We were lucky to catch up with Colleen Murphy recently and have shared our conversation below.
Colleen , appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
When considering the projects of which there have been many, over the years….Murals, sculptures, albums, educational endeavors, I find that the times when my arts have effected me as the most poingnant grew from my attempt to heal old deep wounds. After all I believe that is the base of much of the worlds great art.. Create, then to be vulnerable and put that art out in the world and let it sit naked before the world. I have a very dear friend who knew I was an artist before I did. In fact this happened a few times before I understood, We are that which we believe we are. That friend was so moved over one of my songs that tears welled up in her eyes. My attempt to heal my pain was a universal message that healed anothers wound. That to me was the most powerful meaningful moment, Next to the birth of my sons, ( but I feel hesitant to call them projects.) To be able to heal through mutual abstraction is to me alchemy..
When I look to the memories of my biggest lessons I recieved the wisdom from song and music. I feel this is the truest connection to source energy there is.
I am facinated by the connection of vibrational frequency and the harmonics of music, and how they allign with nature, mathematics and form.
Colleen , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
The arts have always had a large presence in my life. from the beginning. I was an early reader, and facinated by drawing. I also had a great love of snoopy and musical theatre. So my mother being invested in my interests got me into children’s theatre. I was the only child in the local high school prodution of Showboat at the age of 5. that was it, I was thrust into the local professional theatre group, with a few select children, probably learning the early characteristics of my bohemian lifestyle. This became about half of the focus of my waking hours untilI was 14. The other half spent reading or drawing Snoopy or Snoopy offshoots. My mother at that time owned a bookstore. At a yearly booksellers convention she learned Charles Schultz the creator of the Peanuts cartoon would be attending. I was beside myself. I had a drawing of a character I’d invented known as Julie, Snoopys sister. I got the thrill of meeting him and giving him my drawings, and telling him to use my ideas. About 6 months later Snoopys sister”Belle ‘ based on my drawings appeared on the scene and in the mail I got a letter thanking me and enclosing some very special lithographs of Snoopy, Belle, and his whole bluegrass playing family. Mabye this was a telling sign of the musicql path I was later to walk
Ive gone on to live an adventure filled life of experience and have been a painter, a potter, author, teacher, homesteader, musician and singer songwriter, and actress, and parent to three sons.
My current passions are my band and songwriting endeavors, Because I truly believe the world can be healed with the arts I hope that my music will reach a broad audience inspiring hope from the themes of my writing. I also am a found art artist and sculptor and have been blessed to get generous dontions from the musical community so I can create art guitars and various mixed media sculpture.
My Band is Bottlerocket Hurricane. My first albun 42 is up on all streaming platforms. This was a labor of love with ten songs. 6 original songs of mine and 2 from Ben Hanrahan and 2 written by Jack Laub. We produced this album with Micah Lundy and released it just as the covid lockdown was lifting-might I add to a sold out house.
This was the first experience I had with recording that sounded like what I hear in my mind. To me this was a a great acomplishment. We are going back in the studio soon to record an EP of a few dusted off originals as well as some fresh tracks. Performing my music and feeding off the energy of a live audience is a magical experience like no other., I like to think that much like the energy I felt in my early touring days with the Grateful Dead I can connect with an audience and include everyone on a musical adventure far bigger than ourselves.
My art works and other endeavors can be found under the name Thinning Veil Artworks on all media platforms. There you will get a sample of my ecclectic style of arts from functional to visual. furniture restoration, soapmaking, classes and workshops,
and more.
My next adventure has been a musical series that began as an attempt to keep my friends afloat who were primarily living on arts as a occupation prior to covid. FOX CITY House Concerts is a monthly gathering of local talent in my Park Hill home. This has been a really great way to connect with my community and is a platform to champion the need for a fair wages for artists and creatives.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
As an author and songwriter, I really appreciate and resonte with the written word. I have been lucky to call some very talented musicians friends. In the fallout since lockdown year, I have endured many of my close friends taking their lives or being termannaly ill or close to death. It has been a great comfort to me to be able to share some of their songs with my own band Bottlerocket Hurricane.
When I play a songs written by these friends they are there with me in my heart and spirit. It was a very hard turn losing
my two best friends Ryan Hall and Ben Hanrahan within one week. I am honored to have helped Ryan exit and Ben heal but it was really difficult for me, They and a few other close friends who I have also lost, left an enormous absence in my support system. Fortunately Ben survived but was in and out of the hospital for months and ended up having to leave the state. My other close friend had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, another suicide. all in all Ive lost 7of my closest friends in the last in various degrees. I am grateful and conscious of every moment and how precious it is. I am grateful to have insisted my friend Lara Keithley publish her songs on spotifyn so I can hear her whenever my heart hurts.
I have the gift of being able to sing and play several of their songs. I often marvel at why that is & why its me, life being such a mystery. The fact is that I have been blessed & given the opportunity to perform for people I love, the songs wrtten by those I love.
That is beautiful to me.
What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?
My new endeavor came about in just that way. I am hosting a new house concert series in Park Hill called Fox City House Concerts. During covid I noticed I had seen many of my artist and musician friends who had moved to CO to thrive as proffesional artists. One by one they were leaving town because there were no opportunities to perform.
New opportunities started to sprout up for street concerts and house concerts. My friends Rachael and Brian Peterson had a house concert series in their Parker home at that time, so I called her and asked how to do it, We are still finishing our first season and have been blessed to have some amazing artists play in my own back yard.
I have always wanted to start an artist community in an old chuch reminisant of Arlo’s Alice/Muppet glory. As it is I live in a cooperative house with several other musicians and am hoping to convert my garage into studio and practice space so we are seeking donations for insulation, and building materials, and garden materials for a community garden to get this going strong. As a single mom of three I have had to be very resourceful always to get my dreams to come to fruition (donations and found items making up her majority of my art) but as we see the world filling up with waste and depleating its resources I think that this may have been ahead of its time forward thinking.
I accept being a hippie cliche, but I really do believe the change in the world I want to see will be made by the move to small intentional arts and homesteady communities. Lets save the world with the arts. Festival 365! Pay the artists what they deserve to get paid, its worth it.
Donate your old materials dont throw them out. Teach the children to love music and writing, art, dancing & creating. Keep playing. Make artist friendly living spaces and community centers. Fort Collins has a tremendous arts community, I am hoping Denver will follow suit. Im happy to become the creative director if anyone out there wants to be an angle investor for this to happen.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://bottlerockethurricane.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thinning_veil_artworks/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ThinningVeilArtworks/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@bottlerockethurricane7450
- Other: https://www.facebook.com/groups/310075957864437 Fox City House Concerts to book band or custom orders for art, or to join mailing list send an email to [email protected] or send messaes direct through facebook, instagram, or website. Bottlerocket Hurricane Thinning Veil Artworks Fox City House Concerts
Image Credits
cover photo credit Jhonette Perdue