Meandering lines
I've been thinking a lot about Meandering lines lately. Usually you start to see a lot of overlaps when you look back on memories. It's amazing to see the events that had to happen to get to where you are at in that moment in time.
Music and Art are great examples of a meaningful thread that is woven throughout our lives. Sometimes when working on a drawing you get an original spark of inspiration in a story and then by the end of it you don't remember what came first. The story behind the drawing or the drawing behind the story. It unlocks so many memories and this is a look at a few of those threads.
I was working one day on a drawing that was inspired after a lyric from a slimdan song:
All of the grapes in Tuscany
Don't really matter much to me
Looking at you, looking at me
This really spoke to me in a way where you could feel the time stand still, even for just a moment. That you can have all these amazing beautiful things surrounding you but at the end of the day they are inconsequential to that moment you are having by looking into each other's eyes.¹ However, let's take a step back to see how we got here.
The Fillmore
Before I did this drawing, I went to the Fillmore Miami Beach to see slimdan. He was finally in my hometown and I couldn't wait to see him. I have only been listening to him obsessively since I started listening to him a few years ago. It was a short set though — he was opening on Maren Morris's Dreamsicle Tour.² Didn't matter to me — finally I get to experience his music live.
After his set I met Danny at his merch table. He introduced me to his sister, and she asked how I got into him. I told them it really is all because of a Zusha post about writing with him (late 2023).
slimdan watching Maren Morris @ The Fillmore 2026 | the merch table w/slimdan 2026 | Zusha, Moshav & Alex Clare @ Avenue J 2016
Now what's interesting is I have followed Zusha since 2016, when they played the Avenue J Festival in Coconut Grove with Alex Clare and Moshav Band.³ You could say this one drawing wouldn't have come to fruition if I didn't go to that Zusha concert in 2016 — which set all of this in motion.
Providence
Providence Day School, where I went for Middle/Upper School in Charlotte, NC ('99–'05). Mr. Hark was the Dean of Students. One day he pulled me into his office (maybe I was in trouble or not; honestly could have been either reason) to show me Matisyahu performing "King Without a Crown" on Jimmy Kimmel.⁴ He thought it would be something I would care about, and boy was he right. That turned out to be one major inspirational moment in my life.
Upon graduation he made me and some close friends each a personalized mix CD. I have attempted to rebuild mine as a Spotify playlist below — unfortunately I don't remember the original order, but did my best to recreate it.
It was so inspirational to learn from someone in so many different ways, teaching through music when the class wasn't even about music. An Architecture class at the same school⁵ sent me on a path to the School of Architecture at the University of Miami, where I eventually met my wife and settled down with my family in Miami Beach.
Remember that Avenue J Festival? It was at the Barnacle, a historic building in Coconut Grove that before 2016 I had gone to with my Architecture School to learn about that same building.
The Map
All roads lead to Miami.
Solid lines: where each thread came from to reach me. Dotted lines: deeper origins (off-canvas) and later trajectories.
|
A Tuscan Picnic
$36 · Comfort Colors 1717 · four colorways
A couple on a hillside in Tuscany, lost in each other's eyes while the vineyards and the sunset go on without them.
Get the shirt →
|
Notes
¹ Two days before I made the drawing, I was listening to Broken Record — the Rick Rubin / Malcolm Gladwell / Bruce Headlam podcast — and Dave Grohl was on. Somewhere in that conversation Grohl said the thing that made me feel less self-conscious about reading my own meaning into "Celebrity Lookalikes": "Something that means everything to me could mean nothing to you." He was talking about the asymmetry of songwriting. The writer carries one thing; the listener carries another; both are real. Listen on Spotify →
² The Dreamsicle Tour: Maren Morris's 2026 spring run, with slimdan as main support.
³ Avenue J Music Festival, Year 3. January 24, 2016, at The Barnacle State Park in Coconut Grove, Miami. Hosted by Chabad of the Grove (Rabbi Getzy Fellig). The headliner was Alex Clare; Zusha and Moshav Band both played as support on the same outdoor stage.
⁴ Around 2005, Matisyahu broke through nationally with a string of network late-night appearances — Leno, Letterman, Kimmel — plus CNN coverage of his Hasidic-reggae set going mainstream, performing "King Without a Crown" in full black hat and beard. It looked, at the time, like a category error. Lee Hark was Dean of Students at Providence Day from 2004 to 2008.
⁵ Christopher Wallace was the Upper School Visual Arts teacher at Providence Day. He built the Architecture class for me because he thought I would enjoy it. He was right. That class is the reason I applied to the University of Miami. His teaching philosophy: art is for the viewer to engage with — not for guessing the artist's intent.