially one little girl whose name is "Oh".
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Dinner at Children's Garden |
Chris & Abu |
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Hmong students on Doi Sutep |
Thanks to the generosity of our friends, family, BBH fans, and Edgehill United Methodist Church, we were able to present Give & Live.org and FERC (Foundation for the Education of Rural Children) with a donation that totaled nearly 20 percent of what the benefit raised. The funds will go right to the children, most of whom have been orphaned by AIDS.
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While in Thailand, we rode a train for 14 hours from Bangkok to Chiang Mai and back again. We toured the north on a motorcycle, visiting a multitude of places including two of our favorites, Pai, and Mae Hong Son. We rode elephants, and saw magnificent mountains, hot springs, an endless array of exotic flora - orchids, papaya, mango, and banana trees, palms of every size and shape. We ate fruits and vegetables whose names I'm learning to pronounce, and slept in one room bungalows made of woven bamboo with thatched roofs.
We saw herds of goats and cows wandering free along the road, the tinkling bells around their necks making a joyful noise with each step. The ubiquitous roosters that crow ANY hour of the day or night. Dogs sleep in the middle of the road. Cats curl up on the rainbows of displayed wares in the many markets along the way.
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There's so much more to tell. And then there are the 3,000 pictures we took! (I wish I could post them all! I will post more on the archive page soon.) Check out Scott's web site for some funny insight on this grand land. Sawatdee! enjoy....
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PHOTO ARCHIVE
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©2005 Dakota Records ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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