Posted by octopusprime on November 11, 2003, at 12:34:24
In reply to Anyone care to share their 'artistic' side??, posted by jay on November 10, 2003, at 22:58:51
hooray for artistic!
i have just started lessons on the djembe about two months ago.
it's a west african drum from guinea.
typically, rhythms are made up of a few djembe parts, parts on three sizes of giant drum collectively called dunduns (sp?), plus bellsyou can read lots about djembes here:
http://www.drums.org/djembefaq/toc.htmyou drum with your heart, not with your brain. your body takes over and follows the rhythm. it is fantastic stuff and i hope to keep with it for a good long time. out here there are weekly drum circles for people to go to and play free-form.
i have been writing for work, so i suppose that isn't really artistic, though it does amount to hundreds of pages that i've written over the last three months.
and this weekend i picked up my paint brush and started painting again. oil paints. i started this last winter, no lessons, no nothing. now i don't even have any ideas when i sit down to paint. i just pick some colours and start randomly brushing them on the canvas. eventually shapes form and i go from there. it's very experimental and very therapeutic. my last painting turned into something that vaguely looks like a red gecko on a yellow background with blue arms (and yellow spatters over the whole thing).
i am thinking of art lessons, but i think i'd rather put the money and time into drumming (with the added social benefits of drumming). hopefully the painting will develop itself (even if it does take years and dollars in terms of supplies - i'm not very efficient at the use of paint!)
anyway jay i totally agree about the healing power of the arts. i think i have turned to painting and to music to help heal wounds that i can't (or maybe even don't want to) articulate. i can recall one time when i was painting and i was frightened of the images that i myself had put onto the canvas (that time it was a trickle of red, like blood, down from the sky onto the ground below), and i didn't even know i had such anger and fear in me. i let that canvas dry then later painted streaks of sunlight over it. symbolic healing. (or maybe painted over facades?)
there is such power in non-verbal expression.
also there is power in dance, but i have only been dancing with myself lately. i just grew out of my raver phase. but there is still so much power in the tribal movements to an electronic beat, and i still do visit clubs from time to time to do a sweaty dance in a crowd for three hours then go home.
sorry jay i don't have the means to create clips or take pictures of my artwork. (no digital camera or recording equipment here).
poster:octopusprime
thread:278395
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20031031/msgs/278579.html