Picasso, That’s Who! and so can you! Hope Harris CD Review
Thank you, Hope Harris, for doing for me what a four-year liberal arts education could not: inspire me to explore art history. I learned more in one hour with Hope’s new CD, Picasso, That’s Who! and so can you!, than I had in my previous 40-some odd years on this planet. Well, it was actually Hope’s new CD, plus, two little boys, and an iPad. As soon as the first track from Hope’s second and soon-to-be released CD began, my 3- and 5 year-olds asked, “Who’s Jackson Pollock, and why does she wanna paint like him, Mom?” “Well boys,” I said, reaching for the handy-dandy tablet. “Let me show you who he is…” Best use I’ve found for the iPad to date!
And with that, we Googled our way through a musical journey of some of the greatest artists ever. Like me, the boys just didn’t get Jackson Pollock, and by the end of track one, we were all referring to his work as a hot mess (sorry, JP fans). The second and title track, a salsa-infused catchy tune, is the star of the CD and is all about the great one himself, Pablo Picasso. The boys thought his works were a hoot, and we were especially surprised to find a Picasso-inspired Spiderman among the iPad Google findings. Hope even has a song about my favorite artist, David Hockney, and the boys were delighted to see his name on the CD and match it up to the two prints in their toy room. Plus, they thought it was totally cool to find our prints on the iPad search!
From Grandma Moses to Georgia O’Keeffe, from Paul Klee to Henri Matisse, Hope sings her way from artist to artist — telling the tales of how these great talents got their starts, their mediums, subjects of choice, and more.
As diverse as the artists Hope chose are the musical styles represented on the CD – everything from country to sixties rock ‘n roll to soft and sweet lullaby-style songs and folksy ballads. Adults and kids alike will find themselves singing along and returning for another listen again and again.
In the CD’s eleventh and final track, Paint a Picture, Too, Hope encourages her young (and in my cases not so young) listeners to give it a whirl, whatever it is in the arts – painting, singing, writing. After being inspired by Picasso, That’s Who! and so can you!, that is exactly what we felt compelled to do.
