Last year, I attended a concert in Savannah, GA, where the Emerson String Quartet, with violinist Daniel Hope and friends, played a piece, Terra Memoria, by Finnish composer, Kaija Saariaho. As I sat listening, a series of silverpoint drawings began to dance through my mind’s eye. The results of this concert are slowly becoming reality on paper as I work to draw what I envisaged as the music was played.
Terra Memoria, commissioned by the Carnegie Hall Corporation, was first performed in June 2007 in Carnegie Hall, New York, by the Emerson String Quartet. The music evokes “those departed” and remembered in evolving fashion by the people remaining. My silverpoint drawings, so far three in number, address evolutions in the world between reality and abstraction. There are more still to be done, but it is a series in which I am trying to tell my subconscious to be utterly in charge, and thus I am trying not to think consciously at all as I do these drawings.
Terra Memoria I, silverpoint, goldpoint, graphite, Jeannine Cook artist
Terra Memoria II, silverpoint, goldpoint, acrylic, Jeannine Cook artist