These are my initial lessons on how to sculpt and chisel with N. Yorkshire based stonecarver and friend Peter Maris who taught me how to letter carve two stones which will be included at the Dry Stone Wall Maze at Dalby Forest.
Peter is collaborating with me on Bartalk, a multi-artform project merging sculpting, film, and rhythmic storytelling which includes myself as speaking percussionist and the Ligeti Quartet which will perform a chamber music monodrama.
Peter Maris, who combines his fine-art training at St Martins with extensive experience as a stonecarver, most notably at York Minster. Peter is currently commissioned by Forestry England to make a series of works located around Dalby Forest funded separately by Arts Council England. A major part of Peter's project, will include a carved, but functioning, QR code into his stonework to be exhibited at Dalby Forest. On one level, this would serve as a visually interesting thematic association, but, more engagingly, would also work as an active portal to reveal the Bartalk work which the public can have access to in and out of Dalby Forest stored upon a specific project website.
Peter and I became interested in each other’s differing approaches to our practice and there are many music techniques which can come from sculpture. Maybe I am becoming much more theoretical and engaged with technology to explore the possibilities of theoretical frameworks (such as Nancarrow’s multi-temporal rhythms and tone rows) within music. Peter is a much more intuitive artist, observing and responding to the stimulus.
On a practical level, sculpture is an additive and subtractive process, much like minimalist composition techniques. Working with Peter we will research how sculptural activity in a ‘static’ medium can be re-interpreted to form new musical compositions.
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