Music Mosaic

As a young girl I was put into piano lessons contrary to my will. Perhaps that’s a dramatic way to put it, but that’s how I saw it at the time. Like many other LDS mothers, my own wanted all her children to know how to read notes, execute more than just a staccato melody and hopefully be somewhat able to play the hymns. I cannot say I could do this even after a year or two. I quit piano lessons and didn’t return until a few years later. I wasn’t expecting the passion I would soon develop for the piano.

It didn’t take long before the simple black and white keyboard transformed into my trusted confidant and soothing friend. Pieces such as Claude Debussy’s Clair de Lune took me to a place much further and higher than the small black bench I performed on. Each time I played this piece the rises and falls of the melody put me in a trance where all I could feel in my body and see in my mind was the music.

I chose this piece for this assignment because I feel that Debussy has translated my life into a song. My mind’s eye interprets this song to represent the phases of a woman’s life. I decided to explore the feminine, what that meant to me and how I could portray that through art.

Each image represents a different phase of a woman’s life. They range from feelings of anger, independence, and happiness to more concrete phases such as childbirth and menstrual cycles.

Similar to what is discussed in Annie Dillard’s “Seeing”, I wanted to take a more thoughtful look into what I visualized as I listened to the music. I decided to use watercolor paints, a medium I was previously unfamiliar with, for many of the pieces to first, challenge myself and second, convey what my mind’s eye saw. I visualized the piano to be the painter and the notes of Clair de Lune to be a painting itself. The melody is soft and ethereal. The way I blended and melted colors was to represent this aspect of the music.

In the black and white line drawings I decided to not use color so the images presented would remain simple and straightforward. Because I personally feel that I am represented in this song, I decided to represent my cultures in some of the images I created; for example, the lips drawn with a traditional Maori tattoo on the chin. In traditional Maori culture, this tattoo or “moko” represents social class and superiority of the women wearing them. They are a silent call for proper respect to be paid to these women.

The colors, shapes, and objects drawn are all used as tools to represent the feelings and images Clair de Lune creates in my mind. By doing this I hope to have promoted the acknowledgment of the power and existence of the feminine.