Monday, November 12, 2012

Song Path Work Continues


I'm spending a lot of time in the studio with my ear buds listening to Ryan Ingebritsen's Whitewater Songpath Project.  There are many reasons this project is so incredibly engaging to me. Yes, it is the beautiful sound of nature with its silences, water, bird chirps, and all you would expect from a recording of a hike through nature.  But more deeply, it is the experience of being inside a composer's head and the chance to experience the audio landscape as he experiences it. 

Exploring marks, texture, and combinations of materials is what drives my visual work.  It happens to be adding up to landscape imagery right now, but it is the love of each part that makes the whole that thrills me as I work. As Ryan composed his Songpath piece he did so by physically moving through a space and listening to the texture, combinations of sounds, acoustics, and I can't begin to guess as to what other many  other subtleties.  When speaking with Ryan, I was delighted to find he was thinking of his piece as more of an abstraction of sounds that happen to add up to a landscape, but it's not a portrait of a landscape.  He was moving through a space with particular sound properties which he used to compose a piece- by moving physically through the space he composed a symphony.  His symphony just happens to have an instrumentation that is an entire ecosystem.





detail.

detail.








The following drawings are done to specific portions of the Songpath recording spanning from 4 to 10 minutes in duration.  These represent the first 20 minutes of the piece so far and are in order.









Here is Ryan talking about his Song Path project.  Enjoy!



Sunday, July 15, 2012

New Project


I am enamored by texture, mark, and color, the possible juxtapositions of which are endless.  Through my many years of painting and drawing from observation I have digested an enormous vocabulary of ways space can be created.  When I allow the material to work in tandem with my memory and imagination I tend to arrive at landscapes- maps of my moods and the structure of my thoughts.


With this new project I have embraced the landscape by listening to Whitewater Songpath from composer and musician Ryan Ingebritsen and have allowed the audio to influence my decisions.  I am very excited about where this is headed and quite pleased that Ryan is enthusiastic as well.  This is the very beginning, but I will be posting as more work is made.


I have always surrounded myself with musicians and have in the past privately used drawing as a way to connect with performers while sitting in the audience. Making work to music allows me to actively and physically listen to sound- my marks are dance steps that are coaxed into choreography by the influence of the audio.


Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Improvising the Landscape

Small improvisations:

Improvisation: Pink
ink, acrylic, dry pigment

Detail: 


Improvisation: Green
ink, acrylic, dry pigment and charcoal                                                                            

 Detail:

Swarm Landscape with Fence
ink, marker, acrylic