plait reformations

One of the wonderful things about the new studio has been returning to previous work and viewing it in a new light (figuratively and literally). I unwrapped all the pieces of Plait and have been crystallizing them into finished structures. Here are a few in the process of forming.

scatter logic

Brushing through a book of Barry Le Va in the library, his work resonated (not for the first time) as an idea of investigating drawing. I'm looking for a way of drawing across, on and with objects, materials. Becoming slightly more clear about how objects have presence. A few weeks ago I dreamed of tall flags or banners hanging from poles and touching the floor, a dark, ominous and somewhat awkward presence. I have been at the sewing machine trying to reconstruct that image in some way. Painting fabric with a mixture of graphite powder, water and acrylic medium results in a dense black surface which turns silver with rubbing or distress. It also results in black hands and fine graphite dust everywhere. Which is not terribly good for keeping all those other mostly white drawings clean.
I keep cutting across the flags and then re-sewing, shifting their angles. I want an unstable feeling, similar to the balanced plywood pieces. The idea of shifting like fractured sedimentary layers. All of these objects suggest a ground plane.
Lately in the studio I move between sanding and priming plywood, cutting and sewing fabric, and hectic clusters of graphite marks on paper. My creative attention is split about equally between drawing and composing, as I've been recording new sounds (springs, trombone, plucked strings, metal) and starting the first stages of new sound clusters. I've also been in a process of mourning the closing of the Portland Art Center's old town exhibition space, helping to write the history of that space and think about potential futures which could include flexible, project-based collaborations and activities. It's a tremendous loss of invested energy from everyone involved, and it seemed on the edge of real fruition. At the same time, not being weighed down by high rent opens up room for different and exciting modes...

Re-orient

This blog grows out of a general re-orientation in the way I'm thinking about my work, one based on an erasure (or rather, a letting go) of divisions between various modes of making (and therefore thinking) - sound, drawing, sculpture, video, performance, collaborations. In equalizing my work in all of these practices, I begin to think of them them as parallel. They may exist separately or in various reconfigured groups. I'm still wondering what an exhibition might require - what might it include or exclude? How much is enough, how much is too much? I am interested in adaptiveness and overlap... Adapting to a particular space (without being entirely site specific, at least in a strict use of the term) through overlapping various modes. In thought, this leads to a place where meaning can drift across media - forming complexes of distinct but complementing bodies of work. Quite practically, this approach grows from the fact that I have been drifting in the studio, moving from drawing to sound to video editing to writing to sitting and staring...

A large part of this recent re-orientation is a (perhaps gratuitous) matter of self-definition. After ten years, I have a growing feeling that I am no longer interested in calling myself an "experimental musician". For one thing, I am no longer interested in making "music". It's more that I want to make sounds about music - which means paradoxically that the work has become more "musical" - in order to comment on music. A subtle but important distinction, at least in terms of the self-perception of why I do what I do.

Also fading in my mind is the term "sound artist". As I have been equalizing practices, I come to all of them as containing or embodying a kind of "listening in". I will try to return to this idea, which grows from thoughts about the mirroring empathy of physiological body sensation. Sound is often said to be the most physical of materials because it operates in close union with touch, moving through and around the body. Recently I have been moving towards a consideration of all forms of apperception as forms of "listening" - which then leads me towards various prepositions: "listening into", "listening with", "listening under", "listening through", etc. etc. This is the engine which drives my current work...