It is good to be reminded that one’s own voice is worth hearing.
I am easily seduced by the toys in someone else box. I am good at presuming that someone else knows better. Just because they know different. Thank you Sarah* for reminding me that I have a sensitivity and a sensibility that is my own.
Part of the endeavour in this project is to move myself along/up/around what I am doing now. To shake off comfort and complacency and be challenged by my work and to really dig into it.
The things Sarah and I talked about this afternoon were the connections between the lines… lines of music, drawn ink, written and sung words… I am used to knowing what the drawing is for. But working with music at the same time, I have become unsure.
So as we spoke I made notes of the words that held all elements together:
The ongoing narrative of a connective tissue between drawing/sound/music/words
A tension in the drawings – where it is, and where it isn’t…
Where is the tension in the music…?
A squeeze and a bulge and a pulling and pressure…
Discomfort, unease, a disturbance… uncomfortable… a mystery… a secret…
A sadness and melancholy… the moment of “oh…”
There is repetition, a reprise, a point of familiarity then distorted…
These works are not illustrative, they are lived… the making is engaging… the existence of them…
These things aren’t only in the making, but in the showing… how they are presented… An installation rather than an exhibition… paper hanging mounted, not loose, taken as a piece from elsewhere, from somewhere more…
So how do songs work in this narrative?
How do the sounds sit among the drawings?
I have many questions to ask of this work.
I’d better keep going then… and keep listening while I draw, and draw while I listen… then stand back a little and think a bit.
*Sarah Goudie is my friend, erstwhile studio-mate, mentor and co-curator for Drawing Songs
