photo by Flip Cassidy
click to listen to “All of This and More”
Art in Los Angeles is a slippery slope. We are both tainted by and treated to what Hollywood has to offer. We boast LACMA, The Broad, and The Getty, among others, but some argue REAL art can only be found in the numbered streets of Manhattan. People complain of superficial and distant Angelenos; they say we’re ungrounded and and shallow. Life, art, and the intersection of the two is a double edged sword in Los Angeles.
Rose Shawhan, Good Witch’s frontwoman, taps into the notion of how Los Angeles artists seem to rack up “collateral damage” as makers and doers in this city. Loneliness and self-importance are catalysts for delusion and disassociation.
“All of This and More” isn’t so much about LA, as it is about a certain hardness you develop living in this city. It’s so vast, and everyone is so isolated by physical distance and their own ambitions. They’re so busy making their own dreams come true, that they don’t want to give anyone else their time or energy. People just go through each other like clothes going out of style, and why not? There’s so many people around, they have an illusion of nearly infinite choice. Emotional detachment is this badge of honor. Then maybe one day they wake up and realize that there was someone – maybe multiple someones – who loved them and saw their value, but they blew right past them in pursuit of their own agenda. It’s just the collateral damage we incur being artists in this place of seemingly limitless possibilities.”
-Rose Shawhan
more Good Witch