We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Patrick Carey. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Patrick below.

Patrick, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s been one of the most interesting investments you’ve made – and did you win or lose? (Note, these responses are only intended as entertainment and shouldn’t be construed as investment advice)

Investment is a living practice, an active concept that ironically took me quite some time to realize the value of, and reckon with.
While growing up I found myself commonly putting other people’s emotions and dreams, desires and needs before my own.
My family moved around a good bit, at pivotal times in my upbringing…zig-zagging from East Coast to Midwest before settling into the south around my late teens. Hopping from school to school, from friends to solitude, trying to carve out my little tribe wherever I landed.
I was always with a longing for connectivity to the wild understanding, that curious reflective relevance beaming out from a construct that felt very much designed to dissuade the viewer from ever seeing it.
I really grappled with “investing” in myself for quite awhile, in the traditional terminology anyhow.
I adopted a bit of an Absurdist worldview, coupled with an immense reverence for the fantastic intangible.
In far plainer terms, I fully embraced the notion that “the present” is all there is,
Now is all we are ever guaranteed, therefore why spend the now on the maybe laters?
It kept me in a headspace where there was never enough time to invest in my long-term self, or allow for what I was driven to create and build to be nurtured into maturity. That’s the thing with investing in anything…you do so to fortify the fates, and where I was investing my time and energy was specifically questioning that tomorrow even existed.
Not sure how I latched on to that so fervently back then, so it goes…
I can’t speak to how one should or shouldn’t embrace their path any more articulately than the next, but I can say that as my life evolved, a whole shift from that perspective came over me.
There were more than a few personal factors that guided this well awaited change in my daily worldview, and key among them was investment…
Investment in joy and purpose
In love and patience
In self and service
In home and community
In the belief that we chase each day further than the last, and eagerly challenge tomorrow.
This change in me brought the world’s finest love to my door, and I was finally ready to receive it.
Wild inspirations to the craft, and I was hearing them everywhere.
Projects and ideas unfolding and growing with each fearless obstacle accepted.
The way out there can be all sorts of messy and bleak, divine and delicious.
I choose to put it all to the test and give every bit of beauty I’ve got.
Best investment ever.

Patrick, 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?

I’m a songwriter and poet, electrician and designer, producer and seeker, good ol renaissance dreamer.
I’ve been writing poetry, prose and songs for over 30 odd years.
My current musical vehicle is called Out on the Eaves, and I released a full length album titled The Ride Out last year, on a label I started here in Memphis called Red Curtain Records.
It’s an artist-centric, grass-roots indie record label in its infancy, and I couldn’t be more excited to be party to such a dreamy venture, and for all the future releases in store.
Out on the Eaves was the first album on Red Curtain Records, and a project immensely dear to me that’s been a long time brewing. I’ve written and performed and recorded for many years now, but finally feel like I approached the muse in a way deserving of its spirit, and am elated that others have found beauty and solace in the songs.
I’m currently at work on the follow up record, and feel so grateful to have that communication open and a receptive community available.
I don’t, however make my living from creative songcraft, or the music industry at all.
My daily deal, full time bread is our renovation and design company here in Memphis called Wood & Wire Designs.
Partnered with a master builder and woodworker, and I as the electrical and design side of the equation, we span a wide array of projects, centered around turn of the century homes and timeless yet eclectic remodeling.
This setup works pretty well on many fronts…
I believe I thrive artistically when distinctly separating my creative craft from my livelihood, it keeps the channels a little more clear for me.
I’m a homebody husband to a brilliant, reclusive oil painter wife. I’m father to a 10 month old baby girl and her three older siblings, and I’ve somehow been graced with the bizarre headspace to conjure up all manner of endless projects… from running a renovation and design business, to crafting ethereal sonic structures and starting a record label, to us constantly evolving our home into calming and livable art, all while trying to wisely navigate the maelstroms that come with being your own creative conduit in a more than uncertain landscape.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

As a young artist coming of age in the early to mid 90’s, as there has been all throughout 20th Century pop culture, I was inundated with the concept that great art is born of struggle, ruthless toiling and mining of the darkest recesses of our life experience. All our wild heroes, literary and musical influences, bombastic freak-show performers and deeply isolated, hermetic artists all appeared, and were ‘celebrated” as sharing one common thread… a passion born of disconnection, disillusion, pain, hardship and rebellion.
From the dawn of all enlightened culture, there has always been the presupposition that pain and grief produce the finest works of art, and that sacrifice of joy is vital to accessing our most driven expressions.
The list of luminaries that influence this mentality could go on forever, and folks generally tend to be drawn to a great tragedy more so than a peaceful tale of longevity. We were raised to admire the “burn bright, fast and die young” figureheads of our respective crafts, for they certainly commanded more immediate attention and their inevitable collapse is further fodder for their mystique. I, like many before me embraced this perspective without much question. I would read from Rimbaud, Dostoyevsky, Henry Miller and Camus, absorb and vanish into this thought that if I was to ever create my finest works or expression, then I must know life’s miseries and beauty equally and intimately.
Goes without much saying this frame of mind can chart a course that is extremely limited and unrealized when given into haphazardly. I willingly carried this darker worldview with me until a time in my life that I was fully able and finally ready to embrace a far more pure, more loving and softer gratitude with how beautiful each moment already is, rather than how great it could be. Gratitude itself became the day’s highest guidepost.
As this shift was occurring, I found that I was working on my favorite batch of songs to date… flowing seamless and effortlessly free from any expectation, and awash in a new sense of purposeful optimism.
The live fast, burn bright, and die young had finally filtered through my system completely and opened so much space for all that was in the cards ahead.
Kind of a tale old as time, however greatly impactful on my life, my output, time and my attention.
Took a bit to unlearn…but I got there.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

For me, by far, the finest aspect of artistry is the communion.
There’s no other source I know that puts you in that same line of communication with the beyond.
When you’re truly able to open that path through yourself and be the conduit for these feelings, visions and sonic landscapes, tales of woe, love and adventure.
When all the other matters before, below and above coalesce into a far distant train whistle barely there.
That moment you come back to yourself, and feel and see the direct evidence of that wild exchange.
That we have the opportunity of bearing witness to ourselves, becoming a clear channel to the threads in the fabric of it all.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://redcurtainrecords.com
• Instagram: @outontheeaves @redcurtainrecords
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@RedCurtainRecords
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/49lyJvdYfRCLUurHkPFILE

Image Credits

Leanna Carey