Music Is Our Only Defense

Hero

Each one of us is a hero, each one of us has a story. My friend was diagnosed with cancer. My wife immediately understood the power of music, she bought an ipod, uploaded music and mailed it as soon as we possibly could. Music is medicine. We are defenseless without it. There are songs we need to hear when we are sick, there are songs we need to hear when we are in love, when we are lonely, there are angry songs, anthem songs, there are songs of heroes. As babies, we learn lullabies and we grow up singing abc's and begin to follow and un-follow beats, rhythm and words, we sing church songs, rock and roll and the blues. Our lives are arrangements of our senses as we move through time. Sounds just as important as taste, words just as important as music. Music is referred to as vocal or instrumental sounds (or both) combined in such a way as to produce beauty of form, rhythm harmony and expression of emotion. Music is also written or printed signs representing vocal or instrumental sound, my photographs and silk screen printed works are vivid orchestras from my hands and my heart, they fall between spaces of each note, between feelings, music. The composition of my process is to connect with people. It's like discovering we both have the same favorite song. There is only one correct definition of music, you, you are a perfect output of a song, you are a hero.

Spaceship

The flat poster is a blank canvas, anyone can color in, or add things, or whatever they like and then cut it out, folding it on the bends to make their very own three-dimensional space ship. The spaceships represent the vessels of music. They are inspired by different musical instruments. The music lasts long after the band has stopped playing. The essential part of my artistic career is done for sheer friendship and it is my desire for my stories to leave lasting impressions.

Background Music

The works are based on the premise, we are made of music, music is our only defense. The silk screens are of images adapted from musical instruments, the backgrounds are musical note flowers and then the same drawings from the silk screening process are introduced into the black and white darkroom printing process with the drawing included in the photo. There is a song for every moment, for every person.

Many years ago Deavron Dailey and I would work together at the Braddock Carnegie Library Neighborhood print studio. We talked about Music being our only Defense. We talked about heroes, people who perform music on street corners, small venues, hustling sound. We drew and talked about different media. I was able to draw and print all the posters at the library's print studio. Years ago I learned alternative darkroom techniques with Mandy Kendall and how I could introduce my drawings in my photographs at Pittsburgh Filmmakers. I was then lucky enough to be accepted into the Artist Residency program at the Ottawa School of Art. I was able combine the drawings of this poster series with music photographs taken in both Pittsburgh and Ottawa, making this an international body of work.

Without music, life would be a mistake
—Friedrich Nietzsche

Music is noise. Noise resonates in every part of our lives. There is a noise, a song, for everything, for everyone.

Vibration, periodic back-and-forth motion of the particles of an elastic body or medium, commonly resulting when almost any physical system is displaced from its equilibrium condition and allowed to respond to the forces that tend to restore equilibrium.

Vibration synonym: Beat, pulse, meter, shake, cadence

Anonym: stillness

Atom vibrations: Elastic waves of different lengths, frequencies, and amplitudes run through crystalline solids at all times.