Years and years later, after college and graduate school and numerous friendships, heartbreak, challenges, and living life -- it was only after growing up, that I could understand the language of jazz. In a way, I had to learn its language through piecing together its alphabet.
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The predominant manner in which I coped with all of these emotions was immersion in art...
... I sketched and painted, and this is the period when I first fell in love with van Gogh, de Kooning, and Pollock. Abstract art was a way for me to place my rawness front and center, without words, without fear of retribution. I didn't need to explain anything; the canvas did it for me. I didn't have to use reason or rational thought, because in creating I found a solution to my doubts.