Silence, Inspired by John Cage by Poppy Dully -SOLD!

Silence, inspired by John Cage’s music, writings, art. I discovered John Cage’s first book, Silence, in a used bookstore. As I read sections from this book and researched his music and hisart, I grew in appreciation of this composer, writer,artist and performer. Following a shared passion, I collected small river rocks from the North Umpqua River in Oregon as Cage had collected rocks from the New Riveron the east coast. I used the ovoid shapes of my rocks for the monotypes on the pages of Where Are We Going?, What Are We Doing?, Lecture on Nothing, and Lecture on Something. Cage used his rocks on paper in drawings, in watercolors and in photoetched prints, some of which are based on the drawings in Thoreau’s journals. A series of his drypoint prints is called Where R=Ryoanji. R stands for 15 stones and the number preceding R indicates how many times he drew around each stone. Cage made etchings at Crown Point Press in San Francisco, one week a year for 15 years, until he died in 1992. My rocks in the monotypes were used randomly, as much as I would allow myself. Cage employed a sophisticated system called chance-determined points based on hexagrams of the I Ching. He used this system to compose his music and performance pieces. As I worked on these monotypes, I started to see circle patterns elsewhere. On a spring hike in the Columbia Gorge, I watched water droplets of melting snow create rapid patterns of large and small concentric circles in the small pool at the base of a large pine tree. I listened to the drops hitting the water as the patterns emerged and thought of John Cage. Another time, in an art gallery, I studied how an artist’s paintings and etchings created energy and movement with color and shape in concentric circles. I listened to John Cage’s Music for Keyboard, as I printed these monotypes.  In 2012, music ensembles, symphonies, and music festivals are celebrating the 100th year of John Cage’s birth and the 20 years since his death. Quotes from John Cage “I saw art not as something that consisted of a communication from the artists to an audience, but rather as an activity of sounds in which the artist found a way to let the sounds be themselves.” On Thoreau: “Each day his eyes and ears were open and empty to see and hear the world he lived in. Music is continuous; only listening is intermittent.” “…a way of waking up to the very life we are living.”