Draw like Coltrane
I was listening to the video interview that Igort and Gipi have up here. I am afraid it’s all in Italian, but one thing I need to translate for you, very neat bit. Gipi toward the end says regarding drawing:” I want to draw like John Coltrane … this idea of abandon, of having absorbed so much technique that you can ….. “
That’s all he says, but seems pretty clear to me. Such a great parallel: drawing just like a Jazz musician plays abandoning himself to music, to improvisation … isn’t that amazing ? If you look at Gipi’s drawing you’ll see the parallel is very fitting. I’ll go on a limb: Just like coltrane accepts and embraces some dissonance, Gipi embraces some ugliness. And I can assure you, I love Gipi’s drawings, the word ugliness has the best of connotations in his work, it serves its stories. Anyway, just thought I’d share …
January 12th, 2007 at 8:23 am
I like that idea, and it’s always really inspiring to find an artist who draws some things ugly because that’s the way some things are, and it lends a kind of honesty to their drawings - they’re not sugarcoating it for you or censoring themselves as they draw, but they’re also not doing that underground comix thing where they’re intentionally making things grotesque.
I really like these guys’ work.
January 12th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
This is a GREAT post.
There are some fundamental differences between drawing and music and there is a fundamental split between practice and “performance”.
We practise music and drawing - you get better over time. You can fiddle and redo sections, erase, scrap although, hide and pretend you never did it. But performance, playing live or drawing in an uncensored way (great word Emma!), is a committment to/participation with the moment, the environment, your skill at that moment, your past and experience - and thats what comes out.
January 15th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
Coltrane is one of my favorite musician. He was always able to convey so much by laying down just a few notes like his tune “Welcome” He once said “Damn the notes, it is the feeling that counts”. At other times, he slayed the dragon by wailing his horn. Wayne Shorter liken his jams as though he was cookin scramble eggs. Between Miles Davis and Coltrane, they pioneered music. Art and music are very different mediums. But, I guess you can lay down a few lines and convey the feeling or just go crazy as though your scramblin some eggs.
cK
January 15th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
Glad you found the post thought provoking Emma and Mike …
You both make great points … and I think you touched the core of this idea …
It’s about letting go, making our signs on paper be about the moment, the mood and the synthesis of all that we’ve absorbed before …
Johan Sfarr comes to mind as well, as a storyteller and drawer that let’s go of any pretensions … the story being told is king, not pretty drawings.
It’s freeing to let go and accept our rough “inexact” drawings … and I think it’s a road worth taking, that will take us to much higher places than tightening, redoing, rescaling, redrawing and “making better” our drawings ..
e
January 15th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
cK- we were writing at the same time …
Good to hear your thoughts … Draw like Coltrane, draw like scrambled eggs …
I like it …
Been listening to Giant Steps this morning … inspiring indeed …
e