Instead of my saying that I had a hard early life, I’ll just say that there are, sometimes, parts of life that one feels like they could just white out and paint all over.
And yet perhaps, if one looks very closely, one can see the original painting under the painting.
That’s like what I like to do as I consider myself a musical painter of sorts. It’s little known about me that I painted fine art for a handful of years before I started writing songs, and I can relate to artists like Debussy who found the dream within a dream of things.
So, in a recent music review by Beach Sloth, I am glad to be called a “dream pop” artist as I certainly feel like this description fits me and my band these days. One of my most whimsical songs is “My Imaginary Friend,” a song slated to be on my next album, Isabel and The Whispers 2.
I’ll also mention that I happen to have always also been known as rather literary. I used to have about 100 notebooks of writing that I eventually destroyed.
Yet before I did so, I saved poems from the notebooks and that was all that I really saved from them. Those poems are in my collection Heart’s Eye available on Amazon. I also have a collection of paintings from my years of painting (I still occasionally draw and paint) that is featured in my book Unwinding Paths. It also includes my photography.
Anyway, when I moved to New York, I began writing songs just as a fun experiment at the behest of a friend, and I went on to find a wonderful and supportive bandmate not long after to whom I would always unveil my songs for him to accompany on percussion to great effects.
I write songs to say things in a way that I can’t say otherwise because if I just wanted to say things straight, I wouldn’t find the need for songs.
Songs and music, in general, challenge speech and writing and all of its rationale. They are an alternative form of communication.
Anyway, as a result of our work, my bandmates and I gathered enough tracks to make an album and that became Isabel and The Whispers.
Each track offers a painting under the painting that can barely be seen…because, as an artist, it’s not the mere facts that are of interest to me, it’s everything else that is more interesting to me – that is to say, the subtle, the amorphous, and the intangible “music of things.”
Below, is one of my paintings entitled, “Promise,” an oil painting done on canvas that has been shown at several art shows and that is in my book, Unwinding Paths, which you can check out on Kindle here.
Hi, I’m Isabel Marcheselli, a musical artist and writer, If you liked this post, please “like,” “favorite,” leave a comment, or “share” it with others to show your support – it really helps me get me and my band get music out there – thanks! Also visit my links at: https://linktr.ee/isabelmarcheselli
