Saturday, May 30, 2009

Music Monster


I married a music monster. I was born of a music monster. My sire was a music monster ‘wanta be’. Music has ALWAYS figured big in my life.

But today I talk about the artwork first. I am listening to a cassette, trying to find a track I had--but lost. In the meantime, here’s the lowdown on today’s art, which ends up sounding a lot like a thing about music. Music figured so largely in Scot’s life, that it is not surprise to me that he started reaching for the physicality of music upon which to perform his art.

Bloomington is a BIG music town. Scot began scouring the weekly library book sale for interesting music manuscripts. These manuscripts were always sort of mysterious to Scot, because the notes on the staff actually meant nothing to him. Interestingly enough, he began creating art on musical scores from practice books to Mozart classics. I was there selling the artwork in the booth, and digging it every time a musician came into the booth and began figuring out what piece the artwork had been created upon.

Scot became a fully integrated man before he died, but for a long time, there was a schism. There was the art man and then there was the music man. Few people have the kind of gift in any one medium as Scot had when he pulled out his handkerchief, and sneezed. This man breathed it, day and night, night and day, every day.

I was looking for just this song tonight, just the kind of thing Scot threw across my path—everyday. I know now that, the commitment I made in the nature of this memorial blog is no insignificant thing. I mean to honor it. I dug my hand deep into the bin of unknown recordings, and this is what I came up with.

Before I close, I have to say this. Today’s artwork was drawn with a squeeze bottle. We’ve had “drawn with a mouse.” This piece was drawn with a squeeze bottle, filled with India ink, and then nothing short of squirted out on to the page. All I can think to tell you is to “dig it."







1 comment:

Unknown said...

I am so enjoying the commitment you have made to keeping up the blog, Robin. I am finding out more each day about Scot the man, the artist and the musician. His head was full of ideas to try some new application of color or shading in his artwork, his mind was so full of images and there wasn't anything that he wouldn't pick up and experiment with making music on it. What a full life he had. QM