Creativity Circle Prompt 2: Transpose

Ok, I know the title of the prompt sounds a wee bit obscure but bear with me…

When my husband and I were on our honeymoon in the highlands of Scotland, we visited Alex Mann’s studio in Braemar.  Towards the end of our visit we decided to buy a piece of his art – something that would help us to connect with the memory of our time spent there.  We bought a pair of small paintings called Moonlight Sonata, named after the music that Alex interpreted through the medium of paint.

Here’s a wee excerpt from his bio to help explain…

One of the turning points in Alex’s early career came while watching a concert by Louis Armstrong in London. “I went to London to watch the concert and afterwards, I painted him. His music was an inspiration to me. I decided I needed to put some colour to his music, in fact, I put some red into his trumpet in the form of waves of colour – because that is how the trumpet sounded to me”.

Alex became fascinated by the thought of trying to capture the sound of musical instruments in colour. He asked some fellow artists for advice and they all kept telling him that it was connected to the “atmosphere” of the event. Alex reflects, “It was very expensive going to concerts and so I bought a stereo and started listening to records. I talked to several people and they said to me that listening to a stereo did not give the same atmosphere. I started to think about atmosphere and what it meant; after all, I could listen to the same music at home on my stereo as I could in the concert hall – so what was atmosphere?”

His fascination with atmosphere became so intense that he started painting lots of different sounds. He painted an orchestra and tried to imagine the sound that each instrument made and how each one interfaced with the others. He looked at how musicians “see” music. He imagined violins as yellow waves, cellos as orange, brass instruments as having long flowing red waves and woodwinds as having short blue waves. His work started to sell and his first exhibition was held in 1950 in Stratford on Avon. Alex remembers one moment when people came into the gallery, looked at his work and exclaimed, “come and take a look at this – you can actually see the music”.

Here’s an example of his work:

So, what I thought would be interesting for our next project was if we could take one medium and transpose it into another.  You could do as Alex does and paint music, or you could photograph poetry, write collage, crochet choreography… the choice is yours.

I’d probably advise you to choose a piece of art, music, architecture, literature etc. that you feel particularly passionate about.  Love Stravinsky’s The Fire Bird?  How would it look as a painting?  Enthused by Christina Rosetti’s Goblin Market? Could you capture its essence in a photograph?  Moved by Gaudi’s Barcelona Cathdral? Turn it into poetry.

Transposing art from one medium to another requires us to make a creative leap.  Want to give it a go?  Hold my hand & we’ll jump together…

P.S. If you want to read all about the creativity circle, you can find the launch post here: Do You Dare

P.P.S. As last week’s prompt was our first, I’m still tweaking things.  Please do let me know if there are any changes that you would like to see implemented?  Was a week long enough?  Did you feel that you got the support you needed to join in?  If not, what would make the difference?  I look forward to hearing your thoughts & seeing your contributions!