Artist’s Corner: Kevin Baldwin

From Issue 93 — The Stress Test

Recollection, Study No. 10

A Musical score requires immense focus and understading. Practicing and bringing the notational language to life changes daily as you uncover new ways of weaving together lines, gestures, and structures. In the Recollection series, I interpret the black acrylic notation using charcoal, metal powders, and acrylic. Each day new possibilities arise, and the charcoal and powders remain malleable; the medium allows alterations in gesture and layers, or even be removed. This process highlights the beauty inside this raw and imperfect process.

After the work is completed, the work will always be in a constant state of performance. The metal powders placed into the work will oxidize over the years. The work, how it existed yesterday, is not the exact work you see today. Rust, patina, and tarnish highlight the passing of time as the painting never stops performing, leaving on a recollection of what the work was.

Check This Out

Artist’s Corner – Kevin Baldwin: Ameriques

Graphic Realizations are a way for me to create a visual of the listening experience of a musical work. It is a visceral response to what I hear; utilizing my musical training as a composer and performer informs the process, structures, shapes, lines, and so on. How does the form of a musical gesture relate to the curvature of a line or shape? How does the rhythm of a phrase create a sense of movement, repetition, or articulation? By listening to a musical work, without any preplanned notation of what the visuals may look like the creation of a Graphic Realization results from an impulsive and unpredictable performance.

Traveling Light with Bob Schwarz

I never thought I would be writing about myself and my sculptures when I was 90 years old. In my youth I couldn’t figure out why anyone would want to become 90, I changed my mind when I became 89. My journey into the world of art began some time ago. Nearly 60 years ago in fact. When I was visiting MOMA the sculptural work of the Russian Constructivist Naum Gabo stopped me in my tracks. I was fascinated by the way he weaved wire around vertical patterns to form parabolic shapes. Then and there I decided to try it myself and took it up as a hobby. Over the years I’ve become pretty good at it.

Artist’s Corner – Kevin Baldwin: Composition No. 10

The score of a musical work is fascinating. As a composer, I spend hundreds of hours alone with a score to unearth and present the uniqueness of every sound. I consider the physicality of a sound, both in the depth of overtones and frequencies and in the most mi-nuscule human motions it takes to produce them. I consider texture, the harsh and grinding color of the cellist utilizing over-pressured bowing, and the intimate fragility of the flautist's unstable multi-phonic. I consider shape, from violent rhythmic gestures to light, lyrical flurries. I consider, how variations larger blocks made up of colors, texutres, layers, and rhythms work together to highlight every unique aspect of a sound. I consider the weight of each and every observance I make, and I ensure every mark in the score best reveals the essence of a sound.

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