Features A Song I Made in a Daze Without Really Knowing How

by Christine Stoddard

I've never really known anything about music; I just like to sing. When I was in first grade, my eccentric music teacher, Mr. Gilmore, stopped strumming his mandolin for the class sing-along and stared directly at me. “Very nice, Chrissie,” he said. I blushed. This was at a time when I often lagged behind my classmates. I didn't have private music lessons like them. And music was the least of it. I lacked a private preschool education (St. Mary's Episcopal, natch) or any preschool at all. I didn't read at grade level and, thanks to a very patient reading specialist provided by my well-funded public school, discovered I was slightly dyslexic. Was this surprising for someone who went on to become a published author and journalist in national magazines? Indeed. Less surprising to those who meet me today was my lackluster performance in math. It wasn't until the end of second grade that I caught up with my peers. By third grade, I outpaced most of them. What it came down to was hard work, a certain amount of teaching myself, and leaning in to creative expression. These are skills I brought to directing my first feature film, Sirena's Gallery, now streaming on Amazon Prime, Hoopla, Roku, and beyond. Because this is a music blog, I want to focus on the music-making aspect of the film.

The Artist Dwelling In A Gallery

Sirena's Gallery is a fever dream of a film. It's about a young widow coping with the recent death of her husband just as the COVID pandemic descends and forces her to pivot her art gallery business to e-commerce. While she adapts to the grief and isolation, she grapples with haunting visions of her husband and confronts difficult truths about her marriage. The film was inspired by my personal life and experiences I had damn near inhabiting an art gallery while installing my MFA thesis exhibition. I spent two months hemming and hawing over where to hang photos, how to position a projector, and where to place sculptures. The days were long and exhausting, to the point where I found myself hallucinating on more than one occasion. I've always had a habit of talking to myself and imagining characters, scenarios, and conversations. Somewhere in that thesis-making, I hatched the character of a young gallerist lost in the sea of the New York City art scene. I graduated in 2019, already knowing I wanted to make a movie about this gallerist.

That summer, my alma mater invited me to a space gallery residency. No, I wasn't launched to the moon. I had 24/7 access to makeshift studio space in the campus gallery. So many paintings, installations, and recordings were born during this residency. I stayed up late and recorded myself singing on more than one occasion. The singing didn't have any relation to the visual work I was making, at least not literally. My favorite song that stemmed from those improvised recording sessions was “My Rainforest Queen.” One night, I sat on the cold linoleum floor, leaned against the wall, and recorded whatever came out. Ever since Mr. Gilmore's music class, I have loved choral music and a cappella folk music. Heck, it probably began earlier than that first grade class because my parents, especially my mother, listened to chanting monks and hymns and carols. My father especially adored 1960s folk. Mr. Gilmore helped me believe that I could sing in those same styles, or at least my own version. So when I sing, I tend to sing in ways that draw from those influences. The human voice is so versatile.

Fake It 'Til You Make It...Except You Can't Fake Feeling

Improvised singing, especially singing that follows feelings, is my favorite kind. I didn't pre-plan any of “My Rainforest Queen.” I opened up Quicktime and recorded without a speaker. I saved the raw recording and brought it into GarageBand or Premiere. Honestly, I don't remember which since I tend to dump files into whatever app is already open and go from there. I get lazy. I don't want too many apps open at the same time and slowing down my computer. I layered the recording, messing with the speed and even played parts of it backwards. By October 2019, I had found some rights-free footage and edited a music video of sorts. Then I thought I was done. At that time, I had no idea then that this song would become the opening track for Sirena's Gallery. The song is full of longing, so tonally, it was perfect for the movie. I just hadn't made the movie yet.

Making Sirena's Gallery wouldn't come until May 2020, when I once again found myself alone in an art gallery for hours. I had scored another artist residency that gave me 24/7 access to a space much bigger than my Brooklyn apartment. It was quarantine and I had somehow devised a way to make the film happen without relying on a crew. In Spring 2021, I finally stopped procrastinating and edited the film. That's when I flipped through my digital archives and was reminded of “My Rainforest Queen.”

Making Stone Soup

Yearning is a young person's feeling. It's something I deeply identify with as an artist, too. I think that's because artists tend to be young at heart; we see possibilities, just as young people do. Many people lose that ability, or at least the will for it, as they get older. I've been told that at some point, age forces you to have more regret than hope. I'm not sure that's true, or at least that it's true for everyone. I think another reason artists tend to yearn, much like young people, is that our resources tend to be smaller than we wish. The average American person has enough trouble covering their basic bills. To then have discretionary income to make art can feel like a luxury, if not an impossibility.

When I put together my thesis exhibition, my budget was next to nothing. When I had the residency where I recorded “My Rainforest Queen,” my budget was once again next to nothing. When I had the residency where I filmed Sirena's Gallery, you probably already guessed that my budget was super slim. My process in creating often draws from my digital archives because I tend to accumulate files and figure out what to do with them later. There is footage in Sirena's Gallery that I did not film during that residency; some of it is from a year earlier. It doesn't surprise me that I went hunting for music from things I had already made. During the film editing agony, I listened to “My Rainforest Queen” and my heart fluttered. Saving that middle-of-the-night recording had been worth it. It wasn't just digital clutter. It served a purpose. I sampled and remixed those samplings for the rest of the film, with some additional impromptu recordings wedged in here and there.

Just as Christina Sharpe wrote that beauty is a method, I believe that poverty is a method. Creating from a place of want, from a place of lack, should not prevent us from creating. Sometimes we have no other choice; the art forces its way out.

Click here to stream the film on Amazon.

Christine Stoddard is a writer, filmmaker, and multidisciplinary artist who was recently named one of Brooklyn Magazine's Top 50 Most Fascinating People. She runs Quail Bell Press & Productions, known for Quail Bell Magazine and the podcast Badass Lady-Folk. She also co-hosts the comedy TV show Don't Mind If I Don't with Aaron Gold.