Free Jazz — Doors to Home & Hope 2015

Artist: Amy Drass Displayed at High Rock Outfitters on Main Street, Lexington, NC. Read the Artist’s bio below the picture.

 

Amy was born and raised in Linwood, NC, and most of her family still lives in that area. After graduating from Gardner Webb with a BA in Communication, she worked for a year at the local television news station as a reporter/weekend anchor. After a year of working in the business, she relocated to Virgina to attend Regent University, graduating with a MA in Media Management. She stayed in the Virginia Beach/Norfolk area for several years working in the marketing departments for The Family Channel, and a grass­roots political organization.

In 2000 she moved to Portland, Oregon, traveling throughout Oregon and Washington working as a representative for an organization called Cable In The Classroom. This position with CCC involved working with teachers to search the internet for free programming and teaching materials that they could incorporate into their classrooms. It was during that time that Amy married her career took a backseat to raising her children.

Fourteen years later, Amy is back in Lexington and working part-­time with Habitat for Humanity of Lexington as their program director. Amy proclaims that she does not have any formal training as an artist. She paints simply because she enjoys it and finds it to be relaxing. She chose to paint her door with a jazz theme and title it Free Jazz ­ No Limitations.

Free jazz became very popular during the 1950s and was spurred on by musicians who were tired of having to abide by certain rules and expectations involving chord changes and tempos. If you google free jazz, Wikipedia will tell you that “Free jazz musicians created a progressive musical language.” She love that definition of this “genre” of music. It’s a beautiful language that is never the same. It’s always changing and you can never predict what will happen next. A perfect metaphor for life, she thinks.