In June 2019, while recovering from surgery for a broken foot, a dear friend sent me a call for artists for the University of Ottawa Heart Institute’s Healing HeART Ceiling Tile Project. “Found you a new purpose in life!” she teased. The deadline? That very same day. I applied within minutes, though I had never painted with acrylics, or on ceiling tiles.

To my astonishment, I was selected. But brushes were impossible: a whiplash injury months earlier left my hands too unsteady to hold them. So I painted with my fingers instead. Slowly, on a 2’×4’ tile, Moonwake emerged—my first acrylic painting, created without a single brushstroke.

Now part of the hospital’s permanent collection, it hangs above a patient’s bed. Every time I think of it, I smile, knowing it might brighten someone else’s long hours of looking up.

Following the completion of Moonwake, I sat at the piano and played a composition that seemed to flow naturally with the painting. I paired the music with a photo sequence showing the different phases of its creation, forming a 35-second video below. At the time, I hadn’t intended to begin a series—but as this was my first acrylic painting, it became, almost unexpectedly, the beginning of what would later grow into the #MusicArt series.