I imagine that when it’s all over and I’m in the great locker room of life, it will feel like the closing moments of Jazz Fest. I know I won’t be ready…the bands play on and at 7:01 pm they stop, spotlights blare and everyone heads to the exit gates. More of a survival dance than a sacred dance now.
Juxtapose this with a friend who wrote me recently and said she wouldn’t be buying anymore jewelry, that she was going more internally than externally. Being an artist, I wrestled with that, making my wearable shrines of intention, vowing years ago to only make from meaning, I know that these talismans give deep meaning to our inner lives and pull us into a deeper expression of who we are, the outside telling a story of who we are on the inside.
But back to Jazz Fest. You see, I have this analogy that the Fest represents a microcosm of a life. Are you part of a yearly gathering or a friend group that gets together every year? If so, maybe you know what I mean.
Going on twenty-five years now of attending Jazz Fest New Orleans has been one of pure love. I think I’d like to rename it Love Fest! Through those gates I have met some of my best friends-family for life. It has been one of honor to be selected as an artist for this lovely group of humans coming through the gates. I have made custom pieces for weddings, graduations, births, death of friends and partners, and to be making and showing long enough to see some of their babies, now adults, graduation gifts and sadly, some as healing gifts to the parents who have lost their child. I have met and sold to many rock stars, most recently, Ann Wilson of Heart. These wearable shrines of intention have become a talisman for healing and remembrance. I have been privy to the first Jazz Fest after Katrina. The city was still in shock, spray painted “X’s” still donned the doors proclaiming if any victims or pets were found inside.
But it is in the everyday people that I love most. Just this past Fest several weeks ago, an older woman with a cane came up to me and said she wanted to buy a necklace. She handed it to me and I saw that it was the pendant, “Heal Fast”. I looked her deep in the eyes and somehow knew it was for her. I took her hand and closed it and said, “this is my gift for you”. She broke down in my crowded booth sobbing and said she was told she had three months to live. The crowd disappeared in my mind and we held each other for a long time, now both of us crying. I noticed she was all alone in a sea of people, which broke my heart even more. I told her how much she is loved, valued and cherished on this planet. I know it wasn’t my silly little pendant that ripped her wide open. I believe it was that someone actually “saw” her. That someone looked her in the eye and wanted her to stay strong and stay the course.
This is one of the many stories how art helps create a beautiful container for the deeper meaning of why we are all here. I now see these wearable shrines of intention have become a spiritual navigation system to myself and to the wearer. To make only from meaning, to care deeply about what I put out there, to run my own race and to relax in the knowing that at the end of the day I’ve done the very best I can is all I can do and it is my life's work.
Each year I take less and less for granted, both in my work and in my life. I guess that is the greatest gift of age and experience. That these moments are so finite and precious and that these times may very well be the last things that flash before our eyes in the final seconds of the closing act. Flying home several years ago, I looked down over the plains. Everything looked so perfect. Designs, shapes and varying shades of green reminding me that all is one. That in a world of increasing polarity to remember that we are all walking each other home from the most amazing time of our lives.
Nancy + Team Sweet Bird