Take a Walk Around Stanardsville, VA

What the sculptor saw in the mural:

The repeating hills felt like a lens into Stanardsville. The endless movement of the Mountains made me wonder if there was a beginning or an end. I couldn’t help but want to rotate the image, seeing this landscape as a spinning kaleidoscope of the beauty of this place and the people who live there. 

As someone on the outside, I wanted to create a lens into your home. I chose to use the motif of rolling hills and strung them together like the painter’s brush just continued to circle all around the earth. My hope is that this sculpture has a dual vantage point, like a looking glass into the town and a mirror to celebrate that you are a part of what you see.

What the ceramicist saw in the sculpture:

Circles and more circles. Circles. Circles, it all circles back to circles.

What the songwriter saw in the pottery:

Once Consenses gave me the go ahead, I made the image the lockscreen  of my phone for a week of “writing” and would glance at it any time I held the device in my hands. I was using the power of my subconscious to observe the art through my daily life. 2 very similar faces side by side with minor differences but many identical characteristics stared back at me and I began to be intrigued by human expression, normally so fluid, fixed as a solid. The purple background of the art board was a  fitting complement to the plain colors of unfinished ceramics. I began to think of the faces as different versions of art:  war masks, death masks, statues, paintings, people, wood carving and more all cascaded through my head as I sorted the ceremonial from the metaphorical.

I knew I had to order all these observations into a song and, at 4:30 on Friday evening, I decided to go sit by the Rivanna River and not leave until the song was fully written. As I walked out of my door with my guitar on my back, I was on the phone with my mum and by a strange twist of beauty, the conversation and composition became connected. I sat down on a bench, studied the photo and began to type in my iPhone notes. The name “Stone Face” was always the name it had to go by so I started with it. The song came slowly at first but as I immersed myself in the universe I was crafting, I began to discover new intricacies I could expand on. If I got stuck I would glance back at the image to re-center myself. I began to hear the sonic’s of the final production in my head and the mumbled melodies sliding past my lips drew me into thinking of ancient empires and mythical stories of crossing into the afterlife. I couldn’t help but include little bits of my life and was excited to find this “random” piece I was composing was a way for me to tell my own story.

By 9:30pm, I had the song I knew I needed. I recorded an iPhone demo with the sounds of birds in the background, and looked up from my phone. I quickly scooted home and sat down and made the version of the song that you were listening to as I was waiting for my friend to finish his show and come over at 1:30 AM.

The discussion with my mom that a perceived lack of control over my life which makes me feel frightened lent itself to those last lines of the chorus “Fossilized the bits to me that right when they lose command”. Thank you for listening.

Written 6/30/23 at Riverview Park Charlottesville between the hours of 5PM and 9:30 PM.*

Lyrics:

I be thinking with Stone Face on
I could never be a two face one
One eye open when I’m sleeping though
For the me I need to let on go

Water droplets my clay face now
Going through the all the motions yeah
Dripping words out a marbled mouth,
their ocean sounds, emotion now

Don’t you know that purple fades to grey and
I know I got days where I am petrified
I’m turning into stone and I am crumbling
Dust and bones and patterns that etched in me

Dichotomy inside of me, dictate to me who I should be
It’s crystalline help me define, the breath that blows the sands of time
The living find the burry-ing time most uncomfortable
Fossilize the bits of me that riot when they loose command

I be slipping off my warriors mask
Falling silent for my requiem
Brow cut from the glowing core
Digging deep under the floor

Blinking open up my winking eyes
Cross a river here a ferry comes
paupers penny half blocks my sight
Spell a story just to make the rite

Don’t you know that purple fades to grey and
I know I got days where I am petrified
I’m turning into stone and I am crumbling
Dust and bones and patterns that etched in me

Dichotomy inside of me, dictate to me who I should be
It’s crystalline help me define, the breath that blows the sands of time
The living find the burry-ing time most uncomfortable
Fossilize, the bits of me that riot when they loose command

Back before the world fell down, it was easy to just to look and see
The earth it split, and fell in two
different colors make their decree
Two faces looking say I knew it all along
From dust to dust, the tension loose it cannot last too long

Dichotomy inside of me, dictate to me who I should be
It’s crystalline help me define, the breath that blows the sands of time
The living find the burry-ing time most uncomfortable
Fossilize, the bits of me that riot when they loose command

What the barista’s saw in the song:

The song Stone Face feels like a profound reflection of oneself. The lyrics seem to depict somebody who is grappling between different sides of themself, searching for a way to make sense of who they are over time. We hear a tug and pull of someone aware of who they have been and yet undergoing a change; a change they are open to if not completely sold on.  In fact, the change sounds very uncertain…”grey” and “blurry”.  What will it be like to exist in this new place?  Will it be better than the “purple” that was known before? Purple is a color of beauty, but can also be very dark.  Grey is the color of question.  Unknown. They wear a stone face to protect themself, yet they melt into their raw self and seek guidance from within.  When faced with an unknown new reality, the songwriter is apprehensive, and yet professes a desire to “slip off the warrior’s mask”.  Like the writer, the drink fades from purple to grey.  What will you taste? Will it be something you can lean into? Enjoy or merely accept?  The song captures a moment of nervousness and uncertainty.  The drink, Lavender Mist, brings a comfort, a resolution. It calms and it suits every season.  We hope you like it as much as we do. 

The words in the song “Stone Face” inspired us to create this drink we are calling Lavender Mist The lyrics, water droplets, ocean sounds, purple fades to grey, reminded us of a storm cloud with the sunlight shining through. In this drink we use Espresso, Charcoal, Lavender and Milk.