Santa Barbara, CA (2021)

Pianos on State

As part of a community arts grant, I used sheet music, decorative paper, and original watercolors to collage a bee-themed piano. The piano was exhibited in downtown Santa Barbara, where it became a site of musical cross-pollination.

Song filled the streets.

A decorative panel featuring honey bees, hexagon quilt patterns made of paper and sheet music, with annotations about waterproofing and artistic details, all on a textured, speckled background.

Initial Sketches

An illustrated piano decorated with honey bee motifs, gold leaf accents, and geometric hexagon shapes. The piano’s front panel features a handwritten poem by Antonio Machado, along with two bee illustrations. The top has collaged hexagons and acrylic-washed sheet music, and the keyboard has white paint and gold leaf flecks.
Sketch of a wooden table with artistic design elements, including speech bubbles, speech bubbles cut from sheet music, and doodles of bees, with labels indicating the use of white paint, gold leaf, watercolor, ink, and speech bubbles.
A person decorating a black upright piano with bees and honeycomb designs, in a bright room with large windows.

Poetic Inspiration

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.

Antonio Machado

Opening Night

To celebrate the pianos’ voyages from the workshop to the streets, Santa Barbarian musicians duetted on ten different instruments.

People enjoying a masquerade with masks at an outdoor event. A woman in a blue patterned dress wearing butterfly-shaped mask with colorful design has her arms raised and is smiling. Two men in suits wearing masks are standing nearby; one has a gold mask, the other a red mask. A man with a butterfly mask playing a keyboard is seated at a table with music sheets.

MasQ(P)arade

The grand finale of Pianos on State was a piano progressive. A roving audience migrated between pianos while pursuing masked musicians.