Drawings on Player Piano Rolls
in 2021, building upon my use of Player Piano Rolls…
This new series of piano roll drawings continue to utilize rolls that include karaoke-like sing-along text on the side; however, in a desire to display the drawings without frames, I sought ways to refine and strengthen the material. The above artworks are coated in beeswax and often include multiple layers of piano roll paper that are sealed together allowing for text that merges and combines to form visual poems. While they feel inviting and vulnerable being displayed without frames; the beeswax and layering strengthens the paper and firms the form.
I started Drawing on Player Piano Rolls in 2011…
As my collection of Player Piano Rolls continues, I especially seek rolls that include karaoke-like sing-along text on the side. As I do not have a player piano and since many of the rolls I have are unplayable, I cannot hear the voice of these paper rolls that contain audible memory. This technological ancestor of the cassette and compact disc, the player piano was first invented in the mid-19th century as a pneumatic (air-powered) method for recording, reading, and playing music.
As I design, I seek text of the music as inspiration for and to work in combination with drawings as visual poems. These fragments of player piano rolls contain analog memory of a specific song, but as they are silent, I reassess their current silence and develop new stories and voices using carefully applied graphite on the surface of the paper.
Why 2011? During that year I was pregnant and to continue to create from home and in ways that were more comfortable, I returned to drawing. Since then, drawing has continued to be a primary area of my studio practice.