Colors Everywhere

Late last year my friend Robin McDonald and I were sitting at his and his wife’s house and for some reason, I suggested to him that we do a project together. One that combines music and photos. I had this idea in my head ever since my friend Meghan Quinn told me about color Synesthesia; something she experiences.

• Grapheme-color synaesthesia or colored grapheme synesthesia is a form of synesthesia in which an individual's perception of numerals and letters is associated with the experience of colors. Like all forms of synesthesia, Grapheme-color synesthesia is involuntary, consistent, and memorable.[1][not in citation given] Grapheme-color synesthesia is one of the most common forms of synesthesia, and because of the extensive knowledge of the visual system, one of the most studied. - Wikipedia
  

I’d placed it somewhere in the far recesses of my mind and I think the reason it popped up again was that I didn’t have any booked work and I needed a project to work on.

We ended up using the seven primary colors, R (red), G (green), B (blue) and C, (cyan), M (magenta), Y (yellow), K (black) I emailed Meghan and asked her to explain to the best of her ability what she experiences. Which is a tricky thing to do, I think. How do you explain something that is “your normal”? She did a great job. So, with her recorded voice in hand, Robin produced the music using the voice note as a thematic guide to weave all the tracks together.

I then waited for him to finish the music before taking each individual track and then, during, the 5-minute playtime producing each image as the track played. I wanted to work within that time constraint. Forcing myself not to overthink it and work instinctually.

These are the images I produced on that day.

To listen to the tracks and download the album and artwork follow the link to Robin’s project, The Ozark Witch.

Red and Green

Blue and Cyan

Magenta and Yellow

Like with most things in life. We make plans and then things happen and those plans shift and move and become something wholly different. The same has happened here. This was supposed to be what you see here and listen to at The Ozark Witch. I have foolishly agreed to play these songs live with Robin on October 13th.

They are reinterpretations of what you’ll hear in the recorded version and at this show what we aim to do is perform the songs and have a visual element along with it where we project each color of each song as we play and the audience sits/stands/lies down with the projections over them and us and just lose themselves for an hour.

Perhaps a bit of a meditation. Perhaps a maddening experience. October 13th will tell.

Thanks for reading

Say Yes

My 4 week artist residency with The Rare Library is drawing to a close and what can I say? Juanita (The Rare Librarian) asked me on Saturday evening how I felt and after some thought and reflection and even though being tired from a fairly intense week of shooting and work my answer was; "invigorated”.

You know when you say yes to something and then you spend the time second guessing that decision? There is no more doubt that this was the correct choice in the matter and what I’ve learned from it is that you’ll know when to say yes or no to something.

Instinctively.

Listen to your body, to the still small voice. Sometimes it’s difficult to hear or feel, but if you take a moment, become quiet and let it, it won’t lead you astray. In our always-on always connected world that voice is getting more and more difficult to hear. Be bored. It’s okay. Procrastinate. It’s okay. But find then get back to work. I’ve already said yes to another seemingly ludicrous question I was asked yesterday, and for the moment I don’t know what will come of it. I’ll wait and listen and feel. All I can say right now is, that it feels right and maybe in time it won’t.

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What am I trying to say?

What do you do when social media feels more like a burden than something that is actually useful? A crutch? Yes, crutches are sometimes very necessary and useful things, but what if you can walk perfectly well, but don’t know it, because you have this “supposed” support?

How do you convince yourself that you don’t need it and won’t fall flat on your face once you let go and try walking without it? I guess what I am asking is, how can I move forward without this supposedly helpful tool that social media sells itself as? Don’t get me wrong, I see the success stories and what it can do and has done, but as with most things the bad seem to outweigh the good much more. Especially in recent years.

I haven’t posted since my December social media sabbatical even though I am back online, I just don’t see the point. What do the likes mean? What sort of validation is that? Is being happy with what I do not enough?

I’m working. Hard. I’m currently on a one month artist residency - as of writing this - in the town of Franschhoek in the Western Cape and I’ve probably shot more work and been more productive in these two and a half weeks than the first two and a half months of this year. All the while though the phone is raised and the platforms are scrolled through and it’s a weight. A necessary evil? I’m beginning to think not.

So, here’s what I’m thinking. I’ll be posting less on those platforms and more on my website. Will I still use social media? In all likelihood, yes, I’ll use them as links to my work and processes here. What I’m busy with, what I’d like to be busy with. My struggles and my successes. I’ve finally begun on a 3 and a half year old project concept and I’m happy to report that it is - in my mind at least - going well. So, for now, I’m putting my head down again and diving back into the work that I am busy with and hopefully soon I’ll have something more to share that includes imagery and my thought process and that you can learn from.

Thanks for reading