The Drawn to Music Project
A series of paintings by Chuck Boucher
This collection of
work is inspired by performance that takes place within the city of Fall River. The work is intended to express the essence
of music. It is not intended to be portrait
of a performer or a specific performance.
During my process, I endeavored to capture the feeling of a song, the
movement of a rhythm, or simply the energy of a riff. The effort has been to translate the sounds
and poetry that are the structure of song and to create a visual interpretation
of song, in essence what I feel music looks like.
This project was
supported in part by a grant from the Fall River cultural council, a local
agency which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state
agency.
The Venue
Along the industrial
waterfront of Fall River, under the span of the now blue Braga Bridge, which
provides a delightful rhythm of its own, one finds a beautiful green park. At the southern edge of Heritage Park, there
is a carousel,. The former
merry-go-round from the defunct local amusement park spins memories and new
fantasies as it twirls to the music of the calliope at its center. Just beyond, the Battleship Massachusetts, a
museum to World War II, floats on the river as if guarding the city, protecting
it from ignorance and naiveté. On
special days, the song of a single trumpet can be heard echoing off the steel
beams and granite walls. There is a
train museum, a working pier with a ferry to Block Island, and a freighter that
makes regular trips to Portugal, what many residents would call the old
country. The ship’s whistles and horns
add to the song of the waterfront. It is
a diverse mixture of sound that blends like a natural symphony.
Across
the road, near the train tracks, the ones that sustain traffic to and from the
state pier and cargo ships, are old factory buildings built of brick or
granite. The first, and smaller, houses
a pub that features live music and tasty food.
It is a popular spot on weekend nights.
I am inspired by the sounds that sneak out of the opened doors, and by
the people, dressed for date night, making their way over the cobblestone
street toward the front door. That door
is emblazoned with the words, “No Colors Allowed.”
Behind the pub building
stands a three story granite factory building.
It is here that I have spent eighteen months creating my artwork. From January until August of 2014, I have
focused on the music inside. Walking in,
I step up the forty-two stairs to the third floor. The stone walls are pleasantly painted in
neutral colors. The area is clean, not
much like the factory it once was, but like a place where art is created and
performed. On show nights, I arrive in
early evening. As I climb the stairs,
the music of the sound check gets louder and clearer. First the bass, the drums if there are any,
guitars, and keys. I love the sound of the old Hammond as it kicks in, and
finally the vocals. I walk through the
doorway and the sound is complete.
More times than not, a smile is drawn across my
face. I greet the staff and the
volunteers of the Narrows Center for the Arts.
It is the home for up to ten studio artists in five working studios, and
most importantly for the purposes of this project, home to hundreds of musical
performances each year from which to be inspired and create ten oil paintings
in eight months. I am a slow and
thoughtful painter. This project
required commitment and drive for me to complete. This is my workplace and my muse. The performers and the patrons who come into
my studio before or after the shows are as much a part of this work as the
paint, the brush, or my own hand. The
idea of this project was to show how performance art can influence visual art,
and I am grateful for the experience.
The Performers
I had no idea, the range of musicians that would step though
that doorway and onto the stage just a few dozen feet from my easel. There were nights that it took extreme effort
to remain an artist and not a fan boy.
When Carl Palmer, drummer for the progressive rock band Emerson, Lake,
and Palmer came into the studio and began a wide ranging discussion about art
and painting, my heart beat like the sticks on his snare drum. I have been a fan since I was sixteen or so. There were others of note. Dave Davies, of the Kinks, Dr. John, Leon
Russell, The Zombies, Jefferson
Airplane, Members of Little Feet, Live, and so many more. Some were up and coming performers, Seth
Glier, Shamika Copeland, Samantha Fish,
and so many more. On some level
it is the last group that I found the deepest inspiration from. The local folks who opened the shows, Mark T, Small, Rebecca Corriea, the many
whose names slipped by in the shadows between the flood lights and the
headliners. Their names may have flitted
by, but their impact remains. I sat in
the darkness of my studio with a dim lamp shedding a soft glow on the drawing
table and drew with a soft pencil or a black marker and captured the gesture of
the performance. While I often found
myself whistling and cheering with the audience for the headliners, sorry Carl
no sketches of you, it was the performers I did not know who allowed me to
respond and create from their work. They
don’t even know how profoundly they influenced me, but they did. As for the headliners, yes they were
important as well. The sketches were
more crude and less evolved, yet the impact of the songs in my head remained
long after the echoes died out.
Ahh, the music. It
starts with folk and Americana, moves with a quick step to Rock and sometimes
Jazz, and even a bit of Country. There
are solos and harmonies. Sometimes the
tunes are familiar and quite often they are new discoveries. I love it when I discover something new. Royal Southern Brotherhood came in with
legendary family names and did not disappoint me with a group of songs that
added to the legacies of at least two musical families. I play the songs regularly. Chuck Cannon, a man I had never heard of
opened with a collection of songs that reminded me of Johnny Cash and so much
more. His deep haunting voice flowed
over the rhythm and strum of his guitar.
Shamika Copeland is a powerhouse vocalist, reminding me of Etta James. Her voice was like a great trumpet blast.
I love discovering new work and that’s my motivation with
this series of paintings. My intent is
that they come across like a song heard for the first time. It is no longer important who they were at
the start. What is important is how they
are received and translated. The colors
vibrate like notes on a scale. The
values are like a bass drum, beating the time and full of guidance. My strokes of paint, like improvised flares
during a solo. Like the music and
performances that inspired this work, it is more important now that that I am
finished. Like the songs on an album,
this collection now belongs to those who are moved by it. The Drawn to Music Project will continue at a
slower pace. I don’t think I could ever
let go of this particular muse. For now,
this album is complete.
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