+4°C in the atelier, camera won’t connect to computer… I’ll deal with that later; right now, I am a student attending a course at Stockholm University – Aesthetic-Based Qualitative Research. Oh, These Gorgeous Capitals!

Fellini; graphite pencil on paper, 21 x 15 cms

Went to visit our daughter, working in a dressage stable, over New Year’s Eve. Short hours of daylight followed by cold, clear nights with Venus and the crescent moon over dark meadows. Those noble horses.

And then, bombs over Gaza.

Returning home, 16 degrees below zero, freezing cold in the studio.  And for the people locked up in Gaza: still more bombs, missiles, shooting.

One world.

http://www.avaaz.org/en/gaza_time_for_peace/?cl=164026500&v=2623

colour exercises; watercolour on paper, 18 x 25 cms

another acquaintance of mine, Krax; graphite pencil on paper, 21 x 15 cms

colour exercise; watercolour on paper

timpanist with his instruments; graphite pencil on paper, c. 21 x 15 cms

I was mistaken; I have to re-formulate. This polarity is not about time-and-space matters, the way dancers do it. It’s more like the visible world calling for the invisible. Material bodies of instruments and human beings, interacting to shape the immaterial/imaginary space of music.

Thanks to the orchestra and its various directors for sharing their working process with me.

cellist with her instrument; graphite pencil on paper, c. 21 x 15 cms

four more drawings from an orchestra rehearsal; graphite pencil on paper, c. 21 x 15 cms

four drawings from an orchestra rehearsal; graphite pencil on paper, c. 21 x 15 cms

Yes, this is very different from drawing (for instance) dancers. While moving art performers interprete a temporal impulse into spatial, thus visible, reality, the orchestra’s performance establishes more of a polarity; the aim of the effort stays the audible field, and yet there is a great deal of ‘bodyness’: gleams of varnish on the violins; the instrumentalist’s physical concentration and coordination of movements in playing; the almost architectural issue of supporting and supported parts when the cello player brings her instrument in a ready-to-start position. And the conductor’s oral instructions helping to bridge the gap… like “trust the fact of getting there softly”… I’ll keep that one.

six drawings from a rehearsal; graphite pencil on paper, c 20 x 28 cms

Some more drawings of Milo; graphite pencil on paper, 21 x 28 cms

Milo, my shaggy friend, is leaving, but Augustine of Hippo stays with me.

“What is it that shineth through me and striketh my heart without injury, so that I both shudder and burn? I shudder because I am unlike it; I burn because I am like it.” (Augustine’s Confessions, XI 9:11)