Instruments with painted decorations

[Rue]

...well now we need a video to prove it!

[Stephen Faulk]

Paik and Moorman

[Stephen Faulk]

Tin cans? Me too! (excuse the missing bridge!)

Scrap6.jpg

 

p.s. it sounds great!

 Love it. 

[romberg flat]

Paik and Moorman

 

Perhaps the best known Paik. Nice 'painted' decoration on cello. Changeable...

 

[Ben Hebbert]

...well now we need a video to prove it!

 Here's the BBC recording... in this ahem, "orchestration" that double bass takes a solo line for the first minute or so... bare in mind, it's playing right at the top of the fingerboard, and the musician is hamming it like nothing on this planet.. 

 

[Rue]

Lol...that was very fun! Thanks for posting a link to the video!

[Stephen Faulk]

There's more and more, Rue looky at 1:00 in. 

 

 

[Rue]

LOL...I also loved the balloons as canons! And the cardboard ? box bassoon...hahaha...

[romberg flat]

 

At least I learned how real double bass looks like.   If knew this earlier I should never wrote that in Chiharu’s spider net is caught cello.   

Thanks Ben, Scrapheap Orchestra is stunning. 

[Peter White]

[Peter White]

I made these instruments with my student Cedra Wood while she was enrolled in The New Mexico Musical Heritage Project at the University of New Mexico. We won a medal in Cremona/Pisogna for this work. Cedra is a fabulous painter now teaching in Texas. The ribs on the Viola and some of the decorations on the back are gold leaf. The varnish is Fulton varnish with dye colors. I do not remember what paint she used--oil or acrylic. We both enjoyed the collaboration very much, Peter White

Edited December 22, 2014 by Peter White

[Rue]

Looks like it would be a fun project to do! I am jealous!

[Ben Hebbert]

Stephen,

 

I don’t think there is anything glib about turning to Duchamps, in fact I think we both agree that Duchamp has a lot to say about the nature of forms – designed forms as in a urinal, or random forms like the three standard stoppages, that has a lot to do with the way that the engineered form of the violin works within an art context.

 

 

 

I share your disappointment in the responses of the guitar forum about Picasso. What I find odd about their opinion is that Picasso’s work is so self-evidently not guitar *design*, so why should it be compared as an exercise in design. The poor kids have clearly lost the point, and if they do have a point, shouldn’t we devalue Picasso’s cubist portraits of people, because people don’t look like that? Seems to be a minority view. But I think Picasso and Braque address a certain problem in art that actually, if you want a drawing of a guitar/violin/etc., you are undoubtedly better off going to an instrument maker etc. who knows by technical proficiency and by skill what exactly something should be like, rather than finding a pastiche from an artist. Kevin Coates’ pencil sketches of instruments combined with his theories of geometry are an extreme case in point (by someone whose officially “an artist”). It goes back to what I’ve said before about a painting that conveys an impression of musical art without the artist likening himself to it.

 

Incidentally, I prefer your earlier comments about Arman. This pathetic and purile attempt to Homage a Picasso says nothing about Picasso except to trivialise cubism and undermine his message. Some homage!

 

Arman Homage a Picasso (2004) 

 

On the subject of what is offensive in artists (modern art hater) I went into a gallery last year and saw a collection of very finely painted night-scenes of London. I was attracted to them in the first place, as very much a 21^st century take on Pissaro or Monet, with a treatment of the rain soaked streets as I’ve only ever seen in Gustav Caillebot’s work. But on a second look, part of the attraction was the streaks of yellow and red lights that came from the moving cars on the roads. The realisation was that the paintings were simply copies of photographs (nothing too wrong in that, maybe) but they had captured an image that had nothing to do with the experience of the human eye and everything to do with the slow shutter speed on a camera. Frankly, I would have been happy to own a print of the photograph, and I wouldn’t have minded if the paintings had been from a photo but had worked the headlights to give a human-eye-impression. But the artist was just lazy, and the fault when exposed, seemed to be a reflection of the artist’s arrogance both in sloppy workmanship, and in expecting the viewer to put up with it. My *snobbishness* about the painting (perhaps my word is not quite the right one) is that I don’t like the idea of looking at a painting that belittles the experience of the viewer. The reason I’m talking about this, is because I think there is always a danger when a painter trespasses into the realm of a viewer’s personal experience. An artist can do whatever they like for a image of a violin intended for an uninterested audience, but if they expect someone with a deep personal experience of a violin to respect it, they had best get it right. This is not an extreme view pedantic and pernickety view, but I think reaches out to how we collectively critique the art that most interests us, even if our annoyance and dissatisfaction doesn't get further than an elementary sub-conscious level. 

[jezzupe]

illustrated-amati.jpg

I made these instruments with my student Cedra Wood while she was enrolled in The New Mexico Musical Heritage Project at the University of New Mexico. We won a medal in Cremona/Pisogna for this work. Cedra is a fabulous painter now teaching in Texas. The ribs on the Viola and some of the decorations on the back are gold leaf. The varnish is Fulton varnish with dye colors. I do not remember what paint she used--oil or acrylic. We both enjoyed the collaboration very much, Peter White

Beautiful!

[jezzupe]

I totally want to make a bass and then do "Dogs playing poker" on the back.

[Ben Hebbert]

Thanks guys, and especially Stephen for pointing out the really embarrassing bit of the film with me getting shirty. 

 

Take a good look at that bass - for Scrapheap, the initial idea was to see if we could do better with our technology (and junk) than township orchestras that have to improvise when they are missing an instrument or two. When I found the tin bathtub in a field, it occurred to me that if that was in a township, there wouldn't be a chance of using such a valuable thing to make a musical instrument, so the aim was to make a "rig" that you could assemble around it, leaving the bathtub completely useable for it's normal purpose. As a result, all the tension is taken on a long pole, into which the "pegbox" is incorporated, and the fingerboard and tailpiece are attached. It runs to the ground as a kind of spike so that there is minimal wear on the body of the instrument. In this case, I lashed a couple of cross members to the rig, there is a pine board from the bottom of a chest of drawers as the soundboard, and the tub itself, with another couple of cross members to lash the thing into one big sandwich. Bits of bicycle inner-tube stuffed in the joints prevent buzzing (although buzzing in this case is more like a machine-gun going off). It takes less than 5 min to turn the rig into a double bass, and it can be back to working as a bathtub unscathed before the horn players have reached the pub. The strings even stay in tune when the rig is slackened off (just about).

 

From that idea, I was able to hang any kind of shape or form off a double-bass or cello "rig" as you can see here... even where the rig goes through the instrument, it is just the same as on the bathtub double bass. The filing cabinet cello (I never was much good at paperwork) is entirely held together with bicycle inner tubes and is still holding strong after four years! 

 

 

The point is, that it's not very difficult to construct and perfect, and I think has a huge number of practical applications. Hardly patentable though... I've got a commission coming up to oversee using the system to make a bass section for the postwar orchestra, using bits of salvaged ex-military hardware, and would like to get the concept known a bit more (though I can't believe someone hasn't done it somewhere else before). So you are all more than welcome to explore any ideas that come out of it (just don't cynically plagiarise the thing, string along a village in the third world and call it Landfill Harmonic for your own financial gain - not classy!)

[Rue]

...I did have an urge to go rowing with it...

*runs*

[Stephen Faulk]

illustrated-amati.jpg

I made these instruments with my student Cedra Wood while she was enrolled in The New Mexico Musical Heritage Project at the University of New Mexico. We won a medal in Cremona/Pisogna for this work. Cedra is a fabulous painter now teaching in Texas. The ribs on the Viola and some of the decorations on the back are gold leaf. The varnish is Fulton varnish with dye colors. I do not remember what paint she used--oil or acrylic. We both enjoyed the collaboration very much, Peter White

  Thank you for sharing this work, really very nice. Do you have more? 

[Stephen Faulk]

I totally want to make a bass and then do "Dogs playing poker" on the back.

  

 

And I would like that. I once had a framed poster of the Poker Dogs that had been in the personal art collection of Liberace. 

 

It was won at auction by a now deceased friend of mine who was an antiquarian book dealer with a penchant for obtaining rare and odd kitch on the side. The poker players not so rare, but the provenance was priceless. He gave it to me as a gift. I gave it to someone else years later when I moved house and had too much baggage. 

 

If you make the bass call it the Ted Aiken/ Ex Liberace Poker Dogs -  Jezzupe Bass  please. 

[romberg flat]

Short Notices about the Art of Templates

Illustrated story about modern art lovers & haters

 

Once upon the time a man, let’s call him B.H. made an intriguing arrangement of violin’s templates, and took one photo of it, as well.  

Another man, let’s call him S.F. recognized this as a work of art. He liked it.  Reminded him on certain, very well known art piece created by one famous artist, let’s call him M.D.

But alas, B.H., despite he did not intend to create a piece of art at all,  still had on his mind some artworks while making his intriguing arrangement. Artworks like those made by even more famous artist than M.D. Let’s simply call that great artist P.P.

Interestingly enough, many years earlier, one great photographer, let’s call him A.N. took an artistic photo of almost identical violin templates arranged in one shop window, in a manner just like B.H. did. Such coincidences sometimes happen, that’s for sure. 

Then a man, let’s call him, just for the purpose of this story, R.F. - when looked at M.D. very well known piece of art (which was unknown to him until that moment in spite of his huge knowledge about arts), the same one piece that S.F. first had thought of when saw violin templates arrangement done and photographed by B.H. (who was thinking, let’s not forget, on P.P. artistry while arranging them without any artistic intentions, as was said before), and which was almost identical as that on artistic photograph made by a famous photographer A.N. many years ago – had experienced a brilliant moment of remembering.  

Almost immediately, R.F. recalled old templates which he used more than 40 years before when there were no computers and everything was drawn by hand. Those were, some could guess, railroad and highway curves.   

Curve templates definitely are not a piece of art. Or, in certain circumstances, maybe still they could become one?

Now a day, for the modern artist the most important thing is to provoke grey cells in the heads of audience or emotions in their souls. The rest of the story will be finished in a mind and soul of the individuals.

And what about aesthetics, somebody could ask? That’s a question of taste. Someone like me loves both, old and new, classic and modern.

But, I am Gemini Zodiac Sign...  

[Addie]

illustrated-amati.jpg

I made these instruments with my student Cedra Wood while she was enrolled in The New Mexico Musical Heritage Project at the University of New Mexico. We won a medal in Cremona/Pisogna for this work. Cedra is a fabulous painter now teaching in Texas. The ribs on the Viola and some of the decorations on the back are gold leaf. The varnish is Fulton varnish with dye colors. I do not remember what paint she used--oil or acrylic. We both enjoyed the collaboration very much, Peter White

This is really stunning!  Wow!

[Ben Hebbert]

It's a shame not to hear from Newark violin making school, whose 2014 fiddle race was to make violins based on art.. here (without getting to see to many shots of the instruments themselves) is a spoof trailer that they put together..

 

[Stephen Faulk]

Short Notices about the Art of Templates

Illustrated story about modern art lovers & haters

 

Once upon the time a man, let’s call him B.H. made an intriguing arrangement of violin’s templates, and took one photo of it, as well.  

violin templates-bh.jpg

Another man, let’s call him S.F. recognized this as a work of art. He liked it.  Reminded him on certain, very well known art piece created by one famous artist, let’s call him M.D.

marcel duchamp.jpg

But alas, B.H., despite he did not intend to create a piece of art at all,  still had on his mind some artworks while making his intriguing arrangement. Artworks like those made by even more famous artist than M.D. Let’s simply call that great artist P.P.

pablo picasso.jpg

Interestingly enough, many years earlier, one great photographer, let’s call him A.N. took an artistic photo of almost identical violin templates arranged in one shop window, in a manner just like B.H. did. Such coincidences sometimes happen, that’s for sure. 

arnold newman.jpg

Then a man, let’s call him, just for the purpose of this story, R.F. - when looked at M.D. very well known piece of art (which was unknown to him until that moment in spite of his huge knowledge about arts), the same one piece that S.F. first had thought of when saw violin templates arrangement done and photographed by B.H. (who was thinking, let’s not forget, on P.P. artistry while arranging them without any artistic intentions, as was said before), and which was almost identical as that on artistic photograph made by a famous photographer A.N. many years ago – had experienced a brilliant moment of remembering.  

Almost immediately, R.F. recalled old templates which he used more than 40 years before when there were no computers and everything was drawn by hand. Those were, some could guess, railroad and highway curves.   

Curve templates definitely are not a piece of art. Or, in certain circumstances, maybe still they could become one?

rairoad and highway curves.jpg

Now a day, for the modern artist the most important thing is to provoke grey cells in the heads of audience or emotions in their souls. The rest of the story will be finished in a mind and soul of the individuals.

And what about aesthetics, somebody could ask? That’s a question of taste. Someone like me loves both, old and new, classic and modern.

But, I am Gemini Zodiac Sign...  

 

 

Really splendid Boomerang collection! 

[romberg flat]

Really splendid Boomerang collection! 

 

As a faithful “Borgesian” I can’t resist arranging pieces on my imaginary time & space spiral where each new stage is a derivate of experience and memories from the past. And memories could sometimes be like boomerangs, indeed.

Merry NEW Christmas to All…

[Craig Tucker]

Hey romberg flat, who's that spiral painted or inked by?

It's nicely done !