new music, new art

As you can hear, I've posted some music which I find to suit my mood about 95 percent of the time. I appreciate many different genres of music, and many different sub-genres, and many different musics which defy genrification, but I find myself most consistently drawn to "abstract" music that can evoke as much feeling as it can thought. This may seem to be a blanket statement which doesn't at all narrow the music field down to what I may find agreeable, but if you are open, as I am, to listening to "experimental" music, or "sound art," or "musical collages," or "modern classical" (descendant of John Cage and Steve Reich, etc.), or, say, music that you'd find on experimedia.com (you should visit if you've not already), you may find that more time is spent thinking about the musics' complexities (sometimes minimally so, but nonetheless complex intellectually), rather than finding that space deep within yourself that reminds you of sitting amongst daffodils when you were one. The song(s) you are listening to right now, I believe, achieve something like the latter, a beautiful melancholia, a longing for what can almost but will never be, an all-consuming synthesis of peace and chaos.

This is the kind of music that is playing when I make art. I hope someday that I'll be able to capture visually the immediacy of emotion that music like this evokes. Not that this exactly pulls off said hopes, here is a photo of the last painting I did, the last project for my painting class. As of now, it is untitled. Approximate dimensions: 24x36.

I've completed my classes at Feather River College, my second home since the fall of last year. I've had the honor of being under the tutelage of, primarily, Dianne Lipscomb, a Fulbright scholar, a former student of Wayne Thiebaud, and ultimately a good artist, a wonderful colorist, and a peaceful individual with a thick Mississippian accent. Also, I've taken classes from Bill Peters, an incorrigible wildlife illustrator and sculptor, whose constant, well-intended, sarcastic jabs will be missed.

Another individual I will miss here is one Wendy Wayman, an English instructor at FRC, alumni of the famed Ohio State writing program, an intellectually-anti-patriot with dreams of becoming an expatriate to a northern European country, viz. Iceland. I've had the pleasure of becoming Wendy's friend through the course of sharing drawing and painting courses together. She is one of the few people in the Quincy area who I've found who has views similar to mine in terms of culture, religion, and aesthetics (she loves rusty things!).

I'll save more sentimental "I'll miss you"s for later, closer to when I'll actually be leaving Quincy (roughly two and a half weeks from now). For now I must focus on things in front of me, not behind: I have much to sort and pack, my sister and her fiance will be arriving tomorrow for the holidays, and an airedale terrier puppy will be arriving on Saturday (pictures to follow shortly thereafter).

Until my next post, I hope you'll enjoy the music (more to follow, I promise).