Painterly Space in Time
Torrents of Rivulets
With the low, slow, and even rhythm opening Peter’s piece I build the image from the bottom up with mostly large dark marks leading to the first high trill, which I am able to hit on cue with a burst from the canned air gun sending a torrent of rivulets upwards. There is plenty of space in the music to use the hairdryer to reclaim white areas and I appreciate the element of chance as the format dries and the image transforms. As the white space grows, gradients form, and dark shapes take on soft edges. So far this is the longest piece I have painted to, so I still had trouble maintaining enough white to work with effectively.
Music and Painterly Space
Jeremy writes about there being plenty of space in the music. He’s talking the temporal space which allows him to create, well, spatial space.
And it makes me think that we may be, without consciously having set out to do it, stumbling upon some novel ways of connecting those two things.
About the Artists
Jeremy Harrison recently retired from teaching art at The Rivers School in Weston, Massachusetts where he was on the faculty since 1988. His teaching included drawing, painting, printmaking, and digital photography. He earned a BA from Kenyon College in 1982 double majoring in studio art and religion. He earned his MFA from the University of Iowa in 1985 majoring in printmaking and minoring in drawing. Inspiration for his landscape images comes from his experiences in the wildernesses of Canada, the Adirondacks, and Maine. An experienced canoeist, he helped lead a six-man, 800-mile canoe journey across the Canadian tundra to the Arctic Ocean. He continues to canoe and hike in Maine, Massachusetts, and the Adirondacks while making paintings, prints, drawings, and photographs as often as possible.
With a deep jazz-and-blues core, Peter Saltzman has produced a broad career in the music industry as composer, pianist, singer-songwriter, and author. Various ensembles have performed and recorded his work globally—the Czech National Symphony Orchestra recorded his orchestral dance suite “Walls” (1996), and the Dallas Black Dance Theatre performed “Walls” during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. The Dallas Morning News reviewed Saltzman’s music as “powerful stuff.” His second album, Kabbalah Blues/Quantum Funk (2000), earned critical acclaim for its jazz/classical/pop fusion, hailed as “ambitious, richly layered, wonderfully accessible.” Saltzman studied jazz at Indiana University (Bloomington) and composition at Eastman School of Music. He was an adjunct professor of music at Columbia College Chicago, where he taught music technology and piano. His concert works are published by Oxford University Press; his film and television works are published by Wild Whirled Music. Saltzman’s music has been licensed for television shows, jingles, and industrials, including My Name is Earl (NBC, 2006).
