My love of music and my visual skills have intersected so often in my life that it's mind blowing.
I was good at drawing when I was growing up, and my family steered me toward the visual arts. I studied commercial art in my early twenties. A rock musician I had a crush on got me into photography. I'm doing my graphics work for my album Evolve myself, and that's reignited my love for graphic design, so I've decided to get a bachelor's degree in it starting next year.
But I'm obviously not the only songwriter who "thinks visually."
Carole King once said she envisions a song like a picture in a frame. Joni Mitchell was an art student before she became a musician, and has often used her own paintings for her album artwork, like on her Court & Spark album. She wrote about being "a lonely painter" in A Case Of You on her Blue album. A fan once told Joni that she saw pictures when she heard Joni's songs, and Joni loved that.
I don't know who did the graphic work on Brandi Carlile's video for You And Me On The Rock, but it's very Joni Mitchell-ish. No surprise there, since Brandi and Joni are good friends. Graham Nash has been a photographer since he was a child. And I discovered last year that Bob Dylan is an excellent painter. I didn't know that!
There are too many examples of musicians who are involved in the visual arts to list here. It would two weeks just to think of them!
You And Me On The Rock - Brandi Carlile
Visuals have always been important to music, of course. No news flash there. But I get really excited when I find out a musician is a visual artist too, like Joni Mitchell, Graham Nash, and Bob Dylan, or thinks visually during the songwriting process, like Carole King.
I just love multitalented people like that...
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