Tag: Drawing
Creative Music Guild Compilation 2013
Creative Music Guild presents a cassette compilation for 2013 :
Side A :
Elfin Elephant
Rich Halley
Marisa Anderson/Lori Goldston/John C. Savage
Side B :
Grammies
John Gross Trio
Amenta Abioto
Catherine Lee
For sale here, digitally :
http://creativemusicguild.bandcamp.com
and here, physically :
info@creativemusicguild.org
Artwork and design by me.
Drawing and new wood piece
A drawing, made while not looking at the paper, of a new sanded and filed down wooden piece. I found it, covered in dirt and thick bark, on the ground while walking on Sauvies Island. I then added some elements to the drawing.
New drawings, 3
A small selection of new drawings. All done within the past few days.
New drawings
Pen and oil maker. Draw within the past week or so.
John Cage performance at Stanford University
This early October, while passing through California, I stopped at Stanford University to attend two concerts as part of the world-wide celebration of John Cage’s centennial. This was the only “deadline” I had on my trip; besides this concert, I didn’t particularly have to be anywhere, at any time. This was something I definitely wanted to attend. Being in Vermont a bit and mostly New Orleans for most of 2012, as well as being on the road, I wasn’t able to partake in any Cage Centennial events.
I was happily surprised to see some of my favourite Cage pieces in the program: Six Melodies, Cheap Imitation and Ryoanji. There was also a panel discussion, comprising Christian Wolff, Laura Kuhn, Walter Zimmermann and Kathan Brown.
I asked a question that kind of threw them off a bit, and they never gave me a direct answer. I asked if, because the majority of Cage’s work was determined by chance operations (almost all of it post- (approximately) 1950), Cage had any other avenues for self expression, as he made a conscious decision to separate his musical and visual work from his own personal intentions. Cage’s personal life, aside from his relationship with Merce Cunningham, isn’t discussed much, and I’ve always wondered what sort of relationship he had with himself.
Anyway, here are some drawings I made in reaction to some of the pieces played, which included pieces by John Cage, Walter Zimmerman, Christian Wolff and Frederic Rzewski (the amazing Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues, previously unheard by me).
Scanned drawings
I have made a new tab titled “Drawings“, which contains properly scanned recent drawings. It was just a library scanner, but it’ll suffice for now.
Many more will be added to this, as I scan more images.
Some of these have been sold while selling on the street, but some of them are also available. Please get in touch if you’d like to buy anything. Thanks.
Portland City and children’s books
Welcome to PDX. It was raining when I got here. The rain will present a new challenge, and plastic bags are going to become much, much more valuable …
My first impression of Portland is that it’s gorgeous. I landed in “Downtown” or “The Pearl”, or something, figuring I could initially take advantage of its offerings, such as libraries, Whole Foods, public buildings, parks and so forth. Even though I was surrounded by buildings both old and new, it smelled of wood stove smoke, which was supremely delightful as well as confounding. (I now know the smell is omnipresent, and much more so in the lovely areas East of the river.) The trees lining the streets already had Christmas lights, which I loved, as I love Christmas. (Even though I probably won’t make it home for this one.) The daylight was fading fast, and the approaching darkness highlighted the soft zig-zag patterns of colored lights on the undulating watery surfaces of all the roads and sidewalks. Folks walked about briskly, steamy air from their mouths, doing last-minute Sunday shopping, rushing onto packed buses and tram cars. Church bells rang, a distant train whistled. I walked around for quite a while, wandering into the fancy areas, watching the fancy people in their fancy restaurants, and listening to the muffled talking and clinking of dishes and cutlery. A steady drizzle continued, and the distance was obscured by fog and cut by lights from street lamps.
The following days have convinced me, as many people know, that there is much to explore and discover in this city. Although many people I’ve talked to prior to my arrival suggest there’s a certain falseness or pretentiousness to the younger crowd in the city, I haven’t specifically noticed that, although I can see where they’re coming from. Folks here seem to be genuinely excited about (and contribute to) the abundance of art, books, good food (food carts !), good beer (beer carts !), music, literature, independent shops, and so on. Personally, I am excited about all these things, genuinely. Believe me ! I am also excited about the fog, and the overcast days, and the industrial areas and forested areas waiting to be explored.
Post Script :
I am writing this in the “Quiet Room” of a small library in the Belmont neighbourhood (I think). One of the many things I’ve learned on this trip is that after utilising many libraries in small towns, I have not found many of them to be very quiet. Unless, of course, they are near-empty, which is sometimes the case. Anyway, this one is currently crowded, so it luckily has the Quiet Room. A librarian just informed me that the room will soon be used for reading stories to small children, and that I could stay if I wished. Needless to say, I definitely wish to stay. I’d rather hear a children’s book being read than listen to the talking and coughing and sniffling and ruffling of 30 people.
We started with an informative book about whales. The kids were very good listeners. They loved it. She then read a book about the beach. One kid raised his hand frantically: “Hey, hey, excuse me ! I was watching a movie, and, and, and there was a man who had sand. He was the Sandman.” One other kid knew exactly what he was talking about. “Oh, yeah, and he has a gun that shoots sand, right ?” “Yeah !”, said the first kid. The librarian patiently waited, then said with a smile, “Okay, cool, but that has absolutely nothing to do with this story.” And so we continued the story about the beach.
I do love children’s books, and think they’re so important. Many of them contributed thoroughly to who I am, and what I love. In fact, the only new book I ever bought was a children’s book, as I thought it was so well illustrated and composed. It is called Wonder Bear and has no words. It is about two kids who plant two patches of watermelons. One grows over night, and the other does not grow at all. From the water melon plant emerges a massive polar bear, with a blue bowler hat. From this hat he pulls flowers, bubbles which turn into bubble lions and octopi, and other amazing things. They go swimming in the indigo night sky, and ride dolphins. It’s amazing. Other things happen, but I can’t remember it all. It can be seen here. Speaking of children’s books, I met a girl in Arcata, California, who was there to promote a Halloween book for which she illustrated. It’s called Halloween Ooga-Ooga Ooum and can be seen here. After meeting her, I later stumbled upon it while in the health food store, and found the illustrations to be very beautiful.
My personal favourite children’s book is (coincidentally) a Halloween book titled Tell Me Mr. Owl, and probably has most if not everything to do with why I love so much to wander and explore towns and cities at night. The illustrations in it are very mysterious, and as a child I recall being completely taken into the world of that Halloween night. I didn’t find much information about it online, as it’s from 1957 and has probably never been reprinted, but I did find this semi-functioning page, which has some photographs of the illustrations.
Recent drawings
Here are some recent drawings of mine, selected from many others. I’ve been drawing a lot lately, both because I feel the need to produce more work to make more money while selling on the streets, but also because I feel a deep desire to create at the moment, and drawing is the best way, for me, while being in transit. I’ve been using the backs of old library cards. In this way the drawings reside on a nice, semi-heavy cardstock, cut well and each with some curious typewritten text on the reverse side. I’ve seen these often in libraries being used as scrap paper, and acquired about 100 cards from Stanford University when I was there for the John Cage symposium.
I also have a few drawn on blank newspaper stock (of which I have a lot, thanks to my father) and some on semi-textured Paper Source brand paper, left over from a few Notice Recordings releases. All were drawn in the past week, in San Francisco, except for the last two colour ones ; those are were created in New Orleans, and I recently rediscovered them.
Once again, all photographs were taken with my cell phone, so the focus and metering is terrible. I tried to compensate for that by pushing some of the levels as much as reasonably possible.
Oh, and these are all for SALE. I am selling them on the street, but that doesn’t mean I can’t post one to someone. I could use money. They look better in real life. They come in archival, crystal clear protective sleeves. Shipped with care. Will probably include a free something-else. Contact me for prices. All smalls are under 10$, probably 4 or 5$. A couple are 2$. The big ones would be more. Everything is negotiable. Thanks. thecoloroflight@hotmail.com
Sound work: “The Apartment Piece” on ((Cave)) Recordings
After discovering a review on Animal Psi for my tape on ((Cave Recordings)), I realised I never mentioned the release of this tape here.
So, foremost, a sound work by me, “The Apartment Piece”, has been released on ((Cave)) Recordings as a split with Chapels. This piece was recorded in Chicago using a variety of techniques and methodologies. It’s exemplary of my ideas regarding sound activity and domestic presences: Wherever I may be at a given time, I tend to place a recorder in a location where multiple sounds from multiple directions can be heard and can coalesce to create a singular listening experience. John Cage actually referenced this idea in a late interview, about which Marcel Duchamp evidently wrote. According to Cage, Duchamp began thinking of sound as not a “time art, but a space art”. From this idea, Duchamp created a piece called “Sculpture Musicale”, in which sounds converge at a point (presumably the listener’s) to create something “… lasting ; producing a sculpture, which is sonorous, and which remains”. This is an idea I’ve often thought about long before I heard the Cage interview or heard of Duchamp’s ideas regarding this. For quite some time I’ve been fascinated with the idea of listening simultaneously to a variety of sounds. This is especially applicable in a city apartment (when one has the windows open, of course, which I almost always do), although it can be noticed anywhere. For instance, from one window children can be heard playing in the park, from another the activities of a neighbour, traffic sounds, birds calling, wind blowing, clouds of leaves rustling, crickets chirping, the train passing, so on and so forth. Many times I would emphasise the sound activity by playing softly the Chicago classical station, WFMT, in one room, a quiet record in another, and some tape containing textural sound in a final room. Or some arrangement of the aforementioned and/or things not mentioned.
For “The Apartment Piece”, I started by playing an unidentified Dense Reduction tape (my sound duo with Travis Bird) and a primarily drone-based tape by Benjamin Galens (soon to be released on Notice Recordings). I recorded this with a microcassette recorder. I then recorded that to a 2-track cassette tape. I then played the microcassette back as well as the 2-track tape, in separate rooms, and recorded it once more with the microcassette recorder. Furthermore, I went about my daily domestic activities such as cleaning and doing the dishes. With this final tape, I began the composition. The tape was Channel 1 in my mixer. Channels 2 and 3 were connected to various outputs of the mixer, and thus functioned as no-input channels. Channels 4 and 5 were contact microphones, connected to various objects such as bricks, a metal box, and an old porcelain insulator connected to a brick via an iron spindle. The contact microphones were often used as interference with the microcassette speaker and microphone and the monitor speakers. There was also an open-air microphone introduced at one point or another. This was all recorded to 2-track cassette tape.
The result was, not surprisingly, very insular and self-contained. Elements of atmosphere and “space” remained, albeit harnessed by unexpected sonic configurations independent from the initial set-up. This was good. This articulates, in a kind of ambiguous way, the mental (internal) and physical (external) atmospheres of the time.
This tape is available from both me and ((Cave)) Recordings.
A completely different piece dealing with similar ideas can be downloaded and read about on the Compost and Height site, here.
Miniatures
While in Vermont for a couple weeks, I decided to go through some old folders and files which I created a while back to organise the massive amount of drawings, found paper items, event flyers, things people have given me, lists upon lists I for some reason want to keep, and so on. Among these I came across my tiny, makeshift notepads (scraps of blank paper stapled together) which primarily contained drawings, ideas and dreams. Some of the content within each notepad is worth sharing, so I will post some here. For now, here’s a few small drawings.
Drawing for Anne Guthrie
This is a quick iPhone snapshot of a drawing of mine which will be used for Anne Guthrie‘s forthcoming Notice Recordings cassette release,
” so it’s inverted
occupying the same position as always ”
Release date is sometime in June.
Drawing: City Park, New Orleans
City Park in New Orleans, 9.45 / Apr. 2012
Some unintentional art
While making some “intentional” art, this scrap paper was at my side, and on it I refreshed my gold marker, previewed a few colored pencils and spilled a bit of coffee. I decided that this was equally if not more desirable than what I was creating (not shown here).
The Tea Merchant and His Atmospheres
Adrian Dziewanski over at Scrapyard Forecast has posted a very nice and insightful review of my tape, The Tea Merchant and His Atmospheres. Some of the things he wrote perfectly coincide with how I feel about this collection of sound works, and how they came to fruition. Needless to say, there are many things left unsaid. Of course, they will never be said, and can only be found hidden in the sounds, or in the trails left behind …
– See the review here (with two others about tapes by Ben Owen and Tiny Music)
– Buy the tape here or contact me directly for purchase or other ways to acquire this release
Repetitions #4
Drawn while visiting my grandparents.
Drawing in reaction to Fauré’s Requiem
I recently saw Mozart and Fauré’s Requiem at the Paramount Theatre in Rutland, Vermont. Both pieces were excellently performed by the Vermont Symphony Orchestra.
Mozart’s Requiem was, needless to say, very emotional. I found the Fauré piece to be much lighter, celebratory and of course gorgeous. I made this drawing on a small notepad while listening to it. There is a certain openness to this image, with the interlocking parts constantly being reborn and branching out. Encouraging imagery for some tumultuous times.
For those who like classical music, I highly recommend getting a copy of Fauré’s Requiem.
Evan Lindorff-Ellery 
