Making Music Series

Perhaps Bach
woodcut, monoprint, stencil, 21" x 34"

Baroque Wave
woodcut, monoprint, stencil, 21" x 34"

A Song for Children
woodcut, monoprint, 21" x 34"

Blue Wave
woodcut, monoprint, stencil, 21" x 34"

Goldin Rollin Hills
woodcut, monoprint, stencil, 22" x 26"

Slow Stream
woodcut, 22" x 26"

Pink Rain
woodcut, monoprint, 22" x 26"

Notes 1
woodcut, 12" x 12"

Notes 2
woodcut, 12" x 12"

Notes 3
woodcut, 12" x 12"

The Process of Making Music on Paper

A printmakers thoughts take form

There was something about the flow of shapes on one of my old woodcut blocks. The dots and shapes moved like water splashed on a piece of glass. They reminded me of the way music comes into a space and essentially creates its own tale.

For instance, you walk into an open field on a chill morning and the first sound you hear is a bird’s call. It has a sound shape and a certain pattern. The field is now transformed.

Perhaps you find yourself in a completely empty room with walls that bounce your voice back to you; the space has enlarged and taken a more powerful form. Your utterance transformed the room.

Now I'm facing an empty white sheet of paper. I print the first shape upon it. I sit down and back to digest the image. New thoughts, new queries, new ideas for experiments flow forth. Anyone of these thoughts becomes the first sentence of a story, a visual story, a melodic phrase.

Repeatedly I stand back from the composition and let my imagination find the next note. Picture a composer as she or he begins to align a melody with a voice or a second instrument, each with its own color. As each element is added it can enrich the composition.

Printmaking allows me to overlay abstract patterns and colors in a manner similar to building layers of brushstrokes in a painting I sandwich images from multiple printing plates until I feel I'm seeing something like music.