Up On the Roof: Dancing, Downloads, and a City Made of Music
- Linda Chido
- May 27
- 2 min read
Updated: May 28
Some songs don’t just stick in your head—they hand you a vision.
That’s exactly what happened with Up On the Roof, one of the more playful pieces in my Music Series Collection. Like several paintings in the series, this one began in a familiar place: my car. I was driving with the music up, when Al Jarreau’s “Roof Garden” came on the radio. Before the song had even finished, the image had dropped in—fully formed. A couple dancing, jiving, mid-spin on a rooftop, swept up in joy.
I call those moments downloads. Not just an idea, but a clear, insistent vision that wants to be made. It arrives in technicolor. My job is to catch it—and then get to work.
The Image and the Experiment
In this case, I started by building the world they danced in. I collaged sheet music into the background to form a stylized city—rooftops, windows, high-rises all constructed from sheet music. The city itself became a kind of rhythm section.
Because I was working on paper, I decided to paint the couple separately—on a second sheet—then cut them out and glue them into the scene. This double collage technique was new to me, another experiment in my ongoing exploration of paper, texture, and layered meaning.
I love how the dancers feel slightly lifted, as if the beat is strong enough to pull them off the paper.
The Feeling I Wanted to Capture
Where Papillon is about presence, and Soul Candi is about power, Up On the Roof is all about joy. That kind of unselfconscious, weightless joy that music gives us. The kind that bypasses the brain and goes straight to the body. The kind that turns a rooftop into a dance floor, and a city into a musical score.
Like every piece in the Music Series Collection, this painting is my answer to the same question:
How does music make me feel?
Sometimes the answer is quiet. And sometimes it whoops in with a shimmy.
A Note on the Process
This painting asked something new of me—not just in technique, but in tone. It challenged me to hold lightness without letting it float away. To let joy be enough. And to keep experimenting—because that’s where the work stays alive.
Up On the Roof is a love letter to movement, to rhythm, and to those little moments of joy that music brings—especially when you’re just driving along and suddenly, the song hands you a painting.
🖼️ Collect from the Music Series Collection
Original paintings from the Music Series are available for purchase. If one speaks to you, I invite you to make it part of your collection.
👉 View available work or email me at linda@lindachido.com
🖨️ Print Release Coming Soon
Select works from the Music Series Collection will also be available as limited edition fine art prints—a beautiful, affordable way to bring this work into your space.
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