Winter is Coming
Here is a little drawing I made this week while thinking more or less about the profile of a violin using a Cubist approach. I am using the lines of the profile as the motif for the drawing and throwing in some strait lines and curves in a contrapuntal way to increase the visual dynamic.
Around this time of the year when winter is coming I typically shift to working on ideas always in the background since I first realized I could draw anything after 24 credit hours of drawing. "Ok, now that I can draw, I want to draw what I cannot see. what is that? Music!"
So, ever since I was about 20-21 years old that has always been in the background of my life as an artist. I have tried all different ideas of how to do that. I try to think like a composer. I never learned how to read music or play an instrument (I wish I did) I did take a couple of semesters of musical composition in college but, in the mess of life, I didn't continue. Too busy. But I am always trying out musical ideas in my art.
This week (as I often do starting in the Fall) I have been thinking about and researching Cubism, Picasso and especially Braque in relation to Igor Stravinsky and his compositions Petrouchka, Firebird and Rite of Spring. These works by Stravinsky are very visual to me personally. I often listen to them and imagine how they might look as visual forms, as drawing and paintings.
These are the things I have isolated as the historical moment (just before and just after 1910) when Visual Musicality and Abstraction entered the modern scene. Also Wassily Kandinsky, František Kupka, Joan Miro, Paul Klee, etc. But then all the disruption and world wars in Europe caused a massive disturbance in the art world and these things, these ideas, this inspiration seems to have gotten lost or dampened or pushed off to the side. Then the post-war art world went onto other things.
All of my study these last many years has been around this moment of crisis and inspiration in Europe in my quest to paint what I cannot see: music.
Anyway, over the years, because of the predictable studio disturbances caused by the holidays, my strategy is to work on end-of-the-year documentation for my artworks in general and my musicality theories with drawings and paintings that I can work on in snatches for even as little as 10-15 minutes at a time and not be frustrated in the studio by the holiday distractions of everyone coming and going and visiting and talking and hanging out which I love, but it can get me off of my routine that I work so hard to maintain. Without it I am a chaotic storm of random activity and I start feeling like I am off my game.
In the last few years, with a focus on asemic writing, I thought of the idea of asonic writing which is working at pulling asemic writing out of the realm of poetry and bring it into the realm of music which has lead me to the thought of working in lines on a painting instead of an over all image.
This idea of ‘writing’ musically in lines, though complex, allows me to be very spontaneous and to encourage a ‘reading’ of the painting left to right and up and down like you are reading a paragraph or a musical score. This greatly enhances the ability for the work to happen across time as the viewer looks at it and allows for the development of motifs and development of instrumentation. But they are time consuming and unpredictable to make! The above painting is completely tonal just in blacks, whites and grays as if a formulae on a blackboard. Deciding on and adding a pallet of colors is exponentially more time consuming and complicated.
There have been efforts to explore the idea of graphic music scores but these are usually more about making a score for performance by musicians. With my pieces I am making them to have a musical-like experience for the eye, not for interpretation into a musical performance. I suppose they could be used for a musical performance but that is not my purpose. The artwork itself is the performance. I am however interested in using musical concepts just as in my other typographic work, I like the thought of using poetic ideas in those paintings.
I guess in that regard I like the idea of cross pollinating different fields of language - mixing scientific processes and spiritual philosophy with visual art, music and poetry, and whatever else I have time and interest to explore. Make hay while the sun is shining.
The painting with color is magnificent and exciting to my eyeballs! I can almost 'hear' the music but can definitely see it. The black/white/gray one is really a great one to study for a long time. I've seen your asemic/asonic writings but to see it like this in all it's wonderful dimensions is a real treat for the eyes! I can stare at these paintings over and over again for a long time each time. I've been told by an art dealer that "art should be disturbing in it's attractiveness" yet, your work is pure enjoyment in its depth, design, color palette, and flow........yes, very much like listening to music that moves the soul and spreads joy throughout one's body.
The movement and expression of the violin piece is wonderful!
Your cross pollination idea is fascinating. I recently made a collage with a poem to accompany, which worked well enough that I intend to do more moving forward. Bringing all the fields you've mentioned together is well worth exploring.