“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.
“Throb and Swagger- The Sounds of Newark” #10 10.5″x16.5″ Canson Arches Aquarelle Rag Paper, Enhanced Giclée Archival Print Edition 1/1 Printed for the Newark Public Library
This work is about the vitality, creativity and resilience of Newark New Jersey. My print captures the dynamic energy of the city.
In the spring of 2016, I was invited by Matthew Gosser, (curator and teacher at NJIT’s College of Architecture and Design, involved with the historic preservation of many of Newark’s landmark buildings,) to create art based on my personal experience with the Queen of Angels, a historic church on Belmont Avenue, now Irving Turner Blvd.
I spent a couple hours exploring what was a nearly completely demolished church, with most of my time seated and listening to the ambient sounds of the community. I took notes and made sketches from overheard conversations of passersby, and the ambient sounds from traffic, airplanes and nature. These sounds deeply influenced my emotional response and drawing, and was the basis for this work of art
“Birdland – Maynard Ferguson” For the first horn player I ever had a crush on. Those high sweet tones set my 13-year-old heart on fire, and at 72 years of age still does!!!!!
Silk, cotton and linen with cotton and metallic thread and floss 31″x21.5″
This song is a bubble-dub song, bumpy with colored percussion, and simple circular and angular patterns. Feels like the party detritus strewn in my brain the day after a very joyful lively gathering. Completed June 1, 2017
20″x24″ Linen and cotton on linen, cotton and metallic thread and floss.
I always liked the music in video games better than the games. The sounds are discrete and usually very bouncy. This is a gestalt of many musical experiences with chiptunes.
Silk on linen, metallic thread and floss. 26″x34″.
Using my synesthesia, my hearing to seeing and making art, I created this hand sewn surface design based on live electronics and bass drum. “The Deformation of Figures” was composed by Seth Cluett and performed by percussionist Tim Feeney. This “lowercase” music is an extreme form of ambient music, subtle and rich. The electronics/sine tones, are in color, and the percussion is in black for this one hour performance. I make sketches while listening at a live concert, and re listen to recordings until I am happy with my capture of the “bones” of the music.
Living Out Loud: The Art of Geri Hahn 