Wait. What happened to Dan Morse Music and Art?

For most of my working life, I’ve looked for work that allowed me to be creative off the clock. I crunched numbers at a bank. I stocked products in a retail store. I did anything that helped pay the bills, but didn’t have any expectations of the job to do much else. ​ Then in 2022, I went through a process of reconsidering what role creative work had in my life. I opened the door of possibility to see what projects might take shape, and what a year it was! I released my first new music in years, I created a new business with my original art, I freelanced doing design and marketing work, and I felt creatively stretched to the breaking point. Which was great! Until I reached that darn breaking point. ​ The worst part is that your family and friends usually know something’s breaking before you do. They feel the effects of an over-stretched dad, husband, and friend before you know something’s off. So even after a very creatively fulfilling year and a half of painting, writing, recording, and designing, I knew I couldn’t keep all the projects spinning much longer. I had to figure out what was going to fit…and that was hard. Every creative pursuit was something I felt passionate about, and it's challenging to let anything good go, even if it's for the best.  ​ So what’s the answer? I don’t know for sure, but here’s an analogy for what I’m trying to build: It’s a framework for bringing all my creative work together, a way to apply some creative focus to my life. Imagine each type of project is a boat waiting to be launched into the world. And each boat requires a specific type of dock to be launched from. The music boats need to be launched from the music dock. The art boats need an art dock. ​ This requirement became apparent to me as I began to share my physical artwork a few years ago. My solution at the time was to use my existing platform as a musician and launch my art from there. What I eventually found out was that my artwork doesn’t totally integrate into my songwriting. Sometimes they cross paths, but they’re different mediums and sometimes serve different people. ​ My next move was to build a second dock, and Dan Morse Art was born! Problem solved, right!? Wrong. Now I felt like I needed to be in two places at once, and if there’s one thing I’m learning about myself, it’s that my energy knows limits that my dreams can’t comprehend. ​ And in order to launch any of those projects, you need a bunch of people who believe in it enough to gather around the dock and send it out. Without the people gathered around the dock, that boat will never leave the shore. It will look nice on the sand, but it will never go anywhere to serve anyone. So what I’m attempting to build this year isn’t a new creative endeavor; it’s just a new space to continue writing, singing, and drawing in— just like the docks I mentioned earlier, but to close up this little analogy, this isn’t a new dock; it’s a harbor. ​ Let me be the first to welcome you to Michigan Harbor Studios. The idea for Michigan Harbor actually began a few years ago when I was starting to build out my home recording studio. I grew up going to Lake Michigan for summer vacation, and it’s always represented a place where I felt safe being myself and dreaming about the future. So as I started to think about business names and purpose statements for a recording studio, I landed on this idea of a harbor where I would send out musical ideas with other like-minded people. ​ I didn’t realize at the time that it would become a headspace that would be great for other creative pursuits as well. It would become a new creative home for songwriting, fine art, illustration, and really whatever creative mediums serve the art and the audience. This is also a way for me to partner with other artists and promote the work they’re doing to make beautiful work! ​ By uniting everything under Michigan Harbor, my hope is that I get to focus on putting high quality work into the world, and not get slowed down trying to run from one platform to the next. So what happens to Dan Morse Music? The short answer is, nothing. Because Dan Morse Music is me! It’s always been hard for me to figure out where the line is between promoting my music (which is essential to succeeding in that space) and promoting myself (which I hate the feeling of). One thing I can tell you is that whatever the next musical project is, it will come out of Michigan Harbor. ​ The best way to get a front-row seat to every upcoming project, and an inside look at the creative process, is to simply join my email list! It's linked below wherever you see this. In addition to sharing personally with you via email, I’ll also be sharing regularly on social again, and you can find me at michiganharborstudios pretty much everywhere. You can also check out my shiny new website at michiganharborstudios.com to see my portfolio of projects in progress! ​ I can’t wait to keep creating with you in 2025, and I’ll see you soon!