In Concert Catalogue

Plato said it best when he wrote that ‘Music gives a soul to the universe, wings
to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything’. With me the act of
beautiful writing is at one with the music. At first there is silence, only my ideas,
thoughts and imaginings are present. I make some tea and play my favourite music.
Bach, Jackson, Morricone, Taverner, Debussey, and Satie, The insistent inevitable
rhythms of Billie Jean fill my studio. A soul is given to my universe.
My colors are mixed, they wait ready for the pen. I dip. Long practiced movements
inform my sweeping hand and suddenly there are ribbons, swirls, long lines, piercing
the dark. The void is no more. The pen takes flight and dances as the steady beat
gives way to Satie’s Gymnopédies. The nib is pressed and released, it scratches satisfyingly,
notes of crimson, alizarin, azure, and orange take form. Like motes suspended
in air the shapes intertwine, collide and find each other.
The colour flows, coalesces. the ideas settle, the unformed now made tangible. Hand,
eye and heart unite. Will it work? It will, it won’t - the feeling that all will be nothing
is the tension that drives me on. The creative doubt increases, then the rhythm returns
and the sounds of Debussey cause the pen to dance. I watch as life is given
and ideas are made tangible with nib and gouache. Si lent music, music for the eye
is created where hand and mind play togeth er making calligraphic harmony. I fling
white pigment on the black paper, nebulae and galaxies form. Stillness, at first a
whisper begins to grows, the music quiets, the imagination now calm, the pen now
stilled. I stop and look. It is done.
ANN
BOWEN
Explosion of Letters
Gouache on Fabriano Ingres paper with
Japenese steel pens
325 x 325 mm
photograph by Michael Little
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