What better way to express experience than through music.
I am currently taking a psychoanalytic class called Art From the Inside Out, where we discuss the processes involved between art and the mind. My assignment was to reflect on the piece Blue and Green Music by Georgia O’Keefe. (By the way, O’Keefe is an amazing artist. Her flowery art is only a small portion of her oeuvre.)
Perceiving art is a practice of reflecting on one’s own experience in the context of another’s framed experience. In fact, I define a piece of art as a framed experience. In this way, an artist is a framer of experience.
And so, here is a musical improvisation of the work assigned. After I saw it in the museum on several visits, had it as my wallpaper for a period of time, discussed it with my family, and more – I sat with it on the monitor as I improvised this piece.
It is a translation of my experience as I sweep my eyes across the painting starting from the lower right, arcing over, and ending in the bottom left.
A fascinating exercise! I did a sort of mental, musical improv using the method described in your post, imagining what I would play. Only then did I listen to your recording. I was surprised at the parallels, especially at the rhythmic / tempo variations associated with the different “sections” of the painting. Maybe it was coincidence,or perhaps this taps into some universal or collective associations between sound and image. Anyway, it sounds like a cool class!
It was very fun to do this. The class has been a enjoyable, too. We’ve been looking into Alexander Calder’s work, too, which such an embodiment of play.