Dear Friends,

Greetings! Another beautiful and blessed arrival of summer is upon us!

When last I wrote, it was to celebrate the success of my travels in the ministry in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in the months of March and April. Little did I know what lurked just around the corner…

Disaster!

Need I say more? Sunday morning, after my final show (opening for Tribe One) in Philadelphia, I walked across the street to start packing my car for the trip home to Virginia. What I discovered – a crushed rear blinker, bent back axle, crumpled trunk and mysterious business card (“I seen everything”) – was a bit unexpected.

And that’s not all!

A week later, after much support and hospitality from some very giving f/Friends, hours and hours on the phone with the (mostly unavailable) insurance companies, with the (entirely unhelpful) Philadelphia police department and with the (very confused) girl who crashed into me, I arrived back in Virginia to play doctor to the computer that serves as my recording studio, which had mysteriously stopped working altogether:

I’ll spare you the gory details.

Faith endures.

Have you ever experienced a series of disasters that were too punch-line-y to be simply coincidence? This was one of those times that so much went wrong so suddenly that I felt like I was in a farce. For lack of an audience, I was the only one that got to giggle at the sheer ridiculousness of things going wrong. Perhaps that was part of the point.

Either way, I emerge feeling as though I have just been involved in a tickling fight with God.

No need to panic.

Mixed Vice Work comes together in passion and excitement – release (still) scheduled for June 25th!

Nothing explodes out of the gate like pent-up artistic energy.

As soon as my equipment was fixed and ready, Spirit took hold of my body and filled me with passion and ideas that I had long meditated on, only now they became real, tangible, exciting.

Songs that I thought were done weren’t. Songs I had no ideas for transformed in the brilliant light of the muse.

Today I am shipping off the final master copy of the EP, and after these past two weeks of nitpicking and polishing, that original explosion of creativity rests in the past but my body still tingles when I think back on it.

Once again I have been witness to a miracle. I give thanks.

Back Home after a successful trip in the ministry in Philadelphia

It has been good to be back in Ashland, visiting old friends, meeting some new ones and of course hanging out with my Mom’s chickens, who just gave birth to 4 new chicks!

I have been collecting photos of my trip to Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and have gotten some good ones, thanks to helpful F/friends. Here are a few samples.

The rest are in the photos section.

Summertime – See you at FGC!

The time is just flying by – another summer is upon us! My primary performance opportunity this Summer is at the FGC Gathering at the end of June. If you’re planning on attending the Gathering, be sure to look out for me — and check out my table at the Gathering store! Here’s a photo from my performance last year:

Beyond that, I’ll be spending the summer with my brother Coleman, his wife Elizabeth and their baby Althea at the Sierra Friends Center in California (Coleman works for the Woolman Semester), helping him institute a new internship program and fixing up some of their decaying sports equipment. Perhaps I’ll have a few performance opportunities at Meetings in the area.

I look forward to much fishing and ping pong, reflecting on my recent travels and recording experiences and discerning my next steps for the months and years to come!

Mixed Vice Work!

I invite you to also be witness to the truth and passion that has traveled through me. After June 25th, the project will become available in the store – and now accepting advance orders.

Much love to those who choose to pre-order! And… much love to those who don’t too.

And if you haven’t taken a look
at the video for Mixed Vice Work,
now might be a good time:

“When I say peace I mean it”

-from the intro track to Mixed Vice Work, entitled “Soul Food”.

peace!
Jon Watts

Photos by Natasha Smith

Dear Friends,

I am excited to share with you the end of my PYM trip and to bring you some very special news!

1. PYM tour wrap-up
2. Thanks yous
3. Future travel plans
4. Announcing Mixed Vice Work, to be released in June
5. Pre-order the new EP!
6. Other ways to support my music and ministry

PYM tour- Growth, Inspiration, Process

As I write this newsletter I am preparing for my final performance as an opening act for Tribe 1 on Saturday evening. What an incredible trip this has been! For an artist who is accustomed to playing once or twice a year (or whenever I release a CD), this has been a great opportunity for me to learn what it feels like to be a touring, performing artist.

As you may have guessed… it’s not always easy. There was certainly a lull for me in this trip in which things were not feeling quite as fresh. But what I’ve found is that so much of that feeling of freshness comes from interaction with each unique audience. Even now, having played these songs and told these stories over and over in the past few months, nothing brings me back to center like an excited face in the crowd. When I interact with an enthusiastic audience, the stories and songs come to life all on their own and I can just relax.

That said, I feel so grateful to the Friends that worked hard to organize events involving my ministry, Friends who hosted me in their homes, showed me their Meetinghouses and their inner lives and helped me to more fully serve as witness to their community and to be that fresh voice. And as the feedback forms come back to me, I know that this interaction has been nurturing also to the groups that I’ve shared with, and I am once again so grateful to be exploring a road in which my gifts are well-received.

I would need to be speaking to you in person to do full justice to all of the energy and effort that others have put into helping make this journey amazing, so I would ask that if you have a moment, please just pause for a second on each name in the following list.

Many thanks to these friendly folks, Meetings and groups for making my trip such a success:

• Chris Fitz, Tom Latus, Sanford and Lancaster Friends Meeting
• Peggy and Alan Brick and the Kendal Retirement Community
• Christine Greenland and the Haverford Quarterly Meeting
• Suzanne Day and Westfield Friends Meeting
• Jim and Anne Barton and Chambersburg Friends Meeting
• Zac Dutton and everyone in Quaker House at Haverford College
• Tom Hoopes, Patricia Henry and Valley Friends Meeting
• Elizabeth Walmsley and the PYM Middle School Friends
• Bill Carrigan and EVERYONE at Mickleton Friends Meeting
• Liz O’Brien and Richland Friends Meeting
• Bill Smith, Mary and Jim Frintner and Moorestown Friends Meeting
• Greta Rech and her wonderful family – and the Western Quarter’s Youth Program
• Walter Hjelt-Sullivan and Pendle Hill community
• Valerie Brown, George Rhoads, Holly Olson, Don Griffin, Group W and everyone at Solebury Friends Meeting
• Sue Snyder and Sadsbury Friends Meeting
• Pamela Haines and Chuck Esser, who provided hospitality for me the entire time I was traveling around PYM.
• the West Philadelphia Worship Group
• My Support committee in Chapel Hill: Mike Green, Linda Drake and Lauren Hart
• Niyonu Spann and Tribe 1
• Ben Schilling, who stepped in as filmmaker to become a crucial part of the team
• Sadie Forsythe
• Maggie Harrison and the QLP program at Westtown Friends School
• Jane Broadbent and her credit card/bagels
• Julian Brelsford and his data resources
• Harriet Hart
• Tim Esser-Haines
• My Parents and their chickens

Future Travel Plans

After writing my previous newsletter, I realized that I may have spoken too soon about my plans for the Fall (ah, the pitfalls of trying to balance “God’s time” in which discernment and movement are necessarily care-full and patient processes — and “human time”, which requires that I know and announce my plans far in advance!)

So: my plan as it stands is to spend the first half of the summer completing the new EP in Virginia and North Carolina, attend FGC Gathering, and to spend the second half of the summer in California with my brother Coleman, whose wife has recently given birth to my niece Althea (who I look forward to meeting for the first time!), working on the grounds of The Woolman Semester at Sierra Center, fishing and thinking. In the Fall I will return to West Philadelphia, where there are exciting seeds planted for long term spiritual community, depth and support.

From there I intend to explore issues of foundational locality and publicity in my career as a musician. If you are well-experienced with dealing with the press and finding ways into the mainstream media, I would love to be in dialogue with you!

Mixed Vice Work: EP set for release June 25th, 2009

As I have been envisioning my artistic direction for the next few years, I kept coming back to this little project of parallel songs. I am really quite excited to say that it’s going to happen!

And so: Yes! It could be said that I have been working on this EP since before I released The Art of Fully Being in 2007, as I have been steadily reflecting upon the songs that I wrote for that project beginning the moment that I wrote them.

My process for writing Mixed Vice Work involved meditating on the lyrics and energy to songs from The Art of Fully Being and allowing those structures to become vessels for new peices of art, if that makes sense. It’s not an album of remixes, it is more involved than that: parallel songs.

So. There are many excited things about Mixed Vice Work, one of which is that I am using this opportunity to experiment with online promotion. Please take a moment to view the following promotional video for the project, very well put together by friend and filmaker Ben Schilling:

Pre-ordering

And I am (for the first time!) accepting pre-orders for this project. Mixed Vice Work is only $7… pre-orderers will be the first to hear it! (and I’ll include a little extra treat too!)

Much love and appreciation to those who choose to pre-order. Your money and energy go into helping me to fund the project and the time that I am spending writing and recording it.

(Other Ways To) Support My Art!

Leave feedback at CD Baby:
The Art of Fully Being
SELF
Leave feedback on Itunes.
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Youtube: Subscribe

peace to you!
Thank you for your love and support.
Jon Watts