Art Heals All Wounds

Connecting through Writing and Music: How Joe Field’s Books Inspire Young Readers

• Joe Field, Pam Uzzell • Season 6 • Episode 2

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In this episode of 'Art Heals All Wounds,' I explore the theme of connection in art and creativity with Joe Field, creator of the Legends Universe and author of superhero books for adults and children. Joe delves into his creative process, from his early days when music influenced his writing to learning of the impact his stories have on readers, particularly children, who see his characters as friends. This discovery has shaped Joe’s approach to writing, ensuring characters remain relatable and positive. Joe also discusses the unexpected connections made through his music, sharing a touching story about playing piano for a night worker at an airport. Revealing his motivations for writing, Joe aims to inspire, entertain, and make a difference in people's lives through his work. The episode also includes an offer from Joe to book clubs and highlights the upcoming release of his piano music album.

 

00:00 Introduction: The Power of Art

00:39 The Inspiration Behind the Show

01:05 The Journey of Joe Field: From Music to Writing

02:21 The Impact of Art: Listener's Connection

04:12 Joe Field's Creative Process

08:40 The Influence of Feedback on Writing

16:08 The Power of Music: A Personal Story

20:39 The Future of Joe Field's Creative Journey

40:22 Conclusion: The Healing Power of Creativity

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[00:00:00] Pam Uzzell: Do you believe art can change the world? So do I! On this show, we meet artists whose work is doing just that. Welcome to Art Heals All Wounds. I'm your host, Pam Uzzell.

[00:00:35] Thanks for joining me on Art Heals All Wounds. We're talking about connection this season. Last season, I started sharing listener voicemails on the show. Joe Field, who's a writer, left a voicemail for the show that made me think a lot about connection and inspired the idea for this season. How do art and creativity create connections in ways that you never expected?

[00:01:05] Joe Field has been writing for a while, but it wasn't until he began writing books about unique superheroes from the Legends Universe that things really clicked for him. He is able to see all of the stories like a movie, and when he sits down to write, the words just flow out of him. The response he got from some of his younger readers really came as a surprise to him and understanding the connection that he had made with these readers has in turn influenced how he writes.

[00:01:38] Joe is able to trace his creative beginnings to way back when he was just five, taking piano lessons. It's a great story about how his music led him to become a writer. He's now come full circle and is picking back up as a composer and musician. All of this is possible because he's valued the connections he's made along the way.

[00:02:07] You want to know how you can really help me keep this show going? Follow me on your favorite listening app. So easy, right? And if you really want to give the show a boost, leave me a five star rating or review. 

[00:02:21] Hi, Joe. I am so glad that you're on Art Heals All Wounds today. Can you just give a brief introduction of yourself, who you are what you do?

[00:02:32] Joe Field: Hi, Pam. Yes, my name is Joe Field. I'm the creator of the Legends Universe and the author of a number of superhero and action adventure books for both adults and kids, and I hail from the great state of Minnesota, don't you know?

[00:02:51] Pam Uzzell: That's what, where are you now? 

[00:02:53] Joe Field: I bounce around a little bit, primarily based out of twin cities, but I'm from a town called Duluth, if you know where that is. 

[00:03:00] Pam Uzzell: Uh huh, yeah. I took road trips with my parents to all 48 states before I was in third grade. 

[00:03:07] Joe Field: Good for you. 

[00:03:08] Pam Uzzell: I don't remember most of them, but I can at least say I've been to most places. I think Minnesota was one where we had trouble with mosquitoes in our little pop up camper. 

[00:03:17] Joe Field: Yeah, the two seasons there are essentially winter and, uh, mosquito slash construction season, so yeah. Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised. 

[00:03:28] Pam Uzzell: Yeah. So You left a voicemail for me on last season when I started asking people for voicemails, and I really connected to this voicemail because you brought up having heard from people during the pandemic that they felt like the characters in your books

[00:03:47] were their friends because they were feeling isolated, which many people were, and that really resonated with me so much. I've had many times in my life where I didn't have a friend group because I had moved or something like that. And I lived for some of my fictional friends. And I think I know a lot of people now who live for their YouTube friends, people they don't know, but they feel like they know.

[00:04:10] So we're going to talk about that. But before we do, can you just talk about how you got started making these superhero books? And I just want to say that if anybody follows you on Instagram, they see that there are many different characters and different series. So can you talk a little bit about how you got started and some of your characters in your series?

[00:04:33] Joe Field: Yeah, that sounds great. I think we have to go all the way back to really get a sense of who I am and where I come from. So when I was around five years old, My parents started me in piano, and it was my first, like, creative pursuit that I had. And I remember I, I had to go with my brother, who was a couple years older than me, and I had this vivid memory of, if I played through all my pieces perfect, quickly, I [00:05:00] could play my teacher, her name was Annie, at her house they had the old Nintendo gaming system.

[00:05:05] I could play Duck Hunter. You know, I don't know if you ever played that with the gray and the orange. Yeah, so

[00:05:12] It was a highly addictive game, especially for a five year old And so I just remember being a better piano player than my brother and he would admit as much. And being able to just crush through my songs and go play that so it's like my earliest memory is combining art, you know piano with uh video games in this game And so that sort of started me on, you know, my right brain thinking, uh, shortly thereafter, I think it was within the year, uh, one of the most influential movies of my young life came out and was the live action version of a teenage mutant Ninja Turtles.

[00:05:48] I don't know. 

[00:05:48] Pam Uzzell: Oh, yeah. 

[00:05:49] Joe Field: My father took me, and I remember just being so moved by these quirky good guys in a very fantasy driven world, going after these bad guys, Shredder and the like, and just being so relatable. Up until that point, you know, as a kid, you read about Batman or Superman, you're like, okay, these are adults.

[00:06:11] Good looking adults that are, but these are, you know, quirky turtles, uh, that were fighting crime. And as soon as I got home, my father enrolled me in Taekwondo and I, I just went all in. I went all in on this and my mother made me homemade. Michelangelo is my favorite turtle. Homemade Michelangelo costumes for Halloween.

[00:06:32] I was Michelangelo for years. And so I just remember this very influential period in my life being consumed with the turtles. And I had this full circle moment. That really caught me off guard. So last year I went to Comic Con in San Diego and the creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Kevin Eastman was there and he was on this panel that I got into where he was talking about how he created the turtles and they were showcasing the new animated turtles movie that came out last year.

[00:07:03] And I was able to go with my daughter and we got the headbands and the poster and everything. It was just this amazing, like, how many decades later, full circle, and where I was just like, wait a second, this really influenced how I got into writing about, you know, good versus bad, taking sort of quirky, relatable characters and using them to, you know, pit them against bad guys. After a lot of self reflection, I feel like that was really the driver behind it, so. 

[00:07:33] Pam Uzzell: That's interesting too, because you're already bringing up this idea of feeling this connection to, uh, Michelangelo as your, that was your guy. That was who you were. Do you still play piano? 

[00:07:46] Joe Field: I do. I do. So, not to say way too much, but have you ever heard of George Winston?

[00:07:52] Pam Uzzell: Yeah.

[00:07:53] Joe Field: So he's my favorite. He's the godfather of new age piano. And I played piano all the way up until middle school when I thought it wasn't cool anymore. And then I switched over to guitar and played trombone and all these other things. But then I picked it back up in my 20s. And I started playing piano just to relax. And I listened to so much George Winston, I just listened to him all the time to go to sleep, you know, to write and, and, He sadly passed away this last year. And I had this like sort of tug at my heart, like he can't make any more music. And I have all these songs I've composed over the years. And so it's sort of, you know, it inspired me along with some other stories that maybe we'll get to record some of my piano music. So yeah, so I'm playing quite a bit. 

[00:08:37] Pam Uzzell: Wow. That's really amazing. Did you start releasing your books during the pandemic or was it before that you already had some of your work out there? 

[00:08:50] Joe Field: Yeah, so it started before, so about in my 20s around the same time I started writing songs. I was, I was a songwriter, uh, not just piano. I was my acoustic guitar. I was writing songs. I, my creative mentor at the time, a guy named Greg, he was about 10 to 15 years older than me and about that much further along in his creative pursuits. And he was helping me write, and we were writing songs for Nashville and I was writing folklore songs.

[00:09:18] And he kept saying, Joe, all of your songs tell stories. You're making albums that are like concept albums. They just tell very intricate stories. Have you ever thought about writing a book? And I was like, well, I've thought about it, but I haven't really done it. He's like, you should, you should try it. And so I did.

[00:09:35] So this was probably about 10 years ago, at least now. I just started writing and at the time I started with crime thrillers because I really like the crime thriller genre. Like, yeah, yeah. James Patterson, John Sanford, Lee Child, those kinds of books. And so the first three books I wrote were kind of shorter, maybe 40, 000, 50, 000 word crime thriller novels.

[00:09:59] And [00:10:00] when I read them now, I can't even finish the first chapter. I'm like, these are pretty bad, but people love them, you know, cause they're based in the upper Midwest. And so people love them, but. That's sort of how I started and it's a similar concept. There weren't superheroes. It was a crime thriller with a Minnesota public radio investigative journalist as the protagonist, but it was still good versus bad.

[00:10:23] And so that really started my writing career where I was writing for consumption of people outside of me, you know in my little sphere. So that was probably about 10 years ago 

[00:10:34] Pam Uzzell: Wow, you've done a lot in 10 years. Okay. So when did you switch to these superheroes here series? And why what made you decide? Ordinary detectives no, but people in these imaginary universes And you know with superpowers or really cool gadgetry When did you decide that that was the way that you wanted to go? 

[00:11:01] Joe Field: It was, I think it was 2019, and my brother and I, we, we pretty much watched all the, the Marvel and DC movies, and you know, we enjoyed them as a thing that we did.

[00:11:13] I remember we went to, it was the newest Marvel, Captain Marvel movie in 2019. I just remember thinking like, this is really good, it's a good movie, but it's not as good as my imagination, and I love to read, I've read my whole life. And I was like, there's got to be superhero books that are novels, not just comic books. I really enjoy comic books, but I wanted to just like read, you know, so I could use my imagination. So I went out to search for it. It didn't exist. I mean, there's a few, you know, they'll adapt a movie into a, to a book, but there's really not, especially for adults or even for kids or for any, there's just really not a lot of good superhero books out there. And so like any good creative, I decided to make it myself. So, so that's sort of transitioned me away from that. And it also allowed me, I knew. I was sort of confined in my creativity, writing about crime thrillers in the Midwest, and so it allowed me to unleash my creativity and let it just go hog wild in these fantasy fictionalized superhero books.

[00:12:18] Pam Uzzell: One thing I'm going to say is that I love and hate serialized characters. I love them because there's always another one to read. I hate them because you have to wait between you finish one and I am an addictive reader as well. And when I find a series I like, I will just burn through the whole series. And then you get to the last one and you know that you have such a long time to wait for the next one. But it seems like you have really produced a lot in a very short amount of time. Am I correct in saying that, because there's so much on your website and on Amazon and all these places and not only just one but several different characters.

[00:13:03] That's interesting that you're so prolific. It's like you found your genre. Is it just easy for you to sit down and just write the next one, the next installment for that particular character. 

[00:13:18] Joe Field: Well, I can tell you that when I wrote my first crime thriller, it was not, it was work. It was like, Oh, this is a grind.

[00:13:25] By the time I started writing superhero books. So this was in 2020 when I created a Legends Universe. Uh, so I guess it's about almost four years old now, I sort of developed a different form of approaching my writing process. And I do this thing I called mind writing or head writing, where I'll take very boring situations like, uh, driving across the interstate for seven hours or awake in the middle of the night or on an airplane.

[00:13:54] And I'll just play every scene out in my head of the book. So there might be like 20 scenes in a book. I'll just play them. Like I have the camera scene one, two, three. before I ever even touch or even type a word. And so I have my outline and these scenes, and I just play and play my At that point is when I started to get into the creative flow of writing, where it wasn't work, I didn't have to think about it, where I could sit down, and I could write for three to four hours and produce three to four thousand words a session, and just, it feels like five minutes went by.

[00:14:27] For me, with my piano, music background, I experienced flow in that. That was really neat. In sports, I played basketball, football, paintball. I experienced flow in that. This would be the third real thing in my life where I experienced this flow. And so in my most recent book, Buffalo Man, it's my longest book. It's a full novel length book. And I wrote that with revisions and everything under a month. Just because I was just like, you know, just the words were flowing. So that's my writing process. I don't sit down now until I've played that scene out the whole book out in scenes, you know, [00:15:00] maybe dozens of times in my head.

[00:15:01] So. 

[00:15:02] Pam Uzzell: That's amazing. I sometimes edit films and I do that for films like the ideas don't come when I'm sitting in front of the computer a lot of times I used to not have a washing machine and it would happen as a laundromat, 

[00:15:17] Joe Field: right? 

[00:15:18] Pam Uzzell: Exactly what you're saying like you have something you have to do that doesn't really occupy your mind, but I have never even imagined trying to do that with writing, but it's kind of brilliant really you're taking something visual but you're interpreting it into words.

[00:15:36] Joe Field: Right.

[00:15:36] Pam Uzzell: So that's a pretty great idea. I might try that if you don't mind. 

[00:15:40] Joe Field: Yeah, you should yeah It's yeah, it's a it's a cool feeling and they say like the best job to have if you're a writer is like a train conductor or like a semi like long haul semi you're just You're moving around, you're traveling, you're getting exposure to a lot of things, but you don't really have to think about or bricklayer or whatever it is, you know, you don't have to think about it. And then you have all that space in your mind to occupy with your art, your creativity. 

[00:16:06] Pam Uzzell: That is so cool. Well, so you started this in 2020 and of course, when you're doing something creative, you do think about audience and you hope that you have an audience. 

[00:16:18] Joe Field: Right. 

[00:16:18] Pam Uzzell: I know that you said in your voicemail that you were really surprised by some of the responses that you got from people who were picking up your book series and reading them and I'm wondering if you could just share what were some of the things that surprised you 

[00:16:35] Joe Field: Yeah, so when I, when I first started writing my book series, so, uh, back to your earlier comment about serialized. So I, I made a conscious effort for my first series, it was going to be five books. So there was a start and a finish, so people could get through it. My second series, start and finish, one through three. My latest, Buffalo Man, could be a serialized one, but the other ones are start and finish. Well, what happened was when I started on that first series, it was actually geared towards adults.

[00:17:04] Cause like I said, there was no adult superhero, but, but all the adults started reaching out and they're saying, I want to read this with my kid. Can you make a kid's version? So I kept all the characters and plot lines the same, and then I just adapted it for kids, eight to 12 years old so that parents and kids could read the same stories. Parents have the adult content, a little bit more action, violence, you know, love stuff. And the kids have very tailored down on anything related to violence. There's no love related stuff. It's just more about the story and the plot line. And, and once I did that, once I kind of broke it out and parents could read with their kids or just have their kids read it, if they don't read, I just started getting a lot of feedback. And some of the best feedback I got were of course, from the kids. I was just, I mean, I was just blown away. Cause you, you start something as a creative outlet and then it turns into something more like it did for me. You don't expect going into that situation for a kid to be like So and so, uh, you know Axel Holt, Gabby Oaks They're my best friend and you're like what like, how is that?

[00:18:08] How is that possible? Like how does I just made them up in my head? How are they best friends? Like no, no, like these characters I can relate to them so much that they just feel like a friend to me. And I just never fathomed that that would happen. I never fathomed. Like, how could you even think about that? Or, I mean, I guess some people do, but I couldn't think about it when I started writing that. 

[00:18:32] Pam Uzzell: That's really interesting. And I'm wondering, I think you mentioned in the voicemail that this knowledge that there were people relating to these characters as their friends actually affected how you wrote these characters and I'm wondering how would you visualize these readers, you know, waiting for their friends? Did it feel I imagine the feedback felt good, but did it also feel like a certain new kind of responsibility or pressure? How? How did you feel about that and how did it change what you were writing? 

[00:19:10] Joe Field: Yeah, I felt, I felt a lot of weight on that because when you make a character that someone regards as their best friend, they need to sort of maintain that level, uh, to be worthy of being a friend. And I had, it's just like a perfect example of this. One of my characters in my first book series. I had fantasized with the idea of him not actually being a good guy, like a plot twist where he was actually a bad guy. I, and I got so close to writing it that way, but then I got some of this feedback and I was like, I cannot do that.

[00:19:43] Because if this person backstabs, you know, their friends and these other superheroes, This is gonna, like, my readers are gonna freak out, you know, it might be good in a Hollywood movie or something like that, a one off, but like, they're gonna just be mad, and I'm glad I didn't do it, [00:20:00] and I think it was really the input from readers that made me, like, rethink that, like, no, like, uh, this person should not tell a lie, whether it's a white lie or not, because a friend wouldn't want them to do that or they should, you know, do such and such because this is what people expect them to do. People that are rooting for them. And so I focus more like on the villains in terms of twisting a little bit, uh, you know, the things that they did, which obviously makes, you know, someone root against them even more, you know, when they're doing bad things. So. So yeah, it certainly changed how my outlook on writing that and how I've, how I've written ever since.

[00:20:39] Pam Uzzell: Yeah. I can imagine that that would really influence you. And I don't say this in a negative way. I mean, we all want to believe that we have the ability to just create whatever we want and we do, luckily, but, you know, this season is about connection and you had created some connections there and I imagine, especially for a young person, it could be devastating to find out that the person they identified with, they thought of as their friend, was actually more of an anti hero and for an adult, that might be fun.

[00:21:18] Maybe, maybe not. Often with antiheroes, you get a clue at the beginning that they're complicated. 

[00:21:23] Joe Field: Yeah. 

[00:21:24] Pam Uzzell: So having it midway through, find out I mean, there are stories like that. I would have to I can't think of them on the spot. The midway through, you find out that they are not all they say that they are. But for kids, especially young readers, that would be really hard. 

[00:21:41] Joe Field: Another example of it, it's sort of tied to Young Readers is, I think it was the episode that you had with your daughter last season, where you guys were talking about bullying. And I have to admit, as a parent, you know, with kids, I've felt the same way. I want to arm my kids with every choice word, come back, every bit of Taekwondo I ever learned growing up, to face the bully. But what I've heard from parents and kids, Is that instead of doing that and causing a, like a bigger issue, because all my villains in my books are essentially bullies. They are. They're just bullying people. I've heard people say that they can put themselves in my superhero's shoes or my character's shoes as a way to feel like they're fighting the bully. So, insert whatever bully's name for the antagonist in my book. And they feel it's like almost cathartic. Like, I feel like I just defeated the bully. And that to me was amazing feedback because again, I, you can't then all of a sudden change that and make the bad guy good, the good by bad. So, so that's like another example of that feedback that has impacted, you know, I'm definitely on the good versus bad train because of that feedback.

[00:22:54] Pam Uzzell: Right. And I have still continue to read so many young adult books because I find many of them such lovely, well written, poignant stories. And it is true. You learn strategies about being a human being from doing this type of reading, especially at particular ages, as you're growing up. 

[00:23:19] Joe Field: Exactly.

[00:23:20] Pam Uzzell: Wow. I find that really fascinating and that your trajectory of how you were going to write was changed by that, but I am curious. Do you think, I mean, obviously you don't know, and I don't want to have you, you know, limit your career right now in this conversation, but can you imagine yourself then going back at one point, doing a book that is a little bit more complicated with people who are much more gray instead of good versus evil, that you might market differently? Especially just to adults, like not with a young adult audience in mind.

[00:23:59] Joe Field: I think so. I mean, even my Buffalo Man series is geared, it's geared towards new adults, which is people in their twenties and thirties. So certainly in there, there's maybe a little bit more gray characters in a sense, but I don't think I would ever do that for a kid, like a kid's book. I just, I don't think, I think it's a, it's a red line for me, but certainly for an older genre, I, I would do it just because I can see the value in the story aspect of it, but certainly, yeah, not for a younger audience. I think that would just, I think kids, you know, have enough issues with anxiety and everything else. There's just, it would just be one thing, you know, versus the feeling that I've received from these readers. Like, yeah, you know, they'll say like the, the knockout phrases, chop suey, you know, like those, they'll scream almost is like battle cries after reading, you know, a story. And that's pretty cool to me. It's like something that they can carry with them. 

[00:24:54] Pam Uzzell: I'm wondering what writing these books and creating these [00:25:00] connections that you have, that's already a fair measure of success, which is really amazing and wonderful. But for you, if there was no audience or anything, what is it for you about creating these stories? What is it that you get out of writing these things? 

[00:25:21] Joe Field: I love that question. I think, you know, when it started, it was certainly just a creative outlet. And as it's transitioned, I thought a lot about over the last few years, just reflecting on why, why do I write? Because I could think of like 13, 000 things right now I could do instead of writing that would fill my time.

[00:25:39] So it's really is the why. Yeah, above and beyond everything else. So I think for me now, right now, my first why is my kids and in writing in a way and creating in a way that inspires them and shows them like, Oh, you have a creative gene in your body, you know, your father is, is, is a creator, you have it too.

[00:26:03] And just for them to see the joy that I get out of creating so that as they age, it's a something that they can use and be a part of the, I just want to foster that, encourage that. So that's, that's kind of my, my first why. My second why is I think I touched on the voicemail. Every year, the amount of people that can name even one book that's their favorite goes down and down.

[00:26:25] It used to be like, 95 percent of people when asked on the spot could name their favorite book. And it's something crazy. I don't know. It's like 20, 20 percent maybe. And a lot of that has to do with other entertainment options and whatnot. I want to write those kinds of books that are people's favorite books that they binge read over and over again.

[00:26:46] And you know, with habits, sometimes all it takes is one thing to trigger a habit, one good book. And now I'm reading again and for adults, it is what it is. It could be a good outlet, but for kids, it's vitally important for their development to be able to read and comprehend and develop their brain. So that's my second why to, and I've thankfully had feedback from readers, especially kids that have told me they've read through my series five, six, seven times.

[00:27:13] They like it more than Harry Potter. I still can't believe that one. And cause you know, but that's pretty neat. And I have to admit, I. I think I have a third why now, and this largely is thanks to you as I've been following your show and reflecting when I, when I sent my voicemail in, I think I really could put a third why as using my art that I developed to help heal people's wounds.

[00:27:37] Maybe people that I don't even know because the feedback that I've gotten, it wasn't a why that I had going in, and it wasn't a why that I was really thinking about. To think about your art, helping someone overcome some addiction or get them back on reading or to help them with a bully or whatever. I feel like that's, thanks to you

[00:27:57] now I have a third why and the more why's you have for doing anything, especially creativity related stuff, uh, the, the longer you're going to be able to do it, you know, for years or maybe decades, if you have enough good why's. 

[00:28:08] Pam Uzzell: Thank you for that feedback. And thanks to you, I get to talk about young adult fiction, which is truly some of my favorite fiction. So thank you. 

[00:28:20] Joe Field: That's awesome. Yeah, of course. 

[00:28:22] Pam Uzzell: And what about piano? How is that still a part of your life? 

[00:28:27] Joe Field: So I do this, I have this thing I do and it's mostly when I travel and I don't know if you've ever seen like when you're going through an airport, you'll see a piano just sitting there public piano Sometimes they have a sign. Sometimes they don't but the piano is basically screaming like play me So this thing I do I don't know why I do it I just do it where anytime I'm in the airport and I see one I just I just sit down and I play like maybe like a 10 minute compilation of little ditties I've made up, little melodies And it's just the the feedback that i've got, not even directly, just watching people's amazing. You're in a airport lounge full of strangers And they'll put their phones down. They'll sort of relax. They'll sort of just kind of start looking at each other. Oh, check this guy out, you know, talking to each other. Sometimes they clap. Sometimes they just smile and, you know, privately, you know, thank me or say something.

[00:29:19] And it's not that I'm good or anything. I just do it. I originally did it just to kill time and cause I could do it. But now I do it because I was like, you know, this actually helps people, especially when you're traveling and you're tired, you're stressed or whatever. So I started to do this and I've done it for a number of years now, but I had a recent experience I think touches at the core of making connection through art.

[00:29:43] And this was over the holidays and I was traveling and my my plane was connecting through a rural airport in North Dakota and the plane landed at 12 30 a. m. So zero dark 30 in the middle of the night and my next flight out was at five in the morning [00:30:00] So I was like, okay. I mean i've slept in airports plenty of times. This isn't a big deal, but okay I mean it is what it is. So I, I leave the, the gate and go into the terminal and this terminal, I mean, I've never seen your master bedroom, but it's smaller, I guarantee, than your master bedroom. I mean, it was like a couple benches, a bathroom, and one of those public pianos just sitting there. Just like, I was like, what, what? Of all places. I was dead tired. So I, I went on a bench and I curled up and I fell asleep. Maybe 10 minutes into sleeping, someone shakes me, I look over, it's the security guard, and he goes, Oh, uh, do you have a connecting flight? I said, yeah. He said, Oh, well, we close our airport every morning from 1 to 3 a m for cleaning. So, you'll have to leave, and I'm like, well, You know, it's, there's snow outside, it's cold, I was like, you know. He's like, well, it's okay, you can stay in the vestibule area. You know, where the sliding doors are. He's like, it's heated, don't worry, you won't freeze to death, it's heated. But you have to stay in there for two hours.

[00:31:03] Then you could come back. I was like, okay. So I go in there, guy locks the door behind me, goes back in his office. I test the outside door. It works is cold air coming in. And so the only thing in there in this little vestibule, this entrance way was a wheelchair. And so I sat down on the wheels. I wouldn't normally do this.

[00:31:22] I sat down on the wheel. I was so exhausted and I fell asleep. Well, it must have been 30 minutes in like 1 30. My legs slipped, hit the side of the pedal and cut my ankle all the way. I started bleeding. It's like 1. 30 in the morning, my ankle's bleeding, now I'm wide awake, and I'm in this vestibule area, and I'm standing up, and I look over, and on the other side of the glass is this lady, and she's cleaning, she has a mop in her hand, she's cleaning the airport, and she looked like she was in her mid 50s, and she's all by herself, just cleaning, she wasn't listening to music or anything.

[00:31:56] But as I was observing her, I just, she just seemed like the weight of the world around her shoulders. She just seemed sad. You could just tell when people are just like sad. And so I just, I just stood there for an hour and a half and just watched her clean, you know, the same four floor tiles over and over. And I just kept wondering, like, what, like, what happened in this lady's life to, you know, be cleaning this airport at this time and to feel so sad.

[00:32:21] And when the security guard finally left me in back at 3 a. m. He went back in his office and it was just this gal and I walk in and she sort of said, hi. And then I just saw her eyes glance over the piano. Like, I don't know if she was trying to or not. And so I was like, would you want me to play something?

[00:32:38] And she was like, I would love that. Yes, please, please, please. And so she put her mop down and she comes over and she sits on the bench right in front of the piano, you know, puts her hands and I sit down at the piano. Now, if, if you've ever played one of these pianos, you don't know if the keys are sticking or it's out of tune.

[00:32:55] So I just warm up quick. Uh, and it sounded, sounded fine. The keys were good. And I was like, I don't know how this is going to sound. It's three in the morning. I'm dead tired. My ankle's bleeding, but I'm just going to do it. So I played for like 10 to 15 minutes and I'm telling you, I didn't miss a note.

[00:33:10] Like I played, I did, I was in the flow. I didn't even miss it. I didn't even know she was there. I didn't even know where it was. I just played perfectly. And not that I'm a great player, but I just played it well. And when I finished, I looked up and I don't know if you've ever been to like, uh, like an opera orchestra at the end, you know, where that final note and someone in the audience is like, you know, gasps.

[00:33:30] That's what she did. And again, not because I played so well, but she just was overcome by this. And, and I remember like trying to talk to her and like, Oh, like, thank you. You know, thank you for this. She's like, you have no idea how much that means to me. It made my day, my week, my month, it was just full of emotion.

[00:33:47] She just went back into this worker's area. So I didn't, I didn't see her until, and then I went through security and she popped out and I waved hi or goodbye to her and I left. So I have a question for you. What do you think it was that moved this lady so much by me playing for her? And don't say it's my playing because you haven't heard me play.

[00:34:07] So, so I mean, I have an idea of what it could be, but I want to hear what you have to say. 

[00:34:13] Pam Uzzell: You paint such a vivid picture of her and when you talk about her, I put myself like cleaning airports in the middle of the night. Nobody's there and music is such a key to unlock and to loosen things that we're feeling really hard things people often listen to music and I feel like you did that for her and then also gosh just the human connection that you asked her if she would like for you to play I think that you made her feel seen.

[00:34:52] You made her feel less alone. You made her able to set aside [00:35:00] whatever she was carrying for just those few minutes. It's such a beautiful story. I can just see it. It's really great. 

[00:35:08] Joe Field: It definitely moved me. I mean, it, it, it impacted me because It's one thing to hear a reader say something about your books, it's another thing to visibly see it right in front of you as it's happening with you and this lady in rural North Dakota, the only two of you right there.

[00:35:25] My mind, my, you know, silly mind was like, Oh, well maybe she had a son that looked like me and used to play for her around the holidays and maybe he's gone, he's, you know, they had falling out, he's in the military or something. 

[00:35:38] Pam Uzzell: That's the writer in you. 

[00:35:39] Joe Field: Yeah, that's the writer in me. That's probably how I would write it if I was going to include it in a book. But, but yeah, so I, uh, it was sort of the final straw I needed because I really was thinking about the George Winston thing, and this was just like the final thing I needed. So I actually did finish mastering 10 songs that I wrote and they're going to be up on Spotify or wherever you stream your music this month.

[00:36:03] So, uh, I can give you, yeah, I can give you the link for that, but, uh, 

[00:36:06] Pam Uzzell: I'll put it in the show notes. 

[00:36:08] Joe Field: Oh, that would be great. Yeah. And, uh, it'll be neat. Some of the songs or parts of the songs that are in my album I played for this lady. Uh, so, uh, I would just need to see what people think about it, you know, so.

[00:36:21] Pam Uzzell: Right, right. I think you just had an incredibly special experience of the way creativity creates a sense of wellbeing for those who are doing the creating and those who are receiving it. And that is the connection that creativity can make. So I have no doubt that you did make her month maybe even longer by doing that and that she's told that story to many people as well.

[00:36:51] Joe Field: Yeah, that would be super cool. Yeah, that's neat. 

[00:36:54] Pam Uzzell: Yeah. Thank you for sharing all of this, Joe. I'm hoping you can tell people where they can find out more about you, find your books. I'll put the link up to your music once you have that done. So let people know how to find out more about you and your work.

[00:37:13] Joe Field: Well, let me start by saying thank you to you, Pam, for investing your time in this. I know I've done podcasts. It takes a lot of time and energy and you could be doing a million other things. So thank you for, you know, keeping at it in this movement. And at the very least, like it's given me another why, but at the bigger level, I know that you've impacted a lot of people because of it. So, so I just want to say thank you. And thank you for having me on, letting me tell my story. 

[00:37:39] Pam Uzzell: Oh, thank you. 

[00:37:40] Joe Field: In terms of my books, I do have an offer for your listeners. If you're in a book club or you run a book club, or you're a member, if you read one of my books, send me an email, joe@legends universe. net is joe at legends universe. net. Send me an email. And invite me to your book club. I'll attend virtually. And it's your opportunity to grill the author. I mean, you can grill me. You can be like, why did you do this? What is that? Or, I mean, every single scene comes from real life. I mean, almost every scene is very related. I have a story to tell from every scene.

[00:38:14] They're like, how'd you come up with this? Well, I can tell you a story about that. So I'm just throwing it out there. If anybody wants to do that, they can hit me up. Uh, if you're interested in reading my books they're all on Amazon. You can pull up your Amazon app and type Joe Field and Buffalo Man or Axel Holt or one of my books and they'll pop up.

[00:38:32] And then yeah, my music will be on Spotify, Apple Music, all the music providers soon. So I'll send you the link for that. And the album is Minnesota. Well, Minnesota, I should say there's no, so the appropriate amount of O's in it. It's kind of like a, a love letter, a love song to my state, but it would be Minnesota, Joe Field.

[00:38:51] So yeah. But it's all piano music. There's no lyrics. It's just piano. 

[00:38:56] Pam Uzzell: That's wonderful. Well, I am making a request that you write a scene in one of your books where the hero is stuck somewhere and he plays piano for a very careworn worker in the middle of the night, 

[00:39:12] Joe Field: okay I'm gonna try that I think I have an idea of how I could fold that into one of my books So yeah, I'll do that 

[00:39:20] Pam Uzzell: Well, thank you Joe and have a great rest of your day, and I look forward to hearing that 

[00:39:25] music. 

[00:39:25] Joe Field: Yeah, thank you so much, Pam, it was a pleasure.

[00:39:28] Really appreciate it.[00:40:00] 

[00:40:22] You're listening to Art Heals All Wounds

[00:40:48] Thank you to Joe Field for being on the show today to talk about the connections he's made with his writing and his music I think Joe's superpower is a certain type of generosity and fearlessness and openness that allows him to make connections. I'll put all of his info into the show notes, but one sure way to find his work is to type The Legends Universe, Joe Field, into Amazon.

[00:41:15] And guess what? Joe sent me a copy of two of his piano compositions to use in this episode. You heard one there at the end of his interview, and another one during the intro of the show. I'll put links to his piano pieces in the show notes as well. 

[00:41:32] What role does art and creativity play in your life? I'd love to know. Leave me a voicemail and tell me about it. I'll share your voicemail on the show. Just go to the website, arthealsallwoundspodcast.com, and you'll see the button to click to leave a voicemail. And if you wanna support Art Heals All Wounds you can also go to my website and click on Buy Me a Coffee.

[00:41:57] Every bit of support from you helps me to continue producing this show. Thanks for listening. 

[00:42:03] The music you've heard on this episode is by Ketsa Loboloco, and Joe Field. 

[00:42:09] This podcast was edited by Iva Hristova.