Daphne Becoming-Tree

20.5cm x 20.5cm, 8" x 8", sepia ink, Moleskine Folio Sketchbook A4.

A whimsical drawing of Daphne becoming-tree drawn in the park in late spring.

(Click on image for a larger size.)

The Dancer's Backskin

direct link: The Dancer's Backskin

An accidental drawing - in a new Moleskine notebook, I brushed water over watercolour pencil. The paper shredded badly and cracked like an eggshell when dry. Intrigued with the effect, and having seen Natalie Portman's incredible performance in Aronofsky's 'Black Swan,' the desire for pure art, its passion and self-effacement, and the self-mutilation, hallucinations, madnesses, I thought of the underside of the dancer's life. Or her backskin.

I am working with the album that the music comes from (see also dance/ ...indigo folio leaves), with the musician's knowledge and tacit permission. No More Faith is an album of such variety I felt it could work for a longer project - literally, from neo-classical to this strange fingernail-on-the-blackboard minute and a half of scratchings. The strangeness that I might have felt on first listen has worn off and the sound seems less grating and more intriguing- perhaps, and who's to know for sure, that's the musician making anti-music for his possessive slave-driving muse who doesn't seem to realize he has a day job as a teacher. The tension is in this piece. His work has such energy. It was the perfect choice for my video.

Jose wrote back to me today:

Hello Brenda!

I've had opportunity to watch your video just right now. Your wrote:

"that's the musician making anti-music for his possessive slave-driving muse who doesn't seem to realize he has a day job as a teacher."

Hahaha! Very poetic, but of course everything is o.k. with me. There is no problem with everything you wrote. Just the contrary, thanks for writing so well about my music and album.

What about Shinigami's Dream, No. 1, it was just -as you wrote- an experiment creating something like "anti-music". With the Shinigami's Dream pieces I wanted always to create oniric impressions, unpleasant and disturbing feelings, always exploring the extreme points in the music and noises. #1 was the most extreme work and I was near not to add it to the album, but finally I decided to have it as last piece, just after the softness of A Tale for our Wasted Years, as an exercise of thesis (the search for the perfection and the balance in music) and anti-thesis. I like the effect in the album, it's so disturbing... :-)

Thanks for everything and, by the way, nice videopoem, as it's usual in you.

Best wishes,

Jose

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Brenda Clews, art, poetry, voice, video; music, José Travieso's track, 'Shinigami's Dream, No. 1,' on his album, "No More Faith."

The Dancer's Backskin (album of photos)

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I posted the painting, The Dancer's Backskin in February.

The Dancer's Backskin [video poem]

direct link: The Dancer's Backskin

Brenda Clews, art, poetry, voice, video; music, José Travieso's track, 'Shinigami's Dream, No. 1,' on his album, "No More Faith."

An accidental drawing - in a new Moleskine notebook, I brushed water over watercolour pencil. The paper shredded badly and cracked like an eggshell when dry. Intrigued with the effect, and having seen Natalie Portman's incredible performance in Aronofsky's 'Black Swan,' the desire for pure art, its passion and self-effacement, and the self-mutilation, hallucinations, madnesses, I thought of the underside of the dancer's life. Or her backskin.




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I posted the painting, The Dancer's Backskin in February.

                                          

Paper Dancer

Dancer, 25.5cm x 11.5cm, 10" x 4.5", pen on Moleskin

May be a poem by tomorrow, or in the next few days.

                                          

Lip of the Volcano

Lip of the Volcano, 8" x 10", 20.4cm x 55cm, coloured India inks, watercolour pencils (all Faber-Castelli), 2010.

This image first appeared last year, in a version with a Photoshop filter, with a poem (that I still like): Autumn, and 'Shortest Route Between Two Dots Is A Circle.'

It's an Autumn image. The flaming edge. Balanced on fire. While waiting for my ailing iMac to open webpages I began dipping pencils from my new set of Faber-Castelli watercolour pencils into a small jar of water.

I had been thinking of Malcolm Lowry; I had been browsing German Expressionist painting, but looking for Italian Neo-Expressionists since I'm on a Michaelangelo Antonioni kick and was convinced there had to be connections, especially in the explosion scene in Zabriskie Point.