Throwback Thursday with Jim Manngard

photo of me by Faith Brzostowski

artwork by Jim Manngard

© 2015

Jim Manngard made the art work of me from a photo from when I was sixteen. He made it for my birthday in May. He is a personal assistant and part of the sound team for the band, Blackmores Night. He takes many photos of the band. Here is just one from their facebook page. 

For the uninitiated, Blackmores Night is made up of Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple fame, a band that used to play huge stadiums, sometimes in front of hundreds of thousands of fans. Ritchie made a leap into playing Renaissance music in an innovative way with his wife, Candice Night. They also perform with band members.

And therein lies the connection: I sing and perform new interpretations of Renaissance music too. I produced a CD of Renaissance songs (called Wingd With Hopes, New Interpretations of Renaissance Songs) with Scott Petito (James Taylor, The Band, Aigne Minogue, Pete Seeger, Jay Unger and Molly Mason for Ken Burns PBS series). 

Jim Manngard has been working for Ritchie and Candice since the Deep Purple days and he is always taking photos and making artwork for the band (he also gets the photo perspectives from the stage area since he is running around trying to make sure the sound is working just as it should).

Here is one such photo he took of the band facing him backstage with their enthusiastic audience behind them:

So I feel blessed that I am sometimes picked to be his muse. And the thing about being a muse is that as he understands me more and more, he makes artwork of me in the lexicon for which I am noted. These include:

color: off-white

spirit animal: unicorn
spirit bird: dove
spirit flower: dandelion
affiliation with time period: Renaissance

my most common art image: butterfly

Here are some more images he has made of me (with more to come).

This is a closer version of the photo he used: