Objects and subjects

I made a second painting directly after I finished the first. The painting represents the provisional number 2 in the Top 100 2021. Like the first one, the location is again Nunavut, Canada. This time further north in Kinngait on Baffin Island. The painting represents the track "Three Katajjait," first on the Unesco record "Canada: Inuit Games and Songs." A Katajjaq (singular form) is a game song performed by two woman who stand close together. They mimic each other's sounds until one starts laughing, she is the loser. The three katajjait were performed by five different performers and again I do not know if the (nameless) woman on the left in the painting is either on of the five. I do now that it comes from a performance of a katajjaq and the the photograph I used was taken at around the same time (1974) the recording was made. The photo was taken by Nicole Beaudry, who also recorded the "Three Katajjait." The woman on the right is Nicole Beaudry, be it from a much more recent photograph of her. There's a lot of laughter on both the numbers 1 and 2 recordings during their respective performances. Beaudry herself suggests that this is because the music of both recordings are games and not considered music by the Inuit themselves. I argue that it is music, and the laughter an expression of the joy felt when two souls merge.

The contrast of the two men depicted in the above image is stark. The intentional juxtaposition of object and subject in these series of paintings (The Top 100 2021) is especially pronounced in illustrations of older recordings. Anthropology has evolved from the colonialist attitude of the 19th and early 20th centuries to the immersive contextual discipline it is today. The term ethnomusicology was not in use yet in 1949 when Adolphus Peter Enkin recorded "The mourning 'call' of Melville and Bathurst Islands. The photo credit of aboriginal rock-painter on the left that I used is Mount Ford. I assume this refers to Charles Mountford, the leader of the 1948 expedition to Australia's Northern Territory (where both mentioned islands are situated.)  Enkin, an Anglican clergyman, was at odds with his then boss Mountford. Enkin was a champion in the fight against prejudice and racism, and was an outspoken advocate for equal rights for indigenous Australians. A.P. Enkin to his credit, broke through the divide that considered indigenous peoples as primitive and as savage. Extended contact and communication will accomplish a better understanding, I assume. Still the object-subject relation is clearly visible. Starting in the late1960s it becomes standard practice for anthropologists and ethnologists to not only extend contact with their subject but to live with them, often for many years, to understand the cultures they research. The drawing below, belonging to the Top 100 2020, illustrates the music of the Hamar in Southern Ethiopia. Husband and wife team of anthropologists Ivo Strecker and Jean Lydall, and their two two young children, went to live with the Hamar in the 1970s.

I just watched (part of) a movie by Rosie Strecker, who was the daughter of Strecker and Lydall and lived with the Hamar for several years since she was 4 months old. The movie documents her return to Ethiopia many years later. The story is heartwarming and strengthens my belief in the goodness of humanity. Object and subject collapses in this movie as it does in the best of modern anthropology, and ethnomusicology.

 

Of Yamanas and Inuits

Yamana man holding oar

 The Yamana, or Yaghan people were the southernmost inhabitants of the earth. They are often grouped with the Selk'nam people as well other groups that lived in Terra del Fuego in the south of both Argentina and Chile, but they are a distinct other group with their own unique language. I've written a lot about the Selk'nam before as I have been intrigued by their remarkable traditions of body painting and the cosmogenesis it enacts. I reproduced two photographs of Selk'nam people, taken by Martin Gusinde in the early 1920s, in my art appreciation textbook You are an Artist. It was also Martin Gusinde who was the first to record the Selk'nam as well as their neighbors to the south the Yamana. Canto Yamana, at #58 in the Top 100 2020, is a recording from 1923 of a shaman. When Gusinde writes about the music of the Yamana he talks about boatmen songs. The singing of the Yamana, according to the early anthropologist Erich von Hornbostel, is the most primitive of the world, using only two notes. 

Baker Lake Eskimo and Laura Bolton

 

While the drawings for the Top 100 2020 continue to be made until all 100 are done, I started the Top 100 for the year 2021 already. The Top 100 2021 exhibition is scheduled for next summer in Dublin, Ohio and I felt like starting early. I also didn't paint much for a while and now with my studio in working order it is really nice to be out of the house. (A lot of activities, such as my job, are still being done from home.) I had a plan. The concept for the new 100 paintings was to paint double portraits, featuring the musician on one side of the canvas, and the one who recorded it on the other. I figure the juxtaposition is an interesting one. I have now one done and a second one started. I'm still not 100% sure how to tackle certain aspects, like text, in the painting. I experimented here but may change the markings later. The 1 in the top right corner means it's number 1 in the Top 100 2021. This may change because the making of the list for this year is in progress. I am certain, however, that Girl's Game, sung by Agnutnak and Matee, two-fifteen year old Inuit women from Baker Lake, Canada, will be part of the list when it is final. The song was recorded by Laura Bolton in 1974 at Baker Lake and appeared on the Folkways album The Eskimos of Hudson Bay and Alaska. The photograph I used to paint the young woman was taken by Bolton and was included in the liner notes for the record. The song was also listed last year. When I painted an image for the Top 100 2020 I used the same photo. I did include the rest of the family then.

Gesture Drawing

Karin Johansson-Edvards, Matts Arnberg, and Elin Lisslass

Pretty much all of the drawings that comprise the Top 100 2020 started out with a gestural sketch. Gesture drawings are an invaluable aid to achieve essential characteristics of the people portrayed. Usually little evidence of the initial sketch remains once the drawing is finished but today I left it, considered the drawing done after a half an hour of sketching. The one difference of this gesture drawing compared to others is that instead of a black pencil colored pencils were used. I selected the image above from a Swedish website dedicated to the history of kulning (a type of cattle call singing used primarily by women from the mountainous northern part of Sweden) thinking I needed to illustrate a certain anonymous kulning song recorded by Radio Sweden in 1965. After a good amount of research I concluded that the song was likely recorded by Matts Arnberg, and that the singer most likely would be either Karin Johansson-Edvards, or Elin Lisslass. Historical recordings of kulning are rare and featured usually one of the two singers mentioned. The mp3 file I have of the song originates from the collection La Voz Humana en la musica, parte I. During my research I found the original Swedish source, an LP called Lockrop & Vallatar: Ancient Swedish Pastoral Music. Listening to small soundbites from the latter I realized my recording didn't match. It turned out I had mislabeled my recording, confusing it with the other kulning recording on La Voz Humana that comes directly afterwards. It's a live recording of a kulning song sung during the 1995 Falun Folk Festival. This is the recording belonging to the Top 100 2020. I have now fixed the error.

 

Neocolonialism or not neocolonialism?

Anna Balint Puskas

Babinga woman performing Yeli

The drawings for the Top 100 2020 are evolving into illustrations for songs with multiple images. Most of the music in the list are sourced from well documented anthropological recordings. Data, photos, and contextual information is available for many of the recordings. The amount of text in these drawings is also increasing and the attitude towards the drawings is closer to the drawings for the top 100 I did in the beginning in the early 1990s. I do like the juxtaposition of drawings of the performer and the recorder, who is in many cases a Frenchman. This idea I intend to explore further in the works for the next series that I'm going to start soon. For the Top 100 2021 I intend to use oil paint on 11 x 14 inch canvases, horizontally oriented and containing double portraits. I think it will be interesting to portray the musicians from all parts of the world, mostly women, next to a portrait of the ethnomusicologist who is mostly a white middle-aged European. These are not intended to become criticism for an attitude resembling neocolonialism but rather an honest juxtaposition of subject and object. Both as individuals.

Gardu's Hut

 

Gardu(?), 14x11 inches, 2021

The Top100 2020 is presented (and created) in order of appearance. Now I don't even have to think about who I will paint next. For number 54 I had an enormous amount of data and pictures available as the album Music der Hamar is nothing short of an academic work of anthropology. The only thing lacking in the collection are captions underneath the photographs. I may assume that the woman I painted is Gardu but I can't be sure. Gardu is the woman who was recorded in her hut singing a calming down song to her son. I never heard of the calming down genre which is distinct from a lullaby but the Hamar have a name for this type of song: Laensha. The words in the song are analyzed too by the group of anthropologists responsible for the album. The most noteworthy aspect of the lyrics is that the mother addresses her son with a feminine pronoun. The song was recorded in 1973 by Ivo Strecker in Hamar territory in Southern Ethiopia. Bernard Strecker took the photo I used for the painting.

Moving Along

 

Jofirsti Lungisa playing a musical bow

 

 

The Top 100 2020 contains a larger than usual number of repeats from the year before and again a great number of tunes from 2020 will be repeated again in 2021. There's plenty of different music I play but those recordings that make up the playlist from which I compile my thoughts on the origin of music is getting more established as time goes on. And so do my thoughts. The playlist is front and center of my music appreciation path. At some point when I have enough time and ambition I am going to collect and edit my writings on this subject as they appeared in this blog and other places and compile them into a cohesive paper forming a theory on the origin of music, of art, and creativity. The theory is a meditation on all the big questions concerning the origin and nature of being using insights from hundreds of others. The theory itself is far too big and broad for one person to research. The theory that is forming in my hand circumnavigates materials handily available on line and is not depending on independent research at all but rather on the implications of the sounds on the playlist. And empathy. I haven't posted much recently but have continued the work towards completing the illustrations for the Top 100 2020. The nine works shown here are all from this year and are done on 11 x 14 drawing paper. Ink is the most common material used throughout but a number of other media have also been used. Represented are numbers 45 through 53:

• 45: Jofirsti Lungisa – Nandel'ekhaye
• 46: San, Tin Can Bow Solo
• 47: Yeyi "Hut Song" by thirteen young girls and children from Cameroon
• 48: Norma Tanega – You're Dead
• 49: Ya'ak Keodaeng and Ya'Seu Keodaeng – Teum singing
• 50: Sun Ra and His Akestra featuring June Tyson – Space is the Place
• 51: Nellie Echalook and Rebecca Natialuk – Katajjait
• 52: Grande danse, ahidus by a mixed chorus of Ben aissa Berbers
• 53: Bell'ilba (lullaby) by a Kel ansar Tuareg mother
  

!Kung San playing a hunting bow

Baka gathering

Norma Tanega

 

Bamboo on the Mountains (cover), Frank Porschin

Sun Ra, preparation sketch for stencil

Sun Ra, stencilprint (A/P)

Nellie Echalook and Rebecca Natialuk

Berber Family

Tuareg mother and child, Bernard Lortat-Jacob

Gondwana

 

Gond Ceremonial Group, 11x14, ink on paper, 2020

A fun byproduct of illustrating these various peoples from all different places of the world is that I'm learning all sorts of trivia about these peoples. The Gond, mainly of Madhya Pradesh in India, were believed to have once ruled Gondwana. Most people know Gondwana as a supercontinent that existed millions of years ago, but there was also a Gondwana in India. The supercontinent, from the Jurassic epoch, a time long before humans existed, was actually named after the Indian Gondwana. Another interesting piece of trivia is how marriages are arranged among the Gond. If a woman becomes a widow she would marry the closest bachelor from the husband related side. The practice is observed to this day. The Gond are pretty well assimilated into the modern Indian economy so it may happen that a young urban professional is married to his aunt who is 40 years his senior. The song in the top 100 is only identified as Gond Song on The Columbia World Library of Folk& Primitive Music, Vol. 12: India it is found on, was recorded in 1952, a time perhaps, when they were much less assimilated into modern life, when India was still a British colony. The sound of the song sure is very far removed from western as well as Indian popular music of the 1950s.

I had fun drawing a group, instead of usual individual. I could explore rhythmic mark making. I'm thinking already about next year's concept even though this year's isn't even half way finished yet. The exhibition of the Top 100 2021 is already scheduled to take place in Dublin, Ohio during the summer of 2022 even though the work for it has not started yet. The works on 14x11 paper that I'm working on right now will exhibited during the spring of next year in my own The Top Archive and Studio space.

 

Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth, pencils and spray paint on paper, 11x14, 2020

The same recording of Shaking Hell from the 1983 Confusion is Sex LP was also featured in last year's 100. I learned about the song however watching the film Rock My Religion by Dan Graham. It was Graham, a friend of Kim Gordon, who commissioned the song for inclusion in the film. The image I chose to work from was an image by that in my mind best represented the four individuals in the band (from left to right): Steve Shelley; Thurston Moore; Lee Ranaldo; Kim Gordon. The photo taken by Chris Carroll was used in Rolling Stone Magazines and is much more recent than the recording of Shaking Hell. The drummer in heard in the recording is Jim Sclavunos, who was a member only briefly in 1983. Steve Shelley joined in 1985. Vocals on the recording are by Kim Gordon.

Lola Kiepja

Lola Kiepja, pencil on paper, 14x11 inches, 2020

Lola Kiepja was about 90 years old when she died in October of 1966. She had survived her two husbands, all of her nine children and most of her grandchildren as well. She actually survived most all of her people, the Selk'nam of Tierra del Fuego, and was, in 1965 and 1966 when ethnologist Anne Chapman befriended and recorded her, the only surviving member who knew their language and customs. Lola Kiepja was, like mother and maternal grandfather, a shaman who had been instructed on the secrets of Selk'nam mythology. She had been born just before the onslaught of disease, fracticide, and a genocide had reduced the numbers of Selk'nam from about 4,000 to about 300 in just a few decades. Anne Chapman recorded 92 chants by Kiepja, The Guanaco Myth Chant, one of Kipeja's favorites, was recorded more than once and featured in last year's top 100 as well as this year's. The myth (and lyrics to the chant) goes as follows:

I am about to die. Bury me in the white earth (where the guanacos often sleep and rub their backs to rid themselves of vermin) but do not bury me deep in the earth, leave my head and shoulders free. After I die you must perform tachira (the mourning rite) and as you are going away singing of your grief, a man will approach you. He will look exactly like me but he will not be me. He will ask to make love to you, do as he says.

"When he died the daughters did just as their father had ordered. As they walked away, while they were still singing the lament, the father jumped out of his grave, hot with desire to make love to his daughters. He sniffed their tracks and chased wildly after them, urinating as he ran (as if he had already been metamorphosed into a guanaco). When he caught up to them he said: "I am the one your father told you about. Come let us make love." One of his daughters ran on. When he made love to the other both became transformed into guanacos." [Anne Chapman, The End of the World, Buenos Aires, 1988]

A guanaco, a camelid related to the Llama, was a main food staple of the Selk'nam. Check here for more information and other portrait paintings of Lola Kiepja.

Yekuana Revisited

Medicine Woman of the Yekuana People (from Los juegos de la Yekuana)

Tawaniwechi is a second track from Music of the Venezuelan Yekuanan Indians [Folkways, 1975] in this year's list. This particular recording of a Yekuana shaman, the last on the record, was not recorded by neither musicologist listed in the credits on the record, but is rather a historic recording from 1912 by the German anthropologist Theodor Koch-Grunberg. Walter Coppens, Barbara Brandli, and Jean Francois Nothomb, who recorded all other music on the collection decided to include the old wax cylinder recording for historical context. In the recording made in Nauakuna in the South of Venezuela, a shaman is heard using the voice of the spirit Tawani. Even though Tawani is a defunct spirit, the voice of Tawani, invoked in this recording, sounds much like it did one hundred years later as can be witnessed in the film Los juegos de los Yekuana by Enrique Blein. The image above is based on a still from the film.

Two New Ink Drawings

Topoke line dance, 11 x 14, ink on paper, 2020

I've completed two new ink drawings this week. Both represent seconds, musicians or peoples I already painted for this year's top 100. The two drawings represent numbers 39 & 40 in the Top 100 2020. For more information on the Topoke people I encourage you to watch the video chronicling the previous Topoke drawing from earlier this year. The link to it can be found here. The second Topoke track in the list is a mourning song sung by women, the second Nina Simone track in the list is Sinnerman and comes from the album Pastel Blues.

 Nina Simone, 14 x 11, ink on paper, 2020

Thelonious Mingus

Charles Mingus, ink on paper, 2020

 

My appreciation for certain jazz musicians active in the 1960s never wanes. In the midst of exploring new musical styles, eras, and geographic locations the old jazz favorites, such as Mingus and Monk, never cease to impress me. A Rolling Stone article Wynton Marsalis on 12 Essential Jazz Recording introduced me to this recording of Meditations on Integration made in Oslo in 1964. Flutist Eric Dolphy had just informed Mingus he was going to stay behind in Europe and the two of them have a little conversation on stage before starting the song. Mingus asks Dolphy how long he is planning to stay in Europe, a poignant exchange as Dolphy dies just a few months later. The approach of the drawing reminded me of how I did a series of Jazz drawings for the Top 100 of 1999, the first one of many that was exhibited publicly. The local Columbus newspaper The Other Paper chose Thelonious Monk to feature the cover of their events section. 

Thelonious Monk, The Other Paper, 2000