By JAY MILLER

We've all heard songwriters described as ''painting word pictures'' with their lyrics. Some musicians are said to use the whole sonic palette to create their best works. More than one musician or tunesmith has had the term ''cinematic'' applied to his or her music.

But few artists have ever attempted the kind of marriage of music and visual art that Andy Friedman and Paul Curreri are performing around the country.

The duo's ''Make a Living Tour'' hits the area this weekend, when they perform at the Kendall Cafe in Cambridge tonight and at Nickanee's in Providence tomorrow. They'll be at the Gallery Cafe in East Bridgewater on Wednesday.

Friedman and Curreri first met at Rhode Island School of Design, where both were initially hoping to become painters. Both were rabid music fans, and before long Curreri found himself pulled more and more toward his guitar and his songwriting.

''After just a few days at RISD I knew I wanted to play music,'' Curreri said, from a Connecticut tour stop. ''I had just played in little rock bands through high school, with no formal lessons. I had taken painting lessons, so it seemed reasonable to go to art school. But I soon looked around and realized I would not become the world's best painter. I decided I'd rather express myself as a musician.'' Curreri drifted into the filmmaking part of RISD, but also began playing music and writing songs. By the time he graduated he had 500 songs in his notebooks. Friedman, meanwhile, was developing his own painting skills, and wondering why he couldn't apply the same stage skills he saw in his music idols.

After several years of toiling for The New Yorker, where his cartoons often appeared under the pseudonym Larry Hat, Friedman decided to look up his old college buddy.

Curreri was performing music around Virginia when Friedman convinced him to join him in New York City. In October 2001, Friedman founded City Salvage Records, to release both Curreri's music, and his own artwork. The tour was a natural progression.

''Most of my artistic inspirations have been musicians,'' Friedman said. ''I was jealous of the experiences I'd seen going to concerts, that relationship those artists had with their audiences.

''Paul Curreri was one of my favorite musical artists, and also one of my best friends, so I decided to hit the road with him.'' That oversimplifies a bit, for Friedman proposed sharing the stage and billing with his pal, while not singing or playing any music. He decided he'd put together a loosely structured sample of his own visual work, paintings, sketches, Polaroid photographs, and a poem or two, and just present it to the audiences in his own way.

Firmly convinced that most art is presented snobbishly, Friedman's mission is to make his art accessible to the man in the street, the common folk, or, as is often the case in these shows, the fella on the next barstool.

His explanations and anecdotes may often be funny and provocative, but Friedman doesn't see it as stand-up comedy.

''I had no idea how to do this when we started,'' Friedman said. ''I just began cold turkey one night in Minnesota, where we shared the bill with bluesman Spider John Koerner and a rock band. I've learned so much since then, and the show is changing and developing every night. I've learned to make the audience part of the show. I do not give a speech or a lecture, but try and relate the artwork to myself and my experiences.

''How I do that changes, too. I watch Paul play songs night after night, and the lyrics and chords might be the same, but what he brings to them every night makes every night a fresh version. He may bend a note here, or emphasize a word there. I've gotten to the point where I'm at ease with getting certain things off my chest, so every night I'm not saying 100 percent the same things. I'm bending certain notes myself, not talking the same way, but making the same general points.'' The duo's unique presentation has played colleges, coffeehouses, rock clubs and bars. Friedman said he thinks back to a writer from his New Yorker days who had a reading in back of a small Gotham bar one night, where one bored customer kept heckling him with ''blah-blah-blah.'' The writer never acknowledged his tipsy critic, a mistake Friedman tries to avoid. ''That author never used that man, never changed a word of his speech. I'll throw that tomato right back at you, and try and engage you in the show,'' he said.

It's not all hecklers in the audience, though. ''One of my favorite reactions so far was in Eugene, Oregon, where a man came up to me afterwards and told me 'you were saying things that were in my head already,''' he said. ''When I'm in some of these bars I feel like some kind of funky bathroom graffiti.

''People give me credit for creating this renegade-artist thing, but to me it seems the way art should be, for everyone.'' Curreri's set follows and his music is sort of acoustic country-blues with incisive contemporary lyrics, judging from his last album, ''From Long Gones to Hawkmoth.'' Think of Woody Guthrie and Lightnin' Hopkins doing songs written by Tom Waits.

The wistful ''Blame Love'' could be right out of Waits's notebook, while the wit of ''Senseless As a Cuckoo'' is something you might expect from Elvis Costello's pen. The wistful ''Maria'' is neither blues nor country, but a kind of dreamy folk ballad.

Curreri has a gift for melody and plays impressive guitar, and his music must make for an apt contrast to Friedman's performance.

''It does seem so natural, because we are coming from the same place,'' Curreri said. ''As wacky as it seems when you first hear about it, afterwards it seems so natural. We're both doing the same thing, except only one of us uses slide guitar.''- After a year of steady work around the country, the pair has found that venues which once turned them down are now trying to book them.

Curreri has a new album, and Friedman has a new book of artwork ready for release. City Salvage will release both on April 22. Both the book and the CD are available at the shows or via www.citysalvagerecords.com

Jay Miller can be reached via E-mail at kingmuskrat@yahoo.com

Copyright 2003 The Patriot Ledger