My partner is a modular musician, so there is music or sound (not always musical!) all around the house every day. The notion that music doesn't exist until it is played absolutely fascinates me and to see this big rack of buttons, sliders, and dials with its spaghetti tangle of cables and blinking lights suddenly burst into life at the flick of a switch is a wonder. Where was all that sound until that moment? Does it lurk unseen in the cables, and where does it go when it's all turned off - back into the electric point? The fact is, it's in the musician's brain. I think I just wanted to pinpoint something physical in these drawings because my brain gets as tangled as those cables thinking about it.
Phew, what a week that was - Captain James T. Kirk actually went into space, aged 90, and satellite Lucy is off to Jupiter's Trojan asteroids for 100,000 years to discover the origins of everything. It's quite overwhelming.
Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, I just keep drawing: I start each drawing with a statement at top left, like the chord played in folk music before the jig starts up and the devil's music gets everyone delighted and dancing. It's followed by a succession of whirly characters, then towards the end at bottom right I make a couple of extended shapes to indicate a slowing down, before a big triumphant flourish at the end. It's a sort of duuuummmm-de-Boom! sound, but in pen. While I'm drawing I'm thinking shapes evocative of musical instruments: cellos, violins, tubas, flutes. Radiating shapes represent swelling melodies amongst firework bursts of sound. There is a pulse or rhythm indicated by the punctuation of black shapes, which originated in my asemic text drawings (is there such a thing as asemic music?) Paradoxically, this is a quiet, slow practice which helps to sooth away all the terrors of space, in every sense. This is the third drawing for submission to Open Eye Gallery's upcoming On a Small Scale exhibition. The second submission to Open Eye Gallery annual Christmas show. Last week's drawing brought up a much better suggestion for its title, still in Polish theme, from an old university friend on Instagram: 'Mazurka'. I like it! ..."usually at a lively tempo, with character defined mostly by the prominent "strong unsystematically placed on the second or third beat" (Wikipedia). My friend nailed it, so the first drawing shall indeed be titled Mazurka and not Polka as I originally thought.
I was thinking of a title for this one, but I've found it now. It has a sombre rhythm and references to tubas and brass, and unintentionally some of the black shapes resemble funeral urns - so I'm thinking more in terms of a New Orleans funeral parade: those great, joyful celebrations of a brilliant life lived. For my younger brother, Robin, who tragically passed away in June. He was a musician, luthier, roadie, and a keen lover of black soul music; and a passionate believer in Scottish independence. He was at the frontline of many marches, carrying the saltire flag. He even designed a new saltire for Scottish independence which is in use today. Somehow I think he chose the title for this drawing himself, the mischievous spirit! He jinxed earlier attempts of mine to title the piece, I typed it wrongly at least five times. Robins Parade it is, then. I'm leaving the title ambiguous by omitting the apostrophe on Robin, so it could equally be the song-bird's music at dawn. Both interpretations are meaningful. Last week's pencil drawing on manuscript paper turned out to be a good study. Needless to say I am most happy with the choices and decisions I made, the drawings are now positively singing to me. This is the first completed musical drawing for Open Eye Gallery's On a Small Scale winter exhibition. I think I am going to title it Polka - that's what came into in my head when I was drawing this, and it definitely looks like there is dancing going on, maybe a polka, or an eight-some reel or strip the willow?
It's interesting to see how, from a distance, this does resemble sheet music. |
Welcome to my work journal - a weekly update on drawings, work in progress, doodles and day-dreaming.
I changed the website address a few months ago, so some older links on previous posts are broken. If you click one of those and it takes you to a strange page, simply replace the .co.uk after the heatherelizawalker. with weebly.com and it will work again. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
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As well as the work you see here, I illustrate under the name of Binky McKee (my mother's maiden name was McKee, Binky was every single one of my great grandmother's many cats!)
If you would like to visit my Binky website, please click the picture above. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Dissolving PeopleA symbol on the footpath outside a local primary school gradually disappearing as the image breaks up and wears away until eventually it is obliterated by leaves and barely discernible. Photographed at intervals of several months between February 2021 and November 2022, oldest at the top.
(My shoes look so new in the first pic, and note the transition to new phone in the last photo). <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
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April 2024
(Sorry the archives don't nest!)
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A 2013 work book, still very much in use Please note all images on this website are ©Heather Eliza Walker 2013 - 2020, and may not be used or reproduced without prior consent. |