For this project, I composed two new pieces of Celtic contemplative music on the harp: “The Watercolor Jig” and “The Pilgrim’s Waltz” I performed these pieces on-site at Tinker Creek. The MP4 recordings have been uploaded to the Kinnfolk YouTube channel and are accessible via direct link or QR code.

For the physical representation of the work, I have supplied a screenshot (via the upload above) from one of the videos that can be printed and framed in the gallery. QR codes can be included in the piece’s description so that viewers can access the recorded performances.

“The Pilgrim’s Waltz” video: https://youtu.be/GAGs0qHYVC8
“The Watercolor Jig” video: https://youtu.be/jq5IuozF0OM

For this project, my goal was simply to journey to Tinker Creek and then create. No agenda except to see and listen. No goal except to think, feel, and express those whims through notes on my harp.

“The Watercolor Jig” came to me in a moment of whimsy. I’d loaded my harp, a journal, and a picnic blanket into my car and driven to Tinker Creek with no agenda except to listen to the sounds of nature and “sketch” them into music. I began by imitating the cicadas. I then listened to the sound of rushing water and tried to identify individual notes…but instead found myself struck by the colors of light, leaves, and sky reflected in the water.

I have synesthesia, a condition in which senses are “crossed” within the mind. A person might experience taste as temperature, letters and numbers as personality, or—as is my case—musical sounds in color. Every note on a keyboard produces a particular color for me, so I decided to “paint” Tinker Creek. I plucked notes on my harp in the order that I noticed colors in the water: green (D), orange (G), and yellow (E). Brown isn’t a note for me, but I could see blue (F), purple (B), and terra-cotta (C) if I opened myself to a little whimsy.

And so I wrote “The Watercolor Jig,” a synesthetic painting of Tinker Creek as I witnessed it on August 8, 2025 (a gray and cloudy day).

I enjoyed the process of going into nature and then following my instincts. Should I walk down that path, or this one? Should I spend more time contemplating this spot, or should I stretch my legs and search for more? I journaled that my first hike “was a rift between exploration and stillness. I simultaneously wanted to study every leaf, but also to see more. I was a glutton for greenery.”

On the morning I composed “The Pilgrim’s Waltz” my only agenda was to arrive at Tinker Creek and think about pilgrimage: What is the benefit of going out into nature to compose music, rather than staying home? As I watched the water and listened to the cricket-and-cicada choir, I had to appreciate the novelty of nature. You never know what you will see. It cannot be predicted. Even seemingly random patterns, like the patchwork of fallen leaves over fallen leaves, aren’t random at all; they are the past that happened, arranged in this particular way because that’s how things unfolded.

These thoughts fluttered through my mind as I plucked at the harp. Eventually, an early draft of the melody emerged—as unpredictable as a falling leaf, and as welcome as a beam of sunlight.

Annie Dillard’s writing overflows with joy, wonder, and gravity. She celebrates the small things alongside the large, describing a slop of creek water in the same sentence as the Andromeda galaxy. I appreciate her philosophy on witnessing (“I cannot cause light; the most I can do is try to put myself in the path of its beam”) as well as her realistic portrayal of those things she witnesses. She doesn’t romanticize nature; rather, she staggers at strangeness of the world without insisting that it’s all good, or all bad, or anything other than a complex marvel.

When you explore nature through this lens, everything is astounding. The ephemeral colors in a ripple of water; the twist of a silk moth larva as it dangles from a tree: the sudden appearance of a heron.

My greatest joy in this project was the moment I realized I could use my synesthesia to compose “The Watercolor Jig.” The color impressions I receive from music remind me of Dillard’s discussion of the newly sighted and her lament that, despite her best efforts, she couldn’t “unpeach the peaches.” Sometimes, when I embrace my synesthesia and use it as a lens to understand the world, I can unpeach the peaches. And what an astounding thing that is.

I believe I touched on this during my mid-project check-in, but I’ve become interested in the fine line between music and sound. Where does one end and the other begin? And does this say more about the nature of the noise, or of the organism observing it? There’s a wealth of research on this topic, and I’m inspired to dig into that some more. Perhaps the answers I find will inspire another project.

Another question pertains to the future of the new music I’ve written. I’m eager to partner with my friend Brent Williams, the pastor at Colonial Presbyterian Church, to see how we can take my compositions and the lessons from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and transform them into a Celtic contemplative service for the general public. I know that public presentation of our works is an ongoing goal of the Tinker Creek Project, so I’m excited to see what we can come up with!

In the modern world, it’s easy to claim that there isn’t enough time. Not enough time to indulge in contemplation, not enough time to go out into nature. In the process of writing “The Watercolor Jig” and “The Pilgrim’s Waltz” I learned the obvious answer—that there is time, and that it is valuable.

A few days during the project, I really didn’t want to pull myself away from daily responsibilities and drag my harp down to the creek. Yet I did it anyway…and these were the days that I ended up staying close to two hours next to the water. Giving yourself the space to think, releasing the pressure to produce something in one sitting—this is a valuable practice. I learned that nature is rich with stillness, peace, and inspiration. Time and creativity dilate in green spaces if you let them.