The Comoro Islands

Gabus Player
16" x 10"
oil on canvas, 2011

I had never heard of the Comoro Islands until a few days ago. Scrolling through a list of the 196 "official" countries of the world, Comoros was the first one I had never heard of. This is why I used it as an example in a facebook posting on collecting folk music. This is what I wrote:

Thanks to Maria for dragging me in to those thrift stores. I added at least 7 more countries to my international folk collection this week. I now have gathered records from more than one hundred countries (there are officially 196 of them, so I'm more than half way to collect them all (but where the hell would I find a record from Comoros?)

 From several responses, the link to the LP Folk Music of the Comoro Islands (on Folkways, what other label could it be?) was the most interesting. I ordered the music as a download and now, suddenly, from an unknown, it is part of my collection of folk music from around the world and right away too, part of my Top 100 archive. The Shinzwani Love song with cabus that opens the record is irresistible in its charm. As with the cumbus player a few weeks ago, the publishers published a photo of the musician, but both photo and cabus player on the LP remain anonymous. Yet again a new instrument in my painting repertoire, I'll work on Cs I guess (as I love things in alphabetical order. The C is a big letter too in our spice rack: cumin, cinnamon, chili, cayenne, curry, cloves, chives, caraway, chicory, are all together there—be it not in that order). What will the next instrument be? I haven't painted chimes yet, or the irresistible clavichord? 

p.s. The instrument depicted above is not a cabus but a gabus. The text accompanying the music was hard to read. So much for painting instruments starting with a C.

What's New Pussycat?

Tom Jones
oil on martini glass, 2011
(signed by Tom Jones)

When I was asked to contribute to the 2011 Naples Independent Film Festival fundraiser I said yes. I'm a yes man and being new in South Florida, I'm jumping on every opportunity just to get in touch with the 'scene' down here. The fundraiser consists of auctioning off decorated martini glasses signed by celebrities. The signed martini glasses are decorated by (mostly local) artists hence the invitation. When I was given the list of which glasses needed decoration I got very excited: Tom Jones was on it! In the history of my Top 100 Sir Tom Jones has not been a prominent fixture but he was once in it nevertheless (What's New Pussycat in 1998) and among my wife's and mine record collection, we have seven(!) of his records. So I got the signed martini glass and I had to think about what to do. I did think for a long time, making a few sketches, before I decided to go straight up. I painted a portrait of Tom Jones on the outside of the glass as not to jeopardize the function (it can still be used as a martini glass.) The nature of a drinking glass is such that an image can be seen from both sides. This is very different from everything I've done before. I've painted on glass but only one side is meant to be seen. The proposition was for me the opportunity to show an under-painting on one side and a refined one on the other. I used that part of the glass that most resembled a two dimensional surface; starting  at the rim and diagonally wrapping the image halfway around the glass. It's a science. For an image I chose not to use the Tom Jones we're all familiar with but a recent picture of his. He's 71 and about to release a blues(!) album. Yes I'm serious, the single that's already out is Burning Hell originally by John Lee Hooker (and Top 100 inducted in Hooker's version). When I showed Jones' version to my wife on YouTube, she commented that he looked (and sounded) like a black man. Looking at the finished painting he does too, not so much like John Lee Hooker, but I see a resemblance with Howlin' Wolf.

The Accordion (Swiss Mountain Music)

Swiss Accordion Players
17" x 17"
oil on ceramic tile, 2011 

 During the 19th Century the accordion, which has done such severe damage to the folk music of Central Europe, penetrated every region of Italy. The Southern Italian folk musicians, however, have worked out ways of playing this pestiferous instrument so that it supports rather than injures their old tunes.

 —Alan Lomax, Music and Song of Italy, 1958

A big sale of records for a dime each made me buy records I usually leave for the next person. Included in the big haul were records, folk and popular music, from many European countries. I picked up records from countries I usually ignore: Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Lots of yodels, lederhosen, and accordion music. If it's old enough, and recorded in the field (the Alps, in the case of the countries mentioned above), every geographical location is worthy enough to collect. The record Swiss Mountain Music meets these criteria and at least one tune is a true gem, and the picture on the back cover of a combo in which two accordion players, one in a polar bear costume, are featured, is too good to pass up. The gem, however, is one of the few tunes on the record that doesn't feature an accordion. It's a yodel with moving coins accompaniment performed by Franzsepp Inauen called Appenzeller Yodel. I've painted my share of accordions and without exception I have had a hard time doing it. Visually it's an annoying instrument to paint and when I had to do it again I just did the bare bones version. Kind of looks like a fish bone, doesn't it?

Folk Songs of Iceland

Anna Thorhallsdottir
17" x 17"
oil on ceramic tile, 2011

The photograph of Anna Thorhallsdottir (Anna Þórhallsdóttir), on the cover of Folk Songs of Iceland is, like the music on that record, and maybe like Iceland itself, serene, mystical, and meditative. I've never been to Iceland (I only flew over), I never read the Edda (I only know of it because of crossword puzzles), and I can't speak the language. Yet I have fond memories; one of my art professors in college was an Icelander. Sigurdur Gudmundsson is his name and I regard him highly. I would characterize him as serene, mystical, and meditative, like the land, and the record, and the photo, but he is funny too.  Something happened in the process of painting Thorhallsdottir's portrait. Something made the sitter jump up and dance, the quiet sky swirl. The stillness vanished by the northern light, pagan deities, and fairy grandmothers. By the Sugarcubes, Sigur Ros, and Sigurdur Gudmundsson. Memories and myths I carried into making this painting of Anna Thorhallsdottir.

And...by the way...the instrument she is playing is called langspil, an Icelandic drone zither.

Çumbus Player

Anon. Çumbus Player (Turkey)
17" x 17"
oil on ceramic tile, 2011

There are so many instruments in the world, there's no way I'd be able to know them all let alone paint them all but new ones are added to my repertoire every once in a while. The çumbus is the latest. Advertised on the liner notes to Songs and Dances from Turkey as a modern lute, the çumbus looks more like a giant 12 string banjo. The çumbus player above, anonymous, is most likely the player featured in the dance tune Nihavent Longa as the image appears on the back sleeve of that record. The player is not identified in neither image nor recording. The producers of 'field' recordings in the 1950s and 60s typically omit this kind of information. In recent times this would be disrespectful, but back then it seemed that the circumstances and geographical location were more important  to the ethnomusicologist than the name of a player or singer. The çumbus on Nihavent Longa is accompanied by a clarinet as well as a darabukā player. I've painted clarinets before but never a darabukā. A missed opportunity here because an image of the darabukā, a goblet drum, is also featured on the same back sleeve.

But a painting is a painting and not a platform for instrument indulgence (even though it could very well be). The more I learn about painting the more of a purist I become. In this painting on ceramic tile (the purity of which is debatable) my palette consisted of the three primary colors and white, and I've used only one medium sized brush. I use no mechanical techniques whatsoever, no tape, rulers, transfer techniques, no additional application techniques. I've painted wet in wet without any color mixing on the palette. Ideally I finish one in a four to five hour session but typically I go back into it the next day. The çumbus player was executed over the course of three days.

Robert Johnson

Robert "Nighthawk" Johnson
17" x 17"
oil on ceramic tile, 2011

Blues is confusing if you're an archivist. As an oral tradition the authorship of most blues songs are obscure or debatable. Musicians freely combine verses from older songs, add a line or two, and call it their own. They 'borrow'  verses, songs, and even names from each other. The Robert Johnson depicted above is a different Robert Johnson than the legendary Crossroads blues man. Both were born Robert Johnson though. The Robert Johnson I'm dealing with here was born in 1917, he performed under the name Robert Nighthawk, but let's not get him confused with the better know blues musician with the same name. Robert "Nighthawk" Johnson didn't record a whole lot of records. In fact the two song on the album Sorrow Come Pass Me Around: A Survey of Rural Black Religious Music, recorded by David Evans in 1967 in Skene, MS, may well be the only two he ever recorded. In a Google search it's the only record that shows up. The first is the standard Can't No Grave Hold My Body Down in which he inserts a stanza from Amazing Grace. He performs with a 'knife' guitar. The second tune is sung by Dorothy Lee, Norma Jean, and Shirley Marie Johnson, his three teenage daughters who were part of the local church choir. The title is You Got to Give an Account and it will be part of the Top 100 2011.

The painting is done, rather unconventionally, on ceramic tile. Having no canvases available that were big and square enough, I resorted to building materials to work on. Those I have plenty of, readily available, combining the chores of fixing up the old house with the passion for painting.

Luo Chief

Luo Chief (anon.)
14" x 11"
 pastel on paper, 2011

 The image for the pastel drawing above comes from a blog maintained by British artist James Aldridge. The source of the original photograph was not given by Aldridge. The identity of the person portrayed I don't know either except that it is an image of a Luo chief (Kenyan tribe), which is close enough for me to use as the illustration for a praise song performed by Luo chief Gideon Magak. I was not able to find an image of Magak and Hugh Tracey, who recorded this song, I had already done.

James Aldridge's art focuses on environmental awareness and his blog deals a lot with teaching art to children. Being interested in environmental issues myself (be it not through my art) and also teaching painting and drawing to children (be it only very recently), I will look into Aldridge's ideas later on but for now these ideas are not relevant for the Top 100 project. Aldridge didn't comment at all on the photo he published but I'm sure he was motivated by the horn-hat the chief is wearing. I found that hat quite intriguing myself.

Chosen for its horn-hat then, the photo proved difficult to mutate into a drawing precisely because of those horns attached to the hat. The drawing didn't come to life until I subverted the masculinity of it.

Magak's praise song, recorded in the early 1950s in Kenya, was released in 1952 on The Music of Africa Series 2: Kenya as a ten-incher, and this record I consider one of the most precious records I own. If I had to give up all my records but for one I'd probably pick this one to keep. (Don't you ever put me in that position!)