Finding Beverley Green
By Beverley Green
I arrived at Golden Arrow Drive Las Vegas one day after my birthday, desperate for a month of respite. We’d come to Vegas to marry in March 2010, this time I travelled alone, bidding farewell to a decade of life, thinking this could be my final time visiting the dazzling neon and dancing Bellagio fountains that I adored. I’d reluctantly left the marital home in January, a converted barn on a rural sheep farm perched next to the sea with peculiar views and constantly changing skyline. A home any artist would give their soul to live in. The pain of leaving my beloved home. I walked away leaving a part of my soul, letting go of all that was familiar, all that I had held dear for the past ten years. My pet sheep I’d bottle fed from birth, my cats and plants, my grown up children, the farmer’s orchard where I’d collect apples and make fresh juice in autumn, and the wild mushrooms that sprang up across the fields which made a delicious meal with butter, garlic and crusty bread.
I’d grown weary of teaching and performing; running weekly saxophone workshops and performing with cover bands no longer meant anything to me; I desperately wanted to make a fresh start, to put time back into songwriting and visual arts.
Lockdown arrived promptly one week after I landed in Vegas and I decided to stay; it seemed a much better option than returning just a week later to the crippled existence I’d left in Wales. Friends were concerned for my safety and were surprised when I didn’t return home for lockdown; but I urgently needed time away from everything.
I’d been reading Julia Cameron’s book, The Artist's Way, faithfully completing my Morning Pages and other self help exercises. It helped teach me to stop listening to others and focus on self; the healing period of rest and recuperation was long overdue after a decade of self employment, single handedly operating a music performance business and saxophone workshops as my source of income. I’d always been motivated, but it seemed my creative based existence had become a means to earn money rather than to create from the heart. I yearned to be able to tell my personal story, my unique experiences. I felt I’d lost my authenticity. Anyway, the pandemic resulted in the cancellation of all music and teaching work and also my return flight home in April. I’d suddenly become unshackled from all commitments, but without an income. Making money didn’t matter right now. I had savings to live off and emergency funding from the Welsh arts council and musicians union, so I had time to focus on finding myself; finding Beverley Green. Lockdown was exactly what I needed. An unseen force preventing my life from going about its normal business.
Over the months I learnt to stop and take time out. With performance work postponed for the foreseeable future, I had time to explore a new country, discover new things and rediscover myself. I hired a truck, packed my camera and began exploring.
It wasn’t long before Nevada stole my heart. I fell in love with the wilderness; the wide skies, infinite landscape and the stillness. That beautiful sound of silence, a pure unadulterated quietness broken only by birdsong or a gentle breeze.
On a trip to Goldwell Open Air Museum I felt much like the naked lady statue kneeling on the soil, staring into the open desert space; alone but not lonely, enjoying peace and solitude far away from the noise and bustle of the city, viewing life with a new perspective.
Mid-summer I joined a hiking group and discovered a new way to have fun and exercise: scrambling! Climbing over and under the multicoloured rocks, so delightfully varied in texture, colour, shape: I was hooked. The wilderness became a huge playground, I’d found my inner child that I’d lost along life’s journey. Sliding down dusty mud banks, climbing over boulders, immersed in the mountains with great gladness and joy.
I decided to take the saxophone to Red Rock Canyon and try recording in different spaces. This resulted in a series of improvised performances I’ve called Desert Prayers - music offerings to the mountains and their creator, a cry from the soul. Using stills and video recordings of my journeys to accompany the music performances, I started putting them together to create an audio visual experience. The results were very satisfactory and I’d like to develop these performances in the future on a bigger scale.
I keep a photographic record of places that I’ve hiked which I share to a social feed. The incredible Nevada landscape has brought much pleasure to friends and family who have been stuck in their homes over lockdown. I’m pleased that others can share the joy and bewilderment that the wilderness has given to me.
And another crazy coincidence, if you can call it that... one day I took a wrong road whilst walking near my neighborhood and discovered a district called Beverly Green! I found Beverly Green by taking a wrong turn!
There’s so much more I could write, but I’ll stop now. March 8 is my birthday (and International Women’s Day) and it’s one whole year of living here, minus 24 hours!
Nevada - my new happy place. It seems I had to lose everything before I could find myself.
Photo/Beverley Green.
Beverley 'Kitty' Green is a multi disciplinary artist from South Wales, United Kingdom. She has toured extensively across Europe as a saxophonist and vocalist. Beverley received arts council funding to record in Milan, collaborating with Italian jazz musicians on an original music project. Internationally she has worked as a visual artist and musician in Jamaica, China, and Qatar. Beverley has recorded and released several albums of her original compositions, jazz standards, and electronica ambient recordings.
You can find the most recent album she finished recording in her room in Vegas here:
https://triflesky.bandcamp.com/album/songs-from-the-seams
Album dedicated to Billie Holiday, marking her centenary in 2015.
https://triflesky.bandcamp.com/album/kitty-sings-billie
You can learn more about her work and music below:
https://instagram.com/beverleyg
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