Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund

"Paying tribute to and supporting those who have sacrificed for our nation"

My digital class from Dalvero Academy took a trip to the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum last year.  The assignment for that day was to design a poster for the Fallen Heroes Fund.

My poster, along with fellow artists' posters, is featured now on 

Fallen Heroes Fund website and FB. 

Check out the website > and the Facebook page > 

Drawing Music :: Laetitia Sonami

My close friend and composer invited me to the Issue Project Room today, to catch the tail end of the Music & Technology Month. All I knew was that there will be a lady by the name of Laetitia Sonami with a midi-wired glove as her instrument. So futuristic, I thought...The black glove was covered in thin colorful wires, and with each hand gesture, it triggered different sound samples. 

I was mesmerized by Laetitia's performance. She did two pieces: a musical one and a narrative. The seminal research on such "data gloves" was done in 1980s. Laetitia Sonami has been composing, performing music and doing sound installation art with her glove for a few decades now. Describing the music she performed isn't easy with words. It was like a dance of hands and fingers; a sign-language that produced sounds of birds, water, streets, voices, layers and layers of audio clips; a beautiful sound collage.  Here's a few drawings that might do a better job of describing.

 

I am going to look for more information on Laetitia and her glove-it's just so interesting to me...

Paris On My Mind

I made these thumbnails along the Senne river bank last July, on a family trip to Europe. In a few short months, I shall find myself there again, and I simply cannot wait...

Spring Awakening on Union Square

Jazz Appreciation Month

Since 2002, the month of April has been dedicated to paying tribute to Jazz. I love jazz in all it's manifestations: standards, nujazz, acid jazz, avant garde, jazz fusion, free jazz...Here's two drawings I've made at a Kneebody show. I posted an iPhone drawing from the same show a few months back. This talented young band, to me, symbolizes Jazz today, in 2010.

Hamlet!

Last week, I went to a free Hamlet staging at the World Financial Center. The uniqueness of this performance was in the fact that the entire building complex of the Financial Center was turned into a stage set: the actors moved around from location to location, and the audience followed. Every ten minutes or so, we'd get up and relocate. Shakespearean quotes reverberated through the steel-concrete-glass spaciousness of the modern hallways, and the costumed actors were superb. If anything, it wasn't easy to keep pace with all the events-watching, listening, drawing, moving around...up the stairs, down the stairs, sitting down, getting up, moving out of the way...This was a very fresh and unusual take on Shakespeare. Besides, nobody had the slightest chance of falling asleep!








Ophelia, going mad, gave me chills...Ginny Myers Lee, the actrees, was so good.




Once again, I was reminded, to my astonishment, just how many phrases that we use today, have roots in Hamlet.

"I must be cruel only to be kind"
"Though this be madness yet there is method in it"
"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark"
"And each particular hair to stand on end"
"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so"

"When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions."

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"What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form, in moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not me; no, nor woman neither, though, by your smiling, you seem to say so."

Season of youth

drawn on my iPhone

On view in MoMA NYC  in augmented reality > 

Drawing Music :: Philip Glass @ LPR and Saudade @ The Stone

My friend and music connoisseur Sasha M. took me along on two very different and moving shows this past Sunday. Completely impromptu & completely awesome, as impromptus usually go. The first was at The Stone: a trio with Cyro Baptista on percussion, Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz on upright bass and Tim Sparks on guitar, playing unique acoustic guitar renditions from latest Tzadik release "Little Princess".



Tim Sparks talked beautifully in between the songs; he talked about the origins of tunes and how they tied into the history of Jewish diaspora, about etymology...This particular tune, called "keys from spain", was a story of Sephardic Jews who were expelled from Spain in 1492 and stayed in the Balkans. Many kept their keys to houses in hopes of coming back one day to reclaim their homes.





The style of music is called Saudade (a feeling of nostalgic longing in Portugese), which goes back to Arabic "Sauda", translating as "bile". Apparently, ancient folks thought the feelings came from your LIVER, and they equated dark or sad emotions to that substance in the gut.




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Then off we were for a completely different mood: an orchestra at Le Poisson Rouge, playing compositions of Philip Glass. The composer himself was there.

 

His music really moved me, and I found his soundtracks incredibly colorful and moody.



One of the melodies sounded like a million butterflies took off at once in gleaming sun rays.

 


Thank you, Sasha M, for this memorable music night.

Hot Town

drawn on my iPhone

New beginnings

drawn on my iPhone

Spring in bloom

drawn on my iPhone

Guest blogger :: Audrey Hawkins

A couple of weeks ago, I went to Carnegie Hall with a friend to hear
the Orchestra of St. Luke's play a varied program. I love the Isaac
Stern Auditorium, not only for its fantastic acoustics, but for the
design! Everything is yellow and all the flourishes are gilt; it
really makes you feel like you're somewhere special. I felt like I had
to draw the stage with all the musicians.


copyright Audrey Hawkins (c)2010

And then last week, I went with art friends and fellow bloggers Julia
of this blog and Danielle of A Love of Drawing, to hear a group called So
Percussion, who were amazing! My favorite was the Reich piece, but they were all fascinating. The piece by Steven Mackey involved egg timers and wind-up toys. Amazing! Needless to say, it was fun to hear, and it was fun to draw too! The first drawing has a bit of the projections that were happening behind the percussionists.
The second involved a giant drum and a microphone. I can't explain exactly what was happening, but the program tells me it has to do with the drum being "caressed" and the sound being fed into a computer where it is released. It didn't sound like a drum at all, it sounded like, well, waves of sound. So difficult to describe music with words, I'm much more comfortable with drawing it!


copyright Audrey Hawkins (c)2010


copyright Audrey Hawkins (c)2010

Many thanks to Julia for hosting me! Your turn to guest blog for me
now Jules!