For more than 35 years, my art has been largely focused on creating work that provides some analysis of the social, political and economic factors that impact everyday life. For decades, my artistic practice has reflected writer Arundhati Roy’s assertion in 2004 that artists need to pick a side and fight instead of being silent to society’s challenges because we have been seduced by the pursuit of wealth or fame.

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What has shifted in my art and research over the past eight years is my focus on proposing solutions. This was succinctly expressed by visual artist Zak Ové who shared, at a talk that I attended in 2024, that he tries not to bleed on the canvas but to propose solutions instead. I have decades of experience metaphorically bleeding my pain and others’ pain into my art. It resonated with me deeply when Ové identified proposing solutions as his artistic philosophy. I was intentional in all of the songwriting in this album to do just that and it proved to be the most difficult and rewarding writing that I have ever done. My attention to solutions required a heightened degree of awareness during the lyric and music writing processes that yielded songs that are not naïvely positive but grounded in reflections gleaned from life experience. I continue to be inspired by Ové’s articulation and I feel called by the complex social, political, economic, and environmental uncertainties the world faces to propose some solutions through song.  

I am a multidisciplinary artist but my first love is making music perhaps because it includes my second love, writing. Together music and words amplify and simplify one another and resonate deep within me like a prayer, or a mantra often with questions at its core: What do I want for myself, my family, communities, this world? How am I contributing? Artmaking is my vocation and when I listen to these 10 songs I feel like I’ve fulfilled my responsibility as an artist. I am proud of this music and of these lyrics. Written in the summer of 2024 and recorded that fall, the songs were produced by John Anthony Gagnon-Robinette of White Barn Studio, recorded by Luc Boivins at Red Tube Studio, and mixed and mastered by Luc Tellier. The musicians were Jason Promesse (drums), Neil Benskin (bass guitar), Joseph Shanahan (keyboard and piano), and Elijah Mansevani (acoustic and electric guitar). Promesse and Benskin have played on all of four of my albums (since 2001), while Shanahan and Mansevani have played on my last two albums. The 10 songs on this album most succinctly encapsulate my analysis as a human being who is an artist, woman, wife, scholar, and mother. I hope we can connect through these songs.