Playing for Papa
I had just purchased a 1943 Baby Grand piano when we moved into a home built in the 1950s obviously by a student of Frank Lloyd Wright.
I cried the first time I saw it.
©Laurie Pace Graphics One Design 2026
Playing for Papa
SOLD by Laurie Pace
The house was shaped like a wide, open “U,” turned gently on its side, embracing light and space. The front held a long, curving stone wall with only small windows at each end, giving little hint of what waited inside. A circular drive led you in. The original circular fireplace and built-in seating had been removed before we arrived — a loss that still makes me sigh — but the heart of the home remained.
Half walls opened into the music room, where the Baby Grand lived. Ten-foot sliding glass doors looked into the covered inner courtyard, complete with fountains and soaring walls of windows rising nearly twenty feet into the air. Light moved through the home all day, carrying sound with it. When I played, the piano’s voice traveled through open rooms and long walkways, echoing gently, wrapping itself around the architecture.
During that time, I collected old sheet music — worn, yellowed, already carrying history. I began painting directly onto those surfaces. The music was no longer just heard; it became the ground itself. Notes beneath paint. Tempo beneath gesture.
I still get goosebumps remembering those days — sitting at the piano in the front of the house, letting sound sweep through the space, then walking into my studio to paint what lingered in the air.
The studio was generous — nearly 30 by 30 — with three easels always in use, a long worktable layered in progress, and even a small bar area that doubled beautifully for washing brushes. These paintings, born from music and memory, became highly sought after. Viewers felt something familiar in them — the quiet concentration of a child at the piano, the invisible notes floating just beyond the surface.
Music has never left my work.
The rhythm, the pause, the breath between notes — they are all still there.
The melody lifts you.
It floats your imagination.
And if you listen closely, it fills your heart. Elle Music as space — piano, architecture, memory, resonance through a home.
Laurie is an international artist, her paintings are collected in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Germany, DuBai, Portugal, Italy, France, Germany, the UK, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Poland, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, St Thomas, Romania, Greece, Croatia, and Ecuador.
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