This Saturday night, August 8th, will be my last musical performance for quite some time.

A little over a week later, I will begin taking classes at New York Law School. This is not a denial of my artistic ambitions, but rather a natural extension of them. I first began considering law when I was studying painting at college in Pittsburgh, where I noticed a large divide between artists and politicians. It was a mutual standoff from both sides. As a presidential painter, I saw myself in a unique position to bridge the gap between the two. I kept this in the back of my head as I wrote an early draft of my manuscript in Pittsburgh, joined an artists’ group and began showing my paintings around Boston, and finally, when I began performing my music as part of the Antifolk scene in New York City.

After a few months of playing various sets at the Sidewalk Cafe, I got my first great show. On August 16, 2006, I played an 8:30 slot in the Summer Antifolk Fest, opening for Suzanne Vega. It was a half-hour solo gig, but Vega’s name recognition garnered some press around town, and that - along with a chance picture of myself in a New York Times feature story on Antifolk - made me feel as though I had arrived.

Now, nearly three years later to the day, I will be playing another half-hour solo slot as part of the Summer Antifolk Fest. And then, in the weeks that follow, I will begin embarking on a journey that will hopefully end with the painters, writers, musicians, and artists of all other fields having an ally working for them on the other side of sociopolitical sphere.

But first, I will hoot and holler about graveyard girls and sucker’s games, and I will feel proud.