Michael Garfield's Love Without End Tour Newsletter: New Painting, Music, & Enamel Pins | Message To Your Future Self

"Any action can be practiced as an art, as a craft, or as drudgery."

– Stephen Nachmanovitch, Free Play (p10)

"From the evidence...it seems that feeling good is not enough. People need meaning to thrive."

– Emily Esfahani Smith

I'm leaving today for Burning Man (schedule below) and will spend the next week collecting interviews and other inspirational content to share with you all...in the meantime, my tireless sharing includes:

• My live painting from Gratifly Music & Arts Festival,

• My deepest, jazziest album of cyberacoustic guitar music to date;

• A new series of crowd-sourced inspirational videos taken through Google Glass;

...as well as some very shiny enamel pins! I think that's already more than I should try and lay on you at once, but I've always been better at making art than hustling it. Enjoy, and have a magnificent week!

"Message To Your Future Self" Video Series

I think it's very important to have a conversation about what role Glass (and other vastly more powerful technologies just around the bend) can play in our lives - how to wield these double-edged swords constructively, how to bring the new world into being in ways that maximize its promise and minimize its peril. I really want us to have a thoughtful conversation about this and welcome your thoughts and feedback by email or publicly on this facebook event page.

My first idea for using Glass to empower and uplift people was to take 10-second videos of everyone who wanted to share their message with the world:

Part 1: Gratifly & Unitus Festivals

Watch in HD on Youtube

Part 2: Rootwire Festival

Watch in HD on Youtube

In the last six years I have given almost all of my work away for free to people out of faith that the most important thing is to help people find meaning and purpose in their lives, not set a price on the value of my time. So please take a moment to check out what I'm doing with Glass and make a contribution to my fundraising campaign if you can.

My New Enamel Pin Collection

Buy the whole set for $50 + s/h or individually: Triceratops | Butterfly | Dragon

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Thanks to The Headspace for their help making this happen! A little about each design:

"As Awesome As Three Unicorns" (the dinosaur) – Painted at Sonic Bloom in 2012, this piece bridges my two lives as a scientific illustrator and live artist, and ended up in the collection of Mary Jane, the youngest live painter ever, who is also totally awesome.

"Every Day Is A New Year" (the dragon) – Painted at Rootwire and Art Outside Festivals as well as innumerable other small shows, this piece was my anticipatory portrait of 2013, an homage to the late Terence McKenna, and led to my being selected by Google for their Glass Explorer Program.

"Takes Flight" (the butterfly) – Painted at the MAPS 2010 Psychedelic Science Conference, this piece was inspired by a vision I received in a workshop with Alex & Allyson Grey the day before the event.

A New Album of Oceanic Cyber-Guitar Grooves

Stream/Download it here

Grab "Dance on the Roof" for free on Soundcloud

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I'm rebranding my work as an electroacoustic improvisational instrumentalist to reflect the inherent contradictions in making electronic music on an acoustic guitar – and to tap into the potent relationship I've developed with owl medicine since moving to Austin two years ago. Here's a little bit about this release and the work to come:

If Michael Garfield can be said to collect anything, it would be great gigs in strange venues – from The Cave Without A Name to the MAPS Psychedelic Science conference, from Black Rock Desert to all four stages in the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.

Possessed by a passion for the feeling of spaces and determined to translate "vibe" into sound, Michael's increasingly all-improvised acoustic-electronic sets wed house concert intimacy with ravetastic cyberdelia in magical performances that draw down the spirit of a place into music.

Capturing both past and future in alchemical alloys where fingerpicking and hardware live PA join in soaring transcendental freestyles, this is music as adventurous as the stages on which it's performed. Half Zen calligrapher and half starship captain, Michael Garfield is building a cathedral of sound for our paradoxical Age of Transition.

Album artwork by Bonnie Goodson.

New Live Painting From Gratifly Festival

Splash!

11" x 17" Prints For Sale Here

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24"x36" - paint markers on masonite

Original available - email me to inquire/offer

Painted live at Gratifly Music and Arts Festival to the music of:
Thriftworks, Gaudi, Papadosio, Kalya Scintilla, The Werks,
Eskmo, Govinda, Desert Dwellers, Akara DJ, Ployd