Drawing Music

I finished a drawing this morning.

It's one I'd begun working on while still in Austria and started life as one of my usual bic-pen-on-cheap-paper doodles that emerged while I listened to Miserere: a cd of works by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. Soon after I completed the central figure however, I started to imagine great flowing wings trailing behind her and realized I'd have to more rigorously plan out the rest of the drawing if it was going to end up being successful...

Once the "wings" were finished the sketch sat dormant for a few weeks. I felt there was something more I had to add--something in the background--a light or "source" of some kind that the figure would be moving toward--but no ideas worth committing to the page (since I was working with pen every line was a commitment) took shape in my mind, so I set it aside for a while.

I finally returned to it yesterday when I was in need of a time passer while Rob worked. For the sake of consistency I put on the Pärt again and assumed my usual preferred drawing pose: belly down on the living room floor with a pillow underneath my elbows. After two back-to-back listens of Miserere I called it quits for the day, but picked things up again this morning determined to just get the dang thing done.

Today's sound track was Drukqs by Aphex Twin: a brilliant electronic-music artist Rob had introduced me to earlier in the week while we drove to Dryden Lake for an afternoon stroll. Rob once attended a lecture given by composer John Adams (one of my favorite composers) where Adams presented Aphex Twin as an example of a pop artist who was creating serious music. The first track of Drukqs, "Jynweythek Ylow" (Cornish for "electronic machine") is a beautiful and imaginative prepared-piano musing that I immediately fell in love with. It took my thoughts back to times of playful childhood magic when I still believed faeries cavorted through the woods and wishes said over a shooting star came true. The rest of the cd alternates between these idyllic excursions, acid house music, and downright creepy abstract soundscapes that remind me quite a lot of work done by Atomic Shadow (aka: my wicked step-dad).

And after all of that, here is the final result...