Jennifer Martin~

Finding "MY" own thing 

            In 1978, I was in the fourth grade.  I was from a very talented and gifted family artistically and I was rebelling and searching for my “own thing”.  As an only child I lived in my parents shadow, were others my age might have been living in older brother and sister’s shadows.  In junior high I found “my thing” through guitar.

 

            The photo you see was taken in 1981 and is of myself at the seventh grade age with my mother.  We were singing a mediation son song at mass for my grandparent’s 45th wedding anniversary.  (Check out those savvy shoes!)  To prep the story let me expand on my background.  My mother was a vocal major and piano minor teaching voice and piano from our home as I grew up.  She was very talented in performance art and met my father when he directed Show Boat at the Brown Theatre in Louisville in the mid-sixties.  Dad was/is a visual artist, high school art teacher, musical director, set designer and locally known watercolorist in the community.  I grew up working dad’s booth at Saint James for 18 years of my life and mom and dad were both heavily involved in Liturgy at our church with visual art and music.  Mom was the choir director there for 18 years.  Needless to say, they were artsy-fartsy!  So, what kind of skills did Jennifer acquire?  Well, she is artistic in the visual arts, she sings and cantors at church, she dances ballet, tap and jazz as did her mother in her early years, so what ownership of a talent has she? None!  There was no one thing that I could do that my parents didn’t already possess. 

 

            Fourth grade was a very transitional year, I transferred teachers due to some issues, and the new fourth grade teacher taught guitar lessons to students after school twice a week.  Wow.  That looked cool.  Well, my mother had been trying to teach me piano for a year and many, many evenings ended with both of us in tears.  Sometimes one can be too close to a situation to teach their child.  So mom and dad heard my interest in trying guitar and they bought a used instrument and signed me up for lessons.  I loved it!  It was a challenge that turned me on.  I discovered and audio skill at picking up strum patterns I heard on the radio and applying them to the songs we played at lessons.  I soon learned songs for liturgy and was volunteering to not only play but sing and play at masses for school.  Mom did (force) ask me to try piano one more year from someone else just to have that background to support my guitar.  I did, and hated it.  I picked up the guitar and was happy. 

 

            It is important to note that I am no master at the guitar.  I learned to play tabs not music, which is my only regret.  Often, in our contemporary choir at church I am the “sub” guitarist when two or more guitars are absent.  But guitar is truly one of “my things” that mom and dad do not do.  It is special to me.  I appreciate all my inherited gifts and skills, but I am most proud and happy that I was able to find one that belongs to just me.