guitar – Paper Opera

We were asked to come up with a fun Christmas sounding song with many variations for the KUAR Arts & Letters “The Holly Jolly Trolley: A Ride Through Arkansas History,” so we came up with “Snow Angels.”

We used vocals, electric guitar, bass guitar, percussion (ride symbol, drum pad wrapped in foil, jingle bells), glockenspeil, banjo, piano, and harmonica to create a catchy and fun Christmas tune called “Snow Angels” in which two people go out into the morning winter snowfall and make snow angels before they have to go to work.

Snow Angels
Snow angels, snow angels lying in the sun.
Snow angels, snow angels winter’s just begun (or so much fun).
You and I, we made them this morning at play.
Ten o’clock we had to go to work, we had the bills to pay.

“The Holly Jolly Trolley: A Ride Through Arkansas History” to air Friday, December 23, 2016 at 7:00 pm CST on KUAR 89.1 in Arkansas. You can listen to the show online at ualrpublicradio.org/programs/arts-letters and you can listen to the “Songs for KUAR Arts and Letters 2016” on the Damsels in Distress bandcamp page at thedamselsindistress.bandcamp.com

Happy Christmas from the Damsels in Distress!

I am working with Inktense pencils, Micron ink pens, and Canson Illustration 11×14″ 150lb art pad to create 15 illustrations (that is how many pieces of paper are in the art pad) of my current family life and inspirations.

This work is narrative in content and uses color in a monochromatic way accentuating one part of each drawing. These fun and quirky illustrations are a reflection of the current joy and activities I have been experiencing.

“The Damsels in Distress Cakewalk” is a piece based on an event that happened a couple of months ago. Our friend Mr. C invited us – The Damsels in Distress – to be one of the opening bands for Chris Staples who was stopping through Springfield on his “Golden Age” album release tour on a Monday evening Labor Day.

We were sitting in the kitchen and talking about what our set list would be when M asked me, “what would get you out on a Monday night to see a band play?” I immediately said that I would go somewhere if there was free food and if there was a chance for me to win a prize. And then I said, “like a cakewalk.” Then we both looked at each other and nodded vigorously. We would do a cakewalk! So, I made up some flyers.

We taped numbers on the floor and had a volunteer roll dice after each song. Whoever was standing on the number that was rolled won a cake from HyVee or coffee from the Coffee Ethic or the Mudhouse. It was a fun time. I drew this picture of what it looked like when I imagined it, and used Inktense pencils Iris Blue and Mauve blended together.