Morning, everyone,

Writing provides an endless opportunity to connect to the voices that express other artistic endeavors – art, poetry, theatre, dance…music. Each has long been a part of my life and they filter through me daily, as does the light from the sun and the moon, as do the winds and clouds blowing West to East.

When I first heard Workin’ Woman Blues and the sublime musical voice of Valerie June, I sat down for a long listen to her album, Pushin’ Against a Stone, and free-associated back through my own life of workin’ and lovin’ and livin’, which lead to writing A Woman’s Worth for SynaptIQ+ – The Journal for Social Era Knowledge.

I don’t know that there is a more tumultuous issue for women – that of working and mothering at the same time. I thought about my own mother. I thought about my friends, some of whom have chosen to remain single and childless, and some of whom have chosen to marry, have children…and work. I think about how much we women need one another’s understanding of and support for our individual choices.

One voice in one medium often echoes the message of another voice in another medium. It is the universality of art. Sometimes an artistic voice will just crawl under my skin and stay there for a while until I do something about it.

And so the musician and singer Valerie June will ‘speak to’ the photographer Dorothea Lange,, the painter George Bellows, the playwrights Clifford Odets and Arthur Miller, the filmmaker Michael Moore, and another musician, Merle Haggard, across time about workin’ and lovin’ and livin’, and they will all meet up in A Woman’s Worth, should you have time to set a spell for bit of long-form writing.

And if you do, thank you, as always, for reading.

Have a lovely day.

Giselle

http://www.synaptiqplus.com/journal-cover-fall-2013/a-woman-s-worth