International pianist and synesthete, Dr. Svetlana Rudenko, used my art, “And, But and Not”, as a basis and inspiration for her musical composition, and then as part of her research resulting in a paper she delivered last week at Trinity College Dublin Ireland.
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“Music in Curved Entrances” is inspired by the music of minimalist composer Terry Riley from the 1970’s films, “Les Yeux Fermés & Lifespan”. My work is hand-sewn and embroidered fabric art, made in silk and linen with elements of shiny metallic floss and thread. The tactility, structure, and sheen of the fabric and thread form an integral part of how I “see” and engage with Riley’s looping phrases that tumble over each other. The touch of rough and smooth textures, the brightness of silks, the matte finish of linens, and the sparkle of metallic threads all reflect my synesthesia while satisfying my other senses as I work.
My hope is that this work allows the viewer to share the energy and joy I experience as I listen to music.
“Ameriques by Edgard Varese” 34″x40″ sewy based on the work of this French/American composer. His piece “Deserts” was the first avant-garde piece of music I ever fell in love with at age 20 and it changed the trajectory of my musical listening life. “Ameriques” is my synesthetic hand sewn response in silk over linen, with metallic and hemp floss and metallic and cotton thread.
If you want to listen, here it is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nq8SKwi-ycE — in Mountain Lakes, New Jersey.
Living in the northeast US, I get to truly love autumn! I love the smells, the colors, the cool temperatures and the winds that blow over the hill we live on. I especially the love the sounds of leaves crunching under foot. This piece is based on that sound.
Regarding the black circles, my synesthesia inspired art is always a dance between my mental visual images of sound, and my interior self-talk emotional, or cognitive understanding of what I am experiencing. Perhaps it is because I am a Gemini that I hold these two tensions, or maybe all syns do this. When I make art, I don’t worry that it is a “photo” of exactly what I “see”/hear, but it is usually some variation of the remembered pattern of what that sound looks like. I just take the trip, create and not worry about the outcome. As I reflect, I suspect the black circles reference the cyclical seasons, the oncoming apparent death of flowering plants and trees, and the unknowable “Mystery” of death.
Archival inks, Canson Aquarelle Rag paper 8″x10″
Aluminum sculpture 10″x21″ November 2017
This is my second effort to capture the patterns I hear in the music by the German Tanz-Metall band Rammstein from the 1997 album Sehnsucht. The song is one of the band’s best known because of its inclusion on the soundtrack of The Matrix . My first effort in Fabric was created in March of 2014.
Raw silk, metallic thread and chenille yarn 14″x34″
Silk on silk with metallic, linen and cotton floss and metallic and cotton thread. 30″x30″
The great composer and musician and all round creative Pauline Oliveros taught me more than words can express. When I “came out” as an Artist in 2014, she not only always “liked” my work as I was tentatively beginning to show it on Facebook, but copied most of it to her FB page to share with others. Her “Deep Listening” process gave me a way to focus on the sounds that so importantly influence my art making. I was so very lucky to have had this woman as friend.
This piece was created after spending an hour out of doors when the world was noisy with some birds still calling at dusk- the wood thrush was strident, and the insects, traffic, airplanes, neighbors kids talking and laughing, the chatter of walkers on my street, and the wind in the trees added to the general shape of the sounds I noted as inspiration. This is pulled through my image of Pauline’s magical and ever present, accordion.
