Fats, Owl tribute to Fats Waller
My paper works using antique sheet music seek to celebrate and repurpose the best and worst quality music from my great paper era collection (1723-1945). My creative endeavours have focused on creating and celebrating language with a particular focus on universal languages. As a multi lingual and multi cultural person music was (and still is) a most tangible link to culture for me. I grew up moving every two years and although we were posted far and wide, my parents, an Irish mother from the North of Ireland and a French Canadian military officer with Métis heritage, made sure we were given strong links to our mixed heritage. I also use it because the wealth of printed music from the last several centuries has become obsolete for the most part. It was collected and shared with great care and love, from one generation to another, as such the quality of the paper was essential to its longevity. The greatest paper made was made for music, which was to pass from hand to hand to hand. I have always had a great love for it and have always yearned to use it in my work as an artist and artisan.
It is important for me to honour every aspect of each piece of music I used for this work. As such, the inventory of colour resulting from age, paper composition (cotton, linen, the honey coloured paper is the result of bleach as an additive during war time in the 20th century), margins, print size, decorative whimsy and graphic patterns have become components of my palette. We are all soothed by music, it is a universal language of healing and wellbeing and connects us to our ancestors. This work now connects me to all those who kept their music archive, to you and to all future folk that encounter it because they will do a visual dance of discovery, and so musical magic is made. Making sculpture is a way for me to navigate complicated waters with love and hope for healing for all us earthlings.
Owl is about seeing in light and darkness, knower of truth by seeing to the heart of the matter. This work is full of discourse about working towards greater insight. My healing journey is one that reveals many things and that it is important to brave seeing and acknowledging effects of both the light and the dark to become whole and at peace.
As a storyteller it is important that the journey of discovery in the paper sculptures be not limited to their creative component compositions but that explored other dialogues as well. As such all the owls have a male and female side (different articulations on either side) as we must all care for and honour both in ourselves. This is also evidenced when considering formal musical staffing and then the organic use of different ages and qualities of paper to create a new organic musical tapestry.
I listen to many different genres of music, some that uplift some soothe, others fascinate or challenge. Fats Waller and Fats Domino are both favourites of mine since childhood and I love their recordings deeply and many of which I own on vinyl having inherited my mother’s record collection, lucky me!
My paper works using antique sheet music seek to celebrate and repurpose the best and worst quality music from my great paper era collection (1723-1945). My creative endeavours have focused on creating and celebrating language with a particular focus on universal languages. As a multi lingual and multi cultural person music was (and still is) a most tangible link to culture for me. I grew up moving every two years and although we were posted far and wide, my parents, an Irish mother from the North of Ireland and a French Canadian military officer with Métis heritage, made sure we were given strong links to our mixed heritage. I also use it because the wealth of printed music from the last several centuries has become obsolete for the most part. It was collected and shared with great care and love, from one generation to another, as such the quality of the paper was essential to its longevity. The greatest paper made was made for music, which was to pass from hand to hand to hand. I have always had a great love for it and have always yearned to use it in my work as an artist and artisan.
It is important for me to honour every aspect of each piece of music I used for this work. As such, the inventory of colour resulting from age, paper composition (cotton, linen, the honey coloured paper is the result of bleach as an additive during war time in the 20th century), margins, print size, decorative whimsy and graphic patterns have become components of my palette. We are all soothed by music, it is a universal language of healing and wellbeing and connects us to our ancestors. This work now connects me to all those who kept their music archive, to you and to all future folk that encounter it because they will do a visual dance of discovery, and so musical magic is made. Making sculpture is a way for me to navigate complicated waters with love and hope for healing for all us earthlings.
Owl is about seeing in light and darkness, knower of truth by seeing to the heart of the matter. This work is full of discourse about working towards greater insight. My healing journey is one that reveals many things and that it is important to brave seeing and acknowledging effects of both the light and the dark to become whole and at peace.
As a storyteller it is important that the journey of discovery in the paper sculptures be not limited to their creative component compositions but that explored other dialogues as well. As such all the owls have a male and female side (different articulations on either side) as we must all care for and honour both in ourselves. This is also evidenced when considering formal musical staffing and then the organic use of different ages and qualities of paper to create a new organic musical tapestry.
I listen to many different genres of music, some that uplift some soothe, others fascinate or challenge. Fats Waller and Fats Domino are both favourites of mine since childhood and I love their recordings deeply and many of which I own on vinyl having inherited my mother’s record collection, lucky me!