Lauren

Beginning around 2011, I was feeling REALLY burned out at work. I decided to take a bit of a sabbatical and follow my heart on a bucket list item I had since childhood…recording my personal music and performing publicly with a band. Hence, Andi White & Six Hits Later was born and from 2011-2013, not only did I get to check that off my bucket list, but I got to record my original tunes at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley (where Journey recorded the album “Escape”…a story for another day), played in venues all over Northern California, and got to know so many incredible musicians through both performing and producing stages at local music festivals, like the Far West Fest.

My run as a “professional musician” came to an end at one final show, which was truly the culmination of everything I had worked up to for over two years prior. On December 20, 2013, I played the last show I have publicly performed at the HopMonk Tavern in Novato, opening up for one of the most incredible female performers in jam band history, Lauren Murphy (of Zero and Lansdale Station). I didn’t know much about Lauren at the time, mostly just her music, but as I have gotten to know her and her story, she has truly become such an inspiration to me, watching her evolve and be reborn as a woman, a mother, an artist and a performer.

What I didn’t realize at the show in December of 2013 when we met and she and her daughter were so kind to me in the green room, was that only 3 short months prior, her husband, band mate, and father of her daughters for 16 years, Judge Murphy, had passed after a battle with cancer. I would learn this later in the evening while watching her pour her heart out on the stage. There is a recording somewhere of me singing the Ben Harper cover song, “Waiting on an Angel” that night. I don’t normally do many cover songs and I’m not sure why I picked that one for that particular night, but looking back now, it feels so much more poignant in the moment.

After the show, Lauren and I became online friends, following and supporting each other through the years. In 2015, there was an amazing article about her in the Mountain Democrat, as she was releasing her album “El Dorado,” fulfilling Judge’s last wish that she continue performing after he was gone. You can read that story (and see the picture that inspired this stained glass portrait), here: https://www.mtdemocrat.com/.../article_c302384d-6bfd-5906...

Lauren moved back to Louisiana, the place where she was raised many years ago. Ironically enough, she works in a stained glass shop on the north side of the lake from NOLA. I wanted to catch up with her live during Jazzfest but it didn’t work out, unfortunately (I will be back soon…hoping to do a spring show!!!). Lauren embodies resilience to me. The ability to get on stage and get it done, even when you are in moments of absolute grief. She is beautiful, and soulful, and kind, and powerful. I can’t wait to sit on the porch sipping sweet tea on my next trip down, Lauren, truly.

The next portrait in my series is entitled, “Lauren.” I used the most beautiful, vintage southern fabric for the hat to set the tone for the piece, and complimented that with gorgeous, sparkly pink fabric for the guitar strap, with butterflies place on top for accents. She is wearing a stunning piece of Fremont Antique Glass for her shirt and her face has pink, silver and white pressed flowers and glitter, butterfly glitter and the words, “We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.” She is wearing a dichroic jewel necklace, surrounded by a Fremont glass heart to represent the heart she pours into everything she does and for this piece, I introduced wood veneer as another element, as the neck of the guitar.