Wedding gifts

When Andrew and I were planning the wedding, my mother (a jazz radio host) said, "you MUST have live music at your reception." She also assured me that she'd pay for it, so I called an old friend from high school who graduated from Berklee and is now freelancing as a jazz pianist (check out his site: http://chrisdoylemusic.com). He was happy to come from Boston to a Maine island wedding. And not only did he refuse payment, he brought with him a five piece band including two other high school classmates and our dear old band director, Dan Granholm (shown below with trombone).

It was beyond what we ever could have imagined. Our lovely friend Katherine who officiated sang Edith Piaf's "La Vie En Rose" for our first dance along with some other jazzy numbers. Check out her music here: http://rose-hips.bandcamp.com/album/the-wanderer

My mom even had the chance to sing a few songs with the band. She was in heaven.

We could not believe our eyes and ears. On top of being happier than ever when we walked into the hall, we were received by a live jazz band of old friends playing beautiful, joyous and complex music (much like our emotions that day) for us and our dearest loved ones. How do you thank such generous and talented musicians? Our photographer David Denison took some great shots of them. I love this one of Fox Schwach, singing "Little Trip to Heaven" by Tom Waits in his lovely bass voice...

...So I used David's photos to create paintings. An exchange of art for art...

Even from photographs, these small paintings were really fun to create! The last one is the smallest (5x7"). Because of their size they were less intimidating so I could work fast. I finished these four within three days, in between working on landscapes. I had considered giving them each a landscape painting but like I said before, I miss figure painting. What's more, there was a beautiful painted backdrop behind them of an angry ocean which helped me complete the ocean in this painting:

I should have known it would take a jazz band to inspire a seascape.