If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you I am here to live out loud Emile Zola 18″x18’x3′
I’m feisty and I don’t take instruction well. In my Ramapo College, Judith Peck spring sculpture class, we were supposed to make a “head” out of clay. I’m 69 years old – I don’t have a huge lifetime in front of me to experiment with what I want to say – this is all I got, this is it. And I wanted to create the image I have had rolling around in my head. So I made the ear, eye and curvy shapes of clay, on a plastic covered square of plywood, photographed it, fussed with color in Paint and Photoshop and finally got what I had in my head. Damn, but I am having fun!!!
Cotton, metallic thread and floss, cotton thread and floss
Inspiration: Ben Neill, Theo Metz, and David Rothenberg. Live Performance. June 6, 2013. Kingston, NY. | Musical Genre: Experimental Ambient
This was created as a result of my being an audience member experiencing musical performances by these three composer/musicians. Ben and Theo teach in the Ramapo College of New Jersey music department and David teaches philosophy and music at NJIT.
Cotton, metallic thread and floss, cotton thread and floss 9.25”x11.75”
Inspiration: Ben Neill. “Dream Phase.” 1996. Triptycal. Verve Records. | Length: 6:14 minutes; Musical Genre: Experimental Ambient
Although this piece is named after a specific Ben Neill composition, it is a general gestalt of my several experiences with his live performances. His self-designed “Mutantrumpet with its electro acoustic computer system generates bright red and golden horizontal wiggly layers that echo, punctuated by surprising vertical interstitial skittery boxes and circles of rhythm.
Cotton, silk, linen, cotton thread and floss, metallic thread and floss 12.5”x11”
Inspiration: Xylvanya. A series of 56 songs. 1990-2009. Xylvanya. | Musical Genre: Prog Keyboard
Xylvanya’s rolling twining sequences that curl around syncopated, stretched chords always lead me to a richly textured conclusion. This is my 40,000 foot gestalt on the basic structure of all his work, though each piece uses different timbres, pitches and rhythms.
Inspiration: Max Waves and Pixieguts. “Reflections.” 2010. Music for Microworlds. Elektronische Musik Union. | Length: 5:49; Musical Genre: Chillout Electronica
If I were to score music, it would look like this. Start at the bottom right and move up left and clockwise. (Who needs 5 lines and 4 spaces?) Pixieguts, who sings this poetry, has a wonderfully pink voice over against the electronica frame by Max Waves.
Silk, cotton, linen, metallic thread and floss, cotton thread and floss 16.75”x18.75”
Inspiration: Aaron Copeland and Martha Graham. “Appalachian Spring.” 1944. | Musical Genre: Mid-century Modern Ballet
This was initially drawn based on a memory of movements from the Graham ballet I had learned to dance in college. I was trying to explain to my husband the difference between the way I was taught to move my body in my ten years of classic ballet as compared with what I learned from my professor who had studied and danced with Martha Graham.
Inspiration: Cicadas and Summer Insects Audible from Emmons’ Terrace, August 2012
It is midnight and all the summer insects are singing. After a few minutes my brain dropped out the smaller insect songs and heard only the cicadas and the sound of the highways, Rt. 287 and Rt. 80, between which I live.
Living Out Loud: The Art of Geri Hahn 