HUM and PAINT

For this Creative Blog entry I want to share my experience of adding a second art form to the humming I was doing. Often in  discussions with other Artists in Residence, there have been occasions when the artist has offered the patient an experience with two art forms. Its a type of cross-pollination for experiencing a person's creative processes. 

Prior to this exercise, I had set up two papers on which to paint, my paints, my brushes, and the paint colors I had. Also I set out several small paper cups of water for rinsing the brushes.

I followed the routine of humming for twenty minutes. The first ten minutes I hummed a pitch in the lowest octave, then that same pitch in my middle register, and then again in my higher register of the voice. Each note would last as long as my breath would allow. The cycle was up and down for the three pitches. I was outside and the wind was blowing lightly and birds were singing in the trees.

At the end of ten minutes of humming, I picked up a paint brush and a color of paint. I painted this picture during a period of five minutes of the humming routine. Interestingly enough, I experienced the same relaxation of body, and the alert sense in my mind. For two weeks, I had been trying to think of the name of a certain flowering plant. In the last two weeks, we have moved and my husband has had a second surgery. We moved with one of these plants; we left two of these plants in the yard of the previous home; and the new rental house had this plant in the yard with three gorgeous blossoms. Still I had been unable to remember the name of the plant. However, today, once I began humming, the name of the flowering plant came right to mind: Amaryllis. Therefore, Pic 1 is my rendering of an Amaryllis.

During the final five minutes of this routine, I painted a second time. This rendering was an interesting representation of the various humming vibrations intermixed with representations of musical pitches. All were arbitrary except for the very last note I painted which is the one at the top left hand corner of the painting; some might consider that the beginning. It represents the many D2s that start musical compositions I have sung. It also begins my favorite selection which is from Mahler's Symphony No. 4. It is a poem from "Des Knaben Wunderhorn", set by Mahler so beautifully: "Wir geniessen die himmlischer Freuden". The poem is about a child's view of Heaven.

Though this is surely not a child's depiction of Heaven, it is representational of my humming practice in its relationship to music as I experience it. I am interested that is is full of summer colors. None of it was intentional other than the last note I painted. It also suggests that I differentiate between hummed pitches and sung pitches. This creative investigation has been about vibration felt while humming. Without a doubt, I have thought more about the sensation of the vibration in humming because it is so much stronger. The open mouthed sung tone, by virtue of what I see in this painting,  is all about saying something, communicating something.