Aroostook County Native Ellis Paul Creates Holiday Sand Art For One of His Best Songs "Mary, Mary"

Ellis Paul, who has released 19 critically acclaimed albums over the past 26 years, is also an author, poet and artist.

The singer-songwriter, born Paul Ellis Plissey 50 years ago in Fort Kent, graduated from Presque Isle High School and Boston College before going on to a nearly 30-year career as one of the most respected modern folk artists in the world. He visited friends and family in Aroostook County last month, performing and reading from his children's books at the Mark & Emily Turner Library in Presque Isle.

The song "Mary, Mary" was featured on his 18th album and first holiday release, City of Silver Dreams, released in 2012. The video created last year came about after Paul had seen sand art done on YouTube. He told his Facebook fans he knew "Mary, Mary" would be the perfect song for it, adding "Instead of hiring someone to create it, I did it myself at home over the course of a few hours. Mary and Joseph traveled over sand and desert to get to Bethlehem and the song is about the passage of time -- sand is a perfect medium for this. I included a clock in the video as well to support that idea. Including the World Trade Towers was a fleeting idea that showed how mad the world actually is, and I decided to keep it in the video, despite the historical leap in time."

Ellis says he feels "Mary, Mary" is one of his best songs, "It shows producer Flynn and pianist Radislav Lorkovic at the top of their talents as well-- but what do we do for a video? Hire a donkey and a sheep and a stable? That would be a disaster. And maybe too funny. It finally hit me that the Mother of Christmas deserved to be depicted more organically and metaphorically as an art piece, so this is my first attempt at sand art... I do hope you all enjoy this and will share it with loved ones.".

Paul also performed a moving live version of "Mary, Mary" at Folk Alley Studios in Ithaca, New York.