Recently my eldest daughter, Jasmine, released her first album on Spotify; consisting of a compilation of her own compositions. She has the desire to become a composer, creating music for the advertising industry. When I first heard her music, it was difficult to detach myself from my personal relationship with her but over time I was able to listen to her music more objectively. Some tracks I enjoyed, others left me confused or unsure but each provoked a reaction.

Music is my daughter’s way of expressing just like I paint or draw to express my creativity. On the surface they are two different genres, we work with different mediums, but watching my daughter compose has taught me two lessons. One is how art in general carries a sense of responsibility. Regardless of the intention behind a creative piece, there is the potential to provoke a reaction. Therefore there comes with it a need to justify or explain. Through my daughter I have learnt that ‘Art for art’s sake’ does not exist after all, because with every creation there has to be some degree of sentimentality; with the best of intentions, it is not possible to completely divorce creative communication from all moral or political functions because art is inevitable inspired by reality thus our emotional responses, however they are delivered, represent a truth.
Through Jasmine I saw how music and painting were related more intimately than I had realised. There were times when she would play me a piece of music that she was working on and ask me what I thought. I would answer by sharing the images that were inspired by the sounds she was sharing, and she explained that she composed using the vibrations of colour. The notes were colours that blended to create a musical composition in much the same way that I would use a paint palette. I understood that newborn infants are born with Synesthesia; whereby the stimulation of one sense triggers a sensation in another in much the same way but it appears that Jasmine’s Chromesthesia makes her perceive colour in music. This was an alien concept to me but I have since learnt that numerous artists have used this ability very successfully. Georgia O’ Keefe’s painting Blue no. 2, painted in 1918 depicts this so vividly that it is a revelation to understand this now and I have appreciated the use of colour in many paintings since in a way that I had not understood until now. I guess it goes to show that where there may be a responsibility to share artistic expression, there is also a responsibility to receive it with an open mind and a willingness to see from the artist’s perspective.