Les Deux Frederics

Frederic Chopin, oil on canvas, 6"x6", 2024

I always wanted to glob on paint like the expressionists did more than a hundred years ago. This one was done in an immediate fashion, wet on wet. I've been enchanted recently by Northern European romanticism, sans the nationalism. In fact I believe (German) expressionism is an extension of romanticism. I don't think I've ever painted Chopin before.

Musica Elettronica Viva, pen and paint on paper, 14"x11", 2024

Drawn in my sketchbook from the image inside the LP The Sound Pool, recorded in 1969 but not released until 1998. I bought that one while in Florence last year. MEV was formed in Rome in 1966 by two Americans who had emigrated there: Alvin Curran and Richard Teitelbaum. The image features Patricia Coaquette, Ivan Coaquette, Franco Cataldi, Alvin Curran, Richard Teitelbaum, and Frederic Rzewski.

Two Eipo girls making a net, 20"x10", oil on canvas

Both paintings come from one single photograph illustrating four Eipo children making a net. On the 6-CD set Musik aus dem Bergland West-Neuguineas are several songs sung by children while making a net. The two in the top 100 were sung by Ginto and Kuto (who are two 11-year-old girls depicted in either the painting above, or below) and by Enento, Yakne, and Toronto. The Eipo live on the Indonesian side of Papua New Guinea.

Two Eipo girls making a net, 20"x10", oil on canvas

Expansion and departure

!K-2. 40"x30", oil and acrylic on canvas, 2016/2024

I recycled two works from the Top 100 2016. The idea was that they would become part of this year's 100. The paintings departed from illustrating music by the !Kung Bushmen and became their own thing. Technically the Top 100 2023 should end around this time but I don't have nearly a hundred songs yet. We'll see what happens.

!K-1. 40"x30", oil and acrylic on canvas, 2016/2024

Number one in the list remained to be that song by Campa Indians from Peru. I have now completed 9 versions of the image, each starting with the same stencil. Here's number 8, that I had started last year.

Campa-8, mixed media on drywall, 12"x12", 2023/24

And number 9, just finished a few days ago.

Campa-9, mixed media on drywall, 13"x13", 2024

The Mist

Rengma Naga, woman from Tesophenyu, 20x10

A couple of CDs that I ordered from Peter van Ham, from Germany are climbing up the ranks in Top 100 land. The CDs were recorded in the far Northeast of India and a few tracks in Myanmar as well. The CD Naga: Songs from the Mist, features recordings from between 1998 and 2002 of the Naga peoples, while Himalaya: Songs from the Heights, has recordings from Arunachal Pradesh from 2013. Both CDs were recorded by Peter van Ham, the latter on his own label. I was delighted to find a good many photographs, mostly by van Ham as well, in the booklet, even though they are super tiny. The photo illustrating Atekapuka, a welcome song from Tesophenyu in Nagaland, India, doesn't measure more than an inch by an inch-and-a-half, and has six or seven people on it, in black and white.
 

Venus (birth)

Ihuahua, Cheour de femmes Yaulapiti, 20x10

Compared to some other well know renaissance masterworks, the Venus by Botticelli didn't quite live up to my expectations, when I finally saw it in Florence last year. My best memory of the Botticelli's Venus was a little statuette at a souvenir stand just outside the Uffifzi. I had to have it. While the painting doesn't show the back, obviously, a statuette has to, because it's 3-D.

One of my most listened to albums of the year is called: Brésil vol. 1 - Musique Indienne du Brésil (1968), the song Ihuahua is listed highest. The performers of Ihuahua are represented by a photograph on the back sleeve of the album sleeve, which was recorded by Simone Dreyfus in 1957. Really, anyone from this photo (by Dreyfus) would have made a good model for the "Venus" painting.

Simone Dreyfus, Yaulapiti – Ihuahua, photo