Hums & Oms: Performing Sculpture

Priscilla Hollingsworth playing clay triangles, Carl Purdy playing violin, Rob Foster playing flute

This was a performance on October 5, 2011 at the Maxwell Performing Arts Theater in Augusta, GA.  It was part of the Westobou Festival.  Carl Purdy and I collaborated to make a performance that combined art and music.  Carl wrote the music, I made the sculpture, and we collaborated on making some sculptures that were playable as instruments. 

Thanks to Sarah Barney Fletcher for taking these photos.  Thanks to Rob Foster (flute and shakuhachi),Elizabeth Grant (soprano), Larry Millen (keyboard), Don Cleary (percussion and keyboard), Travis Shaw (bass) for playing with us.  Thanks to the Porter Fleming Foundation for a helpful grant. Thanks to the Santa Fe Art Institute for an artist's residency that helped me think and make some of these objects. Thanks to Santa Fe Clay for providing firing access for some of the clay work.  Thanks to the Augusta State University Music Department for sponsoring the performance.  

This was our first performance of this type.  Now the question is, where do we go from here?

stage setup showing clay object installation in foreground; middle ground shows large vessel with playable strings; background shows handmade organ with MIDI connection.

closer view of the organ Carl Purdy made. I made the clay pots that the pipes are attached into. The organ has a MIDI connection, and in the concert Carl hooked into it with his viola (with pickup attached), while Rob Foster played it with his EWI (Electronic Wind Instrument).

These large vessels had strings strung between them that were plucked and bowed.

Drums with clay bodies

Bowing the "string pots".