Process of Writing 4: Lightning

A few days ago, rather than drive home through a fierce thunderstorm after chorus rehearsal in Madison, I went with some of the guys to a local all-night restaurant for awhile. One example of a restaurant chain I often frequent, but don't feel like giving free advertising to by naming it here, it's one I know I can reliably find gluten-free food at. The night was windy, the moon was high in the sky, and off to the east and south a bank of restless clouds was continuously and relentlessly lit from within by lightning flashes. I would have to drive into that, if I left right away. So I spent a good hour or hour and a half at the restaurant with the guys. We ate, we chatted, we laughed, we told jokes, we told stories. It was a good night.

By the end of our gathering, only three of us left after the others had gone, we evolved a discussion about what it's like to live as a gay man in the Upper Midwest, and other aspects of personal story that lie at the root of the new music commission I am undertaking for the chorus. It was a very good discussion, and some real insights and terrific anecdotes came forward. Meanwhile, throughout our talk, the restaurant's music system was playing 50s and 60s novelty and nostalgia pop songs; songs I hadn't heard in a long time, but which seemed apt for our walks down memory lane. Those songs lingered in the back of my mind throughout our conversation.

When I finally left to drive home, I was tired but content with the day. I had indeed given the storm enough time to pass by, and didn't have to drive through it. The drive home was smooth and relatively easy.

About halfway home, driving down the interstate through the dark, a melody came into my head. Just a simple solo voice line, something mostly positive in feel, with a little bit of poignance to it, but an upbeat tune. I sang it to myself enough times to memorize it, building a longer line, making some chords around it. Ideas for chorus and piano parts to accompany the solo line. Then some words started to appear. A phrase or two, based on one of the life-stories we had been talking about at the restaurant. Just a few words at first, but by the time I got home, I had three short verses of lyric.

I was one
gay son
in our family
Mother disowned me

Then my brother
made two
gay sons
in our family
Mother did not know
what to do. . . .

I prefer subtle rather than blatant rhymes, and I like internal rhymes. Nothing chimes more clumsily on the ear than obvious and predictable end-rhymes, especially when the line is as short as it often needs to be for a good song lyric. Easy end-rhymes make things way too sing-songy, way too easy to make inappropriately ironic. So slant-rhymes, off-rhymes, and internal rhymes are going to appear a lot in the lyrics for the commission—many segments based on the stories I have gathered, as this was—but not more than a few telling end-rhymes. Where you place a rhyme can create dramatic tension, and can itself be a musical effect, like a canon or leitmotif. I also like to use structural rhyme, forms and melodies that recur in separate stanzas without being too blatant. This song has a few rhymes across each stanza, which the listener will take in and interpret as unifying structural points, even if they're not really conscious of the technique of it.

Poetic craft is meant to serve the poetry, not serve itself. Craft is meant to be invisible, or appear easy. It's too tempting to pull out all your poetic chops and over-write song lyrics; just as it can be equally tempting to pull out all one's musical tricks and over-write the music. Most poets who come to songwriting overwrite their lyrics at first, trying to show off every crafty trick they know how to do. Simpler is usually better, though, in song lyrics.

The rest of the drive home, I was singing or humming words and music to this new song in my head, sometimes out loud. When I got home, I went into the house, and immediately sat down and notated in score what had come to me on the drive home. When I was done, I had a complete song sketched out, whose theme and elements were based on some of the stories that the guys had told me earlier, about their own lives. I've written down the essential parts now, enough to shape the overall form of the song, and need only to fill in the bones of the accompaniment. The words and the music came together, this time. A phenomenon I've heard about, from singer-songwriters, but haven't often experienced myself. I added a little bit more tonight, while just sitting and thinking it over.

So, lightning strikes, and you get a full piece out of it. That was a good night's effort.

Papier-Maché Art Bowls

Another new direction for my art-making. I've been thinking hard about how to break out of the two-dimensional limitation of most visual art, especially the photographic print. I have several ideas that combine photographic prints with sculpture, with multimedia, with multiple displays of parallel work. That combine imagery with form, that break out of the two-dimensional frame into the realm of sculpture, and of multimedia.

I've always liked paper arts. I've long been interested in hand-made paper, art books, and hand-printing. I haven't pursued this interest very deeply before now, although at times I've wanted to make my own paper; and I think I may be able to explore that craft this winter. I have been setting up a crafts worktable in the basement, to be able work on several projects as time permits, from woodcarving, to paper arts, to candlemaking, and more.

Someday I would like to make an art book. I want to make the paper myself, print my written words on the hand-made paper, sew the binding, make the covers. In other words, a completely hand-made art book, containing original images and poems. Obviously, like most art-books, a limited edition. A lot work to make, and not intended to be mass-produced.

My artist friend A. had the idea to explore papier-maché recently, which I felt immediately enthusiastic about. I sought out some gluten-free recipes online for making paste—most papier-maché is, like wallpaper paste, a combination of flour paste and water—the most effective one being made from white glue, like the famous Elmer's Glue-All seen in many schoolrooms, mixed with water. (Two parts white glue to one or one-and-a-half parts water.)

That very night, lit on fire with the idea of making a paper art bowl—decorative, artistic, not for food, certainly not waterproof—I made two. I have a stash of really good art papers, most of them designed to run through a printer. I've made some laser-printed art-books with some of this paper, publishing a limited run a few years ago.




I tore this purple paper stock into strips, and made two papier-maché art bowls. I have a set of three or four blown-glass bowls made by another artist friend of mine, when she was working in the University of Wisconsin glass lab. I used two of these glass bowls as molds. I followed the instructions of one of the papier-maché recipes I had found, and lined the mold bowls with petroleum jelly. This worked well, but had the downside of leaving some traces of petroleum jelly on the bowls, which took a while to get off, after the bowls had dried.



To make a paper bowl like this, you tear paper into strips, soak it in the bonding material (the white glue with water, or paste) for a minute or two, till the paper is pliable, then form the strips into the mold. After making the paper bowl in the mold, you can sop up the extra wetness with a paper towel. The bowls need to dry for a minimum of 24 hours, typically, before they can come out of the molds without falling apart. Once out of the mold, it usually takes another day or two before they're completely dry. Once dry, they are quite firm, strong enough to hold shape, even strong enough to be containers for other materials. (Not food!)



All in all, for a first effort, I'm very satisfied. I'm still learning what I'm doing. I expect to do several more simple bowls, while I learn what I'm doing, then move on to other forms. Perhaps some plates, platters, and other forms that have relief could make interesting molds. I have seen some square Japanese plates, for example, that might make very interesting forms. Maybe even something like a wall sculpture.




Next, I made two more experimental bowls, made from strips torn up from old photo-prints of mine. I have several boxes full of laser-prints on paper, made from my photographs and digital art. Most of these I made when I was working at various graphic arts jobs which happened to have printers that they let me use. Laser prints, while quite crisp and permanent, are on standard printer paper, not photographic paper. That means I can't really sell them as photo prints. So what am I to do with them? Why, recycle them into other art.

So I made two more bowls from these laser photo prints. The interesting thing about using the photo prints this way is that I can make different images inside and outside; so you can make a themed piece of art using more than one static image.

I tried lining the molds with plastic wrap rather than petroleum jelly this time. This worked very well, as the finished bowls popped right out of the molds after drying, and the plastic wrap left nothing behind, unlike the petroleum jelly. A day more of drying, and the bowls look very good. Abstract yet representational.

One of this second group of bowls uses photos I've made of my small collection of vintage typewriters; the outside of the bowl is typewriter keys, while the inside uses photos of other parts of the typewriter.



Bowl of Type

The second bowl uses photos I've made of nudes in nature—part of an ongoing series of photographs of the nude male form in natural settings, which I began in 2000 and still continues. The photos used for this bowl were made over two or three years of camping in northern Minnesota. The different models were all friends who agreed to pose for me.



Bowl of Eros

As i said, i view these as experiments. This is brand new art for me, although I have been intrigued by paper arts for several years. I've seen lots of beautiful paper-arts pieces over the years, which can be sewn as well as glued, containing swatches of fabric, of woven paper, of feathers, and other materials. There is potential here for making something more shamanic, as well. I find myself also moving towards abstraction rather than representation; even the bowls made from paper would be cubist, or refracted, not perfectly pictured. Layers and nuanced complexities and resonant associations of image, word, meaning, context.