help fund harry bertoia's archive of unreleased recordings...

important records is collaborating with the harry bertoia estate on a kickstarter to archive all of harry's recordings of his sonambient / sound sculpture. if you know bertoia's LPs that he self-released, you know they are some of the most incredible sound sculpture recordings that exist. 

many years ago i was fortunate to visit the bertoia studio/barn with friends, and what scared the hell out of us was the condition of harry's unreleased recordings. and after leaving the studio, we spoke a lot about someone stepping in to archive and save these unreleased works. FINALLY john from important records is attempting to finally take care of harry's audio legacy... and i would encourage you to help.

anyone who knows me and/or my work will know that i am an enormous geeky fan of bertoia's work - and i consider his work to be a major inspiration for my own work. while many people know harry's "bertoia chairs" - his work as a sound sculptor and sound artist is vastly under-recognized, and the kickstarter should also help to get his work better known

aside with helping the archive, the kickstarter also offers some great and rare "rewards" including original LPs from harry's self - released sonambient records, rare books of his drawings, and a bunch of new things, including important's CD box set of the original released recordings... 

so take a gander at the site:

click here 

the poetry of electro-tubes...

"drawing is a way of learning, a way of finding a truth.
a line commences somewhere, gathers momentum,
spends its energy and comes to an equilibrium
equivalent to a life-cycle.
it could also be said that it establishes its norm
out of balance and dimension.
i draw what i don't know in order to learn something about it.
electro-tubes are extensions as well as magnifications
of our senses.
neither our senses nor the tubes can be faked.
they wouldn't work.
the same physical laws that condition the existence of the tube
are at work in the drawing, if it is to be any good.
there is no place for non constituents.
each and every part is so integrated
that a change by removal or addition would be destructive.
objects can change their form without changing their dimension."

harry bertoia, arts and architecture magazine, 1944
images: two small bertoia monotypes, early 1940's

metal music movies

nothing like finding two sound superheroes connected on one piece of paper. this is a great little undated brochure for the rental of films by madeline tourtelot, through cinema 16, probably early 60's as the address doesn't have a zipcode. the large one sided brochure advertises 5 of tourtelot's films including 3 of her short art films - "reflections" (with fascinating patterns of music composed by ed bland), "one by one" (a film-poem on the theme of fall), and "summer" (light humor and symbolic pantomime combine with well adapted music to produce a strikingly original film); and two related to sound/music/sculpture masters - harry bertoia and harry partch! the partch film, titled "music studio: harry partch" is included on the enclosure one from innova . it seems tourtelot collaborated with partch a number of times. the bertoia film is titled "metal dimensions", the description says "we see bertoia working in his studio, hear him talk, and study several of his works". it's 9 1/2 minutes i'd absolutely love to see! (anyone out there with a copy?!). unfortunately not a lot of info on tourtelot beyond the partch collaborations online, but i'm sure all of these films would be worth seeing if you are into maya deren and avant garde cinema. a lot more bertoia ephemera to come...

enter the year of the golden sun or spore...

here to say happy new year is a 1961 gold ink drawing by harry bertoia, one of my heroes, who has been mentioned here several times. bertoia worked with the eames in cranbrook (and back here in LA), designed furniture, made incredibly underrated abstract monotypes, worked with sound sculpture, self-released a series LP records of his sound sculpture, created large scale sculpture for public spaces, etc.

over the years i have been lucky enough to buy a few cheaply priced monotypes (some of which i will try to post in the near future); but because the monotype was harry's preferred mode of drawing, actual traditional pen or pencil on paper drawings are rarely seen.

the drawing pictured above was created to accompany a letter describing a sculpture that harry was offering for sale to a collector. it shows a sculpture described in the letter as 7 feet tall with a four foot diameter orb on top and the entire structure resting on a marble base. the selling price in 1961, direct from the artist, was $1200... i suppose the price now would be at least ten times that.

in light of how much bertoia's works were inspired by nature, it seems fitting to post this spore or sun (or blue moon perhaps) as it sprouts up from the ground as a symbol of the new year risen...

when walls are for reading and looking...

two images from my studio walls that surround me while i work. the list below should help you navigate a bit of my world...

from top to bottom, starting on the left...

image 1:
a drawing from a friend
a photograph of a castle made out of tin foil, supposedly made by the elephant man (i think it is fake but it's a beautiful object)
a small painting from me, very very old
a photo of alan lomax making a recording
a stick (i know not from where anymore)
piece of an installation i made for guru dutt,

a very old painting from me
a snapshot of my painting in an exhibition hanging next to a cy twombly painting!
a photo of harry bertoia making sound
david/marat

a card from a show of bruce conner.
a postcard from paul panhuysen
a polaroid of a garden in england
a card for an exhibition of oskar fischinger
an old painting of a buddha
a tiny picture of my dog
a card for a show of per kirkeby

a comparative map of all mountain ranges in the world from the 1880's.
a card of emma kunz, agnes martin, and hilna af klint
an old painting by me
the handle from my grandfather's saw
a quote from rilke about rodin
a map from the south seas made with sticks related to ocean currents
a photograph of fireworks
a small bit of red wire i found i don't remember where
an image from a book by jacques cousteau, the coral looks like a jackson pollock painting
a quote of cocteau ("i elaborate in the prairies of inner silence")
my own music note notations for a painting

part of a large wall chart of all the keys on a typewriter
a chart of making letters with colored dots from an old toy
a tiny collage made from pages of my mother's phone book from the early 1960's
a postcard of a sculpture by rodin of a woman with a greek temple on her
a very old macintosh floppy disc
a snapshot of a garden
a magazine photo of my favorite japanese actor

image 2:
an old disc from a music box, i don't know the song
a sculpture made of chewing gum wrappers, folk art, anonymous
some microscope photos
a score from the serpentine gallery performance
a sketch for a sculpture/sound project

an article about the space station mir and its demise
some music notation i found on the ground in paris
a string with lines for 26 inches that i can use to make drawings as a curved ruler to translate text into curves (a = 1, b=2, etc.)
some drawing by a friend.
an old watercolor by me
a postcard of a constructivist sculpture
an old postcard of a japanese temple
a prayer from an indian music concert

a postcard image of emma kunz drawing
a postcard image of a parachute
fireworks
a postcard from goethe's house in weimar
an old science image of stars
a quote from a kids book about the universe
a postcard of a sculpture by richard lippold

the bottom edge of a painting
a photograph of a japanese hotel i took in 1978
another postcard of goethe's house in weimar
a science drawing of the sounds of bird songs
a snapshot of an artwork by my friend
a photo of guru dutt
a drawing of sculpture of a landspeeder from star wars i remember making as a child

drawings made by children listening to my music with their eyes closed
a postcard of a drawing by emma kunz
a list of musical note and color equivalents, written by a cashier at a store for me
a postcard of a power tower
a postcard from corbusier's ronchamp
another drawing made by a child listening to my music with his eyes closed
an old edison record i cast to make the plaster disc for my recent sound installation
an envelope from brazil with a butterfly stamp on it, that is quite special.

a print made on a letterpress
an image of a work by joseph cornell that inspired my sound piece moon field
a drawing of a radio antenna
a list of the things joseph cornell saw out of his kitchen window (his "observatory")
a book cover about a large pipe organ found on the ground in paris
a drawing made with a stencil of a contact microphone being burned by the sun