Mid-Day Reeds_Arteles Creative Center Finland_____________Photo:Mary Ince

In my last blog post_Silence of the Dunes, I wrote about my experience of searching for visual silence during a residency in the Provincetown sand dunes. What a life changer that was. That posting reported what it was like to be in the dunes; and, what the experience was all about. The work was displayed at the Hudson walker Gallery the next year. I shared about what works I produced during that time. They were mostly music oriented. But, I still had an itch to delve more into the possibility of visually interpretating silence. As a result, I was able to secure a themed residency at the Arteles Creative Center in Finland.

The theme was Silence/Awareness/Existance. I couldn’t pass this one up. It happened to be in the four weeks of December. You know…. one of the snow months. If you’ve ever lived or played in the snow, you know how quiet it can be. Bingo_______SILENCE.

Studio_Arteles Creative Center Finland _________________________ Video: Mary Ince

Well, as we all know, climate change has altered our weather patterns. No snow for me. I’d planned my whole creative experience around the quietness of snow. But, an artist has all sorts of ideas in her head. I was able to find silence. It just wasn’t what I’d expected.

The next residency was a collaborative one with three other artists: drawing (me), sculpture, installation, and writing. These were women I had bonded with at my first residency that started this whole exploration_Vermont Studio Center.

After the collaborative residency, I was again at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown MA. This is where I really concentrated on music and art. The Center is a very fertile ground for creating.

Over the intervening years between my first residency and this one, I seemed to be gravitating toward contemporary chamber music. I did a lot of listening, concert going, and reading about the subject. During one of the concerts by a wonderful chamber group, Camarata Pacifica here in southern California, a piece of music was played that got me all fired up. Lera Auerbach’s 24 Preludes for Viola and Piano has all of the marks I wanted to create a drawing to. I went home and tried to find a recording of it, but found that it was too new and hadn’t made it to a source that I could access. However, I did find her 24 Preludes for Cello and Piano. I bought the CD and played it over and over. I was mesmerized.

I, personally, found the music on this CD to be very stimulating. At times, hard to listen to, but beautifully complex and thought provoking. Not everyone found this true. You can read a review of the CD by David Kettle in The Strad Issue 1/2013.

Being someone who likes a challenge, I wondered how I was going to respond to all twenty four of the preludes. I thought about doing one large drawing, but settled on producing twenty four little “studies”. Each was a 5” x 5” study that I put in a grid. I realized after a while that I probably wasn’t going to ever go back and recreate each of these studies as a larger piece. The way I work with the music is that I hear it a certain way, see certain particular marks at that specific time I am hearing it. It is definitely an in the moment experience. I knew that listening to it in a different space in time, I’d see it completely differently. I listen for the marks, the splash, the pounding, the vibration, the gentle gliding.

Auerbach: 24 Preludes for Cello and Piano Op. 47 (read across the top row: top left is #1, bottom right is #24) Medium: ink, charcoal, graphite, paper ea. 5”x5”

I decided to leave the Preludes as a gridded one piece creation.

After finishing the preludes, I decided to listen to more of Lera Auerbach’s work. This wasn’t easy since she is an expremely prolific composer. (Works for orchestra, chamber, opera, solo, choral, and the list goes on.) Since I was loving the CD that I had bought in spite of what David Kettle had said, I found another piece on it that spoke to me. It was another piece for cello and Piano: Sonata for Cello and Piano. I chose the first movement because it seemed to present a lot of mark making sounds that I could interpret quite nicely.

For some reason, I decided to create this as a “blind” drawing. I had always admired Robert Morris’s Blind Time Drawings after seeing them years ago in Prato Italy.

I can’t explain how difficult it was having my eyes closed as I was using touch to guide me through listening to a musical piece. The experience was truly unique.

Blind Drawing to Lera Auerbach’s Sonata for Cello and Piano, no. 1

The time I spent creating at this residency was the most exciting and productive so far.

In my next blog post, I will explore with you a bit of a deviation on Drawing My Journey -Through Music and Marks

My home for two weeks of total silence____Margo-Gelb Shack (aka Boris)_Provincetown MA

I said in my previous blog _ Pursuit of an Idea, that I’d give you some background into how I came to continue to develop my journey into The Visual Interpretation of Contemporary Chamber Music. I spoke of how I wondered what the antithesis of sound/music was, silence. I was curious about about this concept.

That is how I landed in one of the most incredible places on earth. Where I found silence, in the dunes of Provincetown, Massachusetts. At the tip of Cape Cod was where I experienced my next Residency. This link below, will tell you a little about what I found there; looking for the opportunity to delve into drawing silence.

One of the requirements of being given this residency was to exhibit my work at a chosen venue on Cape Cod. I chose the Hudson Gallery at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown because my residency had been so closely connected with the town.

At the same time, I had another residency there for a month. What a gift that was.

I had intended to continue my series about Silence, but found my head kept filling with music. I gave in to the music and ended up creating some of my first serious pieces of the Music Series. I seemed to respond to contemporary chamber music most vividly. I’m sure it was the individual instruments that spoke to me.

I decided to work on at least one large piece. The work I had done at VSC made me realize that I loved the physicality of the large format. I could use my whole body_ swooping across the paper with giant gestures. Feeling the drag of the graphite and Charcoal against the paper.

I had become enamored with Steve Reich’s work; especially his Desert Music_Fast

I started this work on the floor, with grand gestures of fluid ink as underlying voices. Adding different elements of ink, I worked back and forth between the floor and the wall.

Steve Reich: Desert Music_Fast

The FAWC Residency proved quite fruitful for my Music Series. I had brought a lot of different types of music to listen to while I was working. One of these pieces I found haunting. It required a different approach from my usual mark making on paper. It was George Crumb’s_Ancient Voices of The Earth. I saw floating layers of back and forth of ethereal fog produced by the oboe. There were also striking moments of organized lines, drips, clicking lines. I decided to use mylar as a substrate instead of paper because it created more of a soft layered mesmerizing feel. I worked on both sides - revealing the back and forth of sounds.

During this time of concentrated work time, I was able to produce several fun pieces_almost like doodles: Toot Your Flute, Unfinished Score 2, among others.

This time in Provincetown proved to be exactly what my grounding needed to start to really produce some delicious moments of connection of music and art.

Stay with me as I continue Drawing My Journey -Through Music and Marks……

For anyone just coming to my blog for the first time, you can find all of the previous blogs in this series starting at the bottom of this group of stories.

In my last blog, I explored the idea of what got me started on this journey. I also delved into some of my materials and why I choose them. This blog will go into more of the music and the environment that created fertile ground for exploration of the Visual Interpretation of Contemporary Music.

After I got home from my Vermont Studio Center Residency, I got a call from a dear musician friend of mine. He knew of my interest in the connection between music and image making. After a lengthy discussion about what creative possibilities this could have, he told me about a piece of chamber music that he and fellow wind players had recorded. It was Paul Hindemith’s Wind Quintet_Kleine Kammermusik op 24 no. 2.

John felt that I would respond to the mark-making quality of the piece. I took the CD home and promised to listen to it. Putting it on the shelf in my studio, I intended to “get to it later”.

One day when I was packing some of my art supplies for my yearly trek to spend the winter at my West Coast studio, I came across the Hindemith CD. Well, the rest is history for the Hindemith.

Upon arriving at my place in the Golden State, I promptly started working with Paul Hindemith.

West Coast Studio

As I started the drawing, I found it physically and emotionally invigorating. I saw it as a large piece of music so decided to work large (42” x 90”). Physically, I threw myself into the work, drawing with my whole body. The music enveloped me in its staccato’s, its dancing melody, mellow sounds of the winds slightly odd/abstract sounds, and titillating trills. I found myself dancing as I put the charcoal and graphite to paper. What a new and exciting experience!

Mary Ince_artist

Hindemith Wind Quintet

Thus, began my immersion into the realm of marrying sound and touch_music and drawing. I was mesmerized.

After my experience creating the Hindemith piece, I explored many different artists who were responding to music as I was. One such artist I found fascinating, was Spencer Fitch. He had done many grid type pieces just like I would end up doing at a later residencies.

Spencer Finch

 NEWTON’S THEORY OF COLOR AND MUSIC (GOLDBERG VARIATIONS.                     

Fluorescent fixtures and filters. Installed at the Steinway & Sons Manhattan show room. This installation draws upon the visual spectrum as set down by Isaac Newton, who assigned colors to each note of the chromatic scale. The first few measures of each movement of J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations are translated into a series of colored bars, each of which is illuminated along one of the thirty-two hanging fluorescent double fixtures.

I read books on artists, and their personal accounts. I did a lot of listening to music. I found that I responded to certain types of music more than others; and, didn’t respond at all to others. I homed in on contemporary chamber music. It might have been because of its easy access to the individual instruments. That is where I clearly saw and felt my marks.

Details: Auerbach

It was about that time that I started wondering_ what was the antithesis of sound__silence. I searched for places where I could find that silence. I wanted the challenge of drawing it. The outer Cape Cod seemed to be the perfect place to do this.

My next blog will go a little deeper into the magic of the Provincetown Dunes; and, the residency that was a result of the time I spent searching for silence…

In my last blog I spoke of how I came to my journey of Drawing my Journey_Through Music and Marks. This blog posting will include the what and why of my materials.

Materials connecting with paper_detail of Reich: Desert Music_Fast movement

I have always had a love affair with paper. There is a physical feel to it that evokes a certain emotional sense. Of course, the tools one uses are an integral part of that experience. The scrappy drag of the charcoal, the harsh feel of the graphite. The smooth flow of the line of ink as the brush draws across the paper. It all depends on their relationship between me and the paper.

My materials: charcoal, conte crayon, graphite, chalk

Because I was traveling to my residency destinations, I had to choose certain tools. Some residencies were close to me when I lived on Cape Cod; some as far as Finland. It was hard lugging too many supplies with me. I sometimes had to drive a distance, or fly cross country, and even cross the Pond. I have become accustomed to using my favorite materials. I told you of the love affair I have with paper. As a painter uses oils on canvas, I love to use charcoal, ink, and graphite on a variety of papers. Occasionally, I use acrylic paint and crayons.

My studio at the Vermont Studio Center

During my first artist residency at the Vermont Studio Center, there was a sensual relationship between my hand, the tools, and paper. At the same time, I seemed to be responding to whatever music I was playing in my studio. One of my creations was a large drawing_Unfinished Score. I remembered my experience many years earlier that produced The Schoenberg Pieces ( mentioned in my first Blog post_A Beginning) I had that same feeling when I created this new piece.

UnFinished Score_ Vermont Studio Center

I wondered what this experience was. Someone said I might be having a synesthetic experience. “Synesthesia”, according to Psychology Today, “is considered a neurological (non-pathological) condition in which information meant to stimulate one of the senses stimulates another one.” One of the most common pairings is sound and color. I seemed to be experiencing a pairing of hearing and touch between the music I was listening to, and touching my materials to the paper.

Kandinsky

Four to six percent of the general population have synesthesia. However, it is more common in artists. Some visual artists you may know either have documented cases or are suspected of having it such as, Kandinsky, Van Gogh, Joan Mitchell, Carol Steen, Melissa McCracken, David Hockney. These are only a smattering of visual artists. Musicians can also be included, List, Sibelius, Rimsky-Korsakov, Scriabin, among many more.

David Hockney

Stay tuned for the next installment of my Blog, as I share how I came to seriously pursue the idea of The Visual Interpretation of Contemporary Music.

Blogging is new to me. I often read other artist blogs, but have never done one myself. So here I go……….

One of the things I really like about artists’ blogs is when they share their work and how they did it. Why did they made certain pieces? Why did they choose certain materials? I’m going to take you through Drawing My Journey -Through Music and Marks in these upcoming blog postings.

Reich_Desert Music

I have a solo exhibit coming up in October of this year at the University of Redlands. I thought this would be a good way for me to share how this body of work was developed. I have been working on this concept for over fifteen years. The thrust of the idea is the visual interpretation of contemporary chamber music.

Join my  journey, in this blog.

Where this series began.

University of Redlands_Memorial Chapel

It all started in 1965 at the University of Redlands in my History of Contemporary Art class. In those days “contemporary art” was Andy Warhol …………

Andy Warhol_ Marilyn Series

Donald Judd, Robert Morris, Sol LaWitt………………, Judy Chicago, Roy Lichtenstein, and others.

Sol LaWitt_

My classmates and I were all having difficulty wrapping our heads around_ “what is contemporary art?”. Our professor,  Dr Vernon Dornbach, presented us with a challenge. He knew there was a recital of contemporary chamber music at the University’s School of Music that evening. He said to go to the concert and listen, close our eyes, and visualize a painting. We were to come back to class the next day and describe our experience. I was blown away with what I experienced. I vividly saw a painting… actually, more like marks in a drawing. I’ll never forget how I felt. I saw marks, smooshes, smears, dots__ gentle and bold.

It wasn’t until many years later that I heard a piece of music… Schoenberg’s Six little Piano Pieces… in a concert at UMass-Amhurst, that I experienced the same feeling. Up to this point in my life I had many professional twists and turns, I wasn’t creating art at this time. However I was ripe for focus and I rushed back to my studio to explore this renewed drive. I got the music CD and went to work.

My Cape Cod Studio

Schoenberg's 6 Little Piano Pieces (2 of 6)

So began my journey of the Visual Interpretation of Contemporary Chamber Music.

My next blog will introduce more of my work. I will explore some of the how, what, and why of my process.