36x36 resin-coated acrylic on canvas with glitter. Ready to hang. 

Dave Matthews Band reminds me of the fun parts of high school. Boys on the drumline and their girlfriends in the color guard. The band room where everyone would sit on the floor at 5:30 a.m. before zero hour started at six. When there were big competitions everyone would decorate the whole room. Each section of the marching band had a portion of wall and everyone would make posters for each person. There was a hierarchy of course amongst the band kids but they were all a part of something positive - with goals they worked as a collective towards. 

Maybe this is just me, but you don’t realize until you’re an adult how difficult it is to meet people based on something positive you’re doing. It’s all get blackout drunk or let's consume 8,000 calories socially or lets get together and talk about all of the things that are awful about life or lets talk about products we’re buying or want to buy. It’s never hey let's create this together. Let's work really, really hard and spend a lot of time making it perfect. It’s a drive that most people seem to grow out of. It’s all just consume, bitch about what’s consumed, consume more, and bitch about the repercussions again. 

I’m happy I was a band kid for a minute, with all of my friends also in the band or colorguard for a time. It taught me how to work for things and have friends and a room to go to that people decorated for important occasions, always including my name too. One homecoming dance night we had practice all morning in the freezing rain with huge flags that had just been dyed variations of blue. Our skin was blue for a few days after that. My girlfriends convinced me to go with them to the dance. I remember the joy of getting ready, our hands, arms, and necks blotched with blue dye. Each of us had an old bright pink caboodle that we kept our makeup in. It was our bond. We called each other the Pinkies. 

But then, I met my boyfriend. And after that, I didn’t know how to care about anything else. I only knew how to hate myself. I quit the colorguard and the winter guard, and all of my friends graduated and went on to college.

But I still go to competitions even now, 25 years later. Once I brought my husband and his parents, who were visiting from England. The competition was in an arena, and I bought them a bucket of nachos for dinner. Which, sitting in basketball seats and with a 48oz fountain Coke on the side is the most American meal one can get. I love the performances. But I also love seeing all of the groups sit together. With handmade scrunchies, matching jackets, and how you can tell how excited they are to see specific groups perform. From experience, I know they share thousands of hours of travel, practice, and inside jokes. It’s insane to me that I’m old enough to be their parent, and how young they all look. It’s also comforting to know that even though girlhood was something I lost violently and abruptly - it’s still out there thriving. And young girls are still working really hard at something important to them with all of their friends. 

These days my social battery is at zero. I maintain three or four very close relationships but more and more lately I cannot fathom in any way shape or form being in large groups or meeting new people. I was looking at Facebook memories of a 30+ person Friendsgiving I went to ten years ago. Everyone was smiling and posing for pictures in a packed house. It feels like planets and lifetimes ago, even the perception of nostalgia. My life experience has been every contrast and complement of vivid, screaming color. But lately, are all the colors mixing together to grey? Did I heal or masterfully isolate myself from being triggered as I stumble through my memories? 

This painting is a portrait of the pops of youth that peak out and radiate. They overpower the grey of all the busted up stuff of day to day life. A place where the emptiness at the surface meets the places and times in my heart and mind that I don’t visit often enough. 

So anyway. Dave Matthews Band reminds me of being a teenager for a summer, so I thought I’d put it on a canvas and talk about why.