Saturday, April 26, 2014

Sounds of Inspiration

What is the soundtrack that inspires you?  Of course it can change from day to day but often i find myself turning on the music or podcast and listening to the birds outside, the leaves blowing...   when i had my "lost in the wilderness" solo show i played a swamp/bayou soundtrack of nature sounds.  I've never been one for ambient recordings but i do listen to it from time to time.  It conjures the scene of my installation pretty quickly.  Oddly there aren't a lot of links that i could find to the soundtrack online that would let you play the whole thing, but i found one--click here for Echoes of Nature 7 the Bayou.

Monday, April 21, 2014

then and now... the german printmaking thing persists



I started learning German in college after my first trip to Germany and because of my penpal in Hamburg...and my family heritage... and it just seemed to fit...  at the same time I was learning printmaking which too has ties to Germany...  I made the image on the left "Ich Habe So Oft Von Deutschland Geträumt" (translation: I so often dreamed of Germany) at that time and just have now finished my version of "Rotkäppchen" (Red Riding Hood) shown on the right.   Now German is such a normal part of my life I can't believe I didn't always speak it-not that I'm fluent but I can get by at a party if the opportunity presents itself and it helps that usually people are kind enough to overlook my limited vocabulary and dodgy grammar...   and printmaking likewise is integral to who I've become. 
For fun you can read Red Riding Hood in both English and German simultaneously with this side by side comparison of text and translation: http://germanstories.vcu.edu/grimm/rot_dual.html
Enjoy!