At Home

Are titles significant?

I believe they are!

Coming up with a subtitle for Portraits of White every year is a challenge. Even if ticket buyers never see a subtitle printed anywhere, it helps me focus and serves as a compass for the year's worth of necessary planning.

By Candlelight - 2019

For example, in 2019, once I decided on the title Portraits of White By Candlelight, I was able to imagine what the show would entail and could structure my ideas around those two words...By Candlelight. 

Ivory & Ice - 2020?

I was 95% sure that the subtitle for this year's Portraits of White would be Ivory & Ice. I was 100% determined to find a way to incorporate ice skating into the 2020 production. Since you'll see some footage of me skating in the DVD we've created, I guess you could say it sort of happened. Not quite the same but...

When I was a young girl, I had two loves...playing the piano and ice skating. The show has the potential to bring those two loves together IF I could just figure out a way to have the show at an ice rink. LOL!

You can see a mockup of our idea...a rough draft poster idea for what might have been.

When we landed on the subtitle Ivory & Ice, something else happened. All of my bells and whistles went off inside and I had the strange sensation that it could also be the title of a book...my book perhaps?!

You see, there's a much bigger story behind the show than just the loss of my two brothers and my journey with Christmas. Something powerful happened to me when I took up figure skating the same year that I started the show in 2014. It's as if I stepped into a time machine, was transported back to my childhood to a place of freedom and joy. It had such a profound affect on me that it became the seed for my 2016 album release, Brand New Me.

I don't know if I'll actually ever really finish this book, let alone allow anyone to read it. I don't know if I'd actually end up calling it Ivory & Ice either. I DO know that I sense the need to write the story down, for my own sake. Writing organizes my emotional closet. I think you've heard me say that before. I've heard others say that too.

When COVID hit, I not only wrestled with parting with this year's subtitle idea, but it looked like the show itself wouldn't be happening. In fact, by August, I had given up on the show for 2020.

At Home - 2020!

My team had played around with various subtitle ideas appropriate for everyone's new 2020 "normal" and the moment someone suggested At Home, something inside me said, YES! Then, I got the DVD idea. I poured myself into the Portraits of White At Home idea and I am delighted to have something to offer that everyone can watch while they stay home this year. 

Now, as I start to recover from trying to cram a year's project into about four weeks, I find writing is a great way to rejuvenate the creative side of me and I've picked up my pencil again.

Now that you know all of that...this journal entry will make more sense.  ;-)

Journal entry: March 16, 2020 - Monday

"Sunday morning I got up and started writing my book "Ivory and Ice". I feel compelled to write it, now that I have a title and I've finished Robert McKee's book, Story. (Due to the Corona Virus, we didn't have church, though it was online.) 

Reading the intro of Richard Paul Evan's book, The Broken Road, has inspired/compelled me for the first time to START! I had inklings before, but it never felt quite right. When we came up with Ivory & Ice for Portraits of White, something clicked inside. 

I have pretty much been forced to put Portraits of White on hold with this virus. Trying to confirm a venue just got even more complicated. So it's on hold, which somehow frees up emotional space to write...or start writing my story. I pulled out more journals yesterday to research the one big inciting incident that began to separate mother and me. [A crucial part of my story.] It appears that it happened in 1997, but so far I can't find any writings on it. 

But one thing has become clear to me as I read back through my writings. I've sown a ton of seeds of prayer and scripture. It has certainly been my life-line. Yet, I feel as if I don't see much fruit as a result of it. In fact, in the natural, things look more bleak than ever. 

Father, do you hear me? Do you hear my cries? Am I totally missing something? If so, what? I keep calling out to you. Show me great and mighty things I haven't known or seen. Please. 

Father, I'm asking for an entire, strong, powerful encounter and outpouring of Your divine love."

Order your Portraits of White At Home DVD or USB HERE.

Deeper Trust

The Spring Concert Series was eventually cancelled.

Journal entry: March 14, 2020 - Saturday

"Postponed video shoot for my Spring Concert Series...

Email from Senator Bob Casey made me decide to wait. Why risk?

Did my usual housecleaning and my 1 1/2 hour bike ride along the spring. Worked in the yard after lunch—head start on the spring weeds.

Church cancelled tomorrow...virus.

Listened to an interview with Rick Bright on research for a vaccine. Fascinating. A Kansas farm kid, government chickens, eggs...the process for making a vaccine and the market needed to produce it, buy it.

For now schools are cancelled...more gigs lost. 

Oh well. 

Deeper trust."

I was reading The Broken Road, by Richard Paul Evans at the time. (I highly recommend it.) When I'm reading a book, I often copy phrases into my journal that stir me or help me express what I'm feeling. It takes me longer to finish a book when I do this, but I find that the impact of the book lingers long past the reading of it. 

The phrase I wrote in my journal on March 14 was a perfect way to describe how this unwanted virus was making me feel at the time...and I still feel this way today.

"It was a game of emotional chess."  

A Mixture of Joy and Depletion.

I feel a strong mixture of joy and depletion. It's a familiar feeling that I've grown accustomed to when it comes to sharing my music with the world. 

I have just completed the first phase of the Portraits of White 2020 At Home DVD/USB project.  It was a last-minute idea that took me by storm the day it popped into my brain the last weekend in September.

This project is a collection of all the things people have loved about the winter concert over the years, all in one package! It's really a Portraits of White musical scrapbook containing video footage from the past six years, a few new surprises and some bonus features all woven together into one delightful experience.

My hope is that you'll feel as if you are attending this year's Portraits of White, in person, while staying at home.

The video masters and project artwork are now in the hands of the manufacturer and we are planning on it being ready in time for Christmas. Once again, people have rallied around my idea and are placing their orders!

I started out in January with lots of creative ideas for Portraits of White 2020, but they were slowly swallowed up by the pandemic. I soon lost my creative spark for the beloved winter show and poured myself into my daily Hit Pause sessions on Facebook LIVE. 

The fact that I have anything to offer related to Portraits of White this year is a miracle. It has not come without a struggle, but nothing of value rarely comes struggle-free.

I have found that when we share our struggles, others often find encouragement. So for the next few weeks, I'll be sharing excerpts from my journal with you and it seems appropriate to start with that frightful day in March...

March 13, 2020 - Friday

Corona Virus has caused a lot of shutdown. 

Church, government. Encouraged to stay home and only go out as necessary. 

Concerts cancelled. Baseball. Boston Marathon. Maryland schools closed for two weeks. 

I was supposed to shoot a video for my Spring Concert Series tomorrow, but I'm not sure we should do that. I'm waiting to hear from the venue.

I'm trying to find my way through so much muck. I usually have a scripture I hold on to through seasons like this, but I feel like I'm grabbing at straws. So I go to the last time I felt the whisper of the Spirit...Song of Songs..."let Him kiss you." 

A few phrases from Song of Songs that jump out at me:

"I am at rest in this love." I want to know what that feels like. Lord, please skip over the hills that separate you and me and come to me. Gaze into my soul, peering through the portal, blossom within my heart! Draw me to your heart and lead me out. Father, help me identify the little sly foxes in my heart that hinder our relationship, for they raid our budding vineyard of love to ruin what you've planted within me. Help me catch them and remove them. Please, can we do it together? I give you permission.

I know for sure that this book (Song of Solomon) is calling me closer to Him as I read. I can tell He must want to love me and tell me of His love through it, but my heart has so much resistance (or maybe my soul/brain) that I can tell it will take lots of soaking time to penetrate my terrorized soul. 

To learn more about Portraits of White or to order your DVD/USB, click here.