I am excited about doing this project for the Oak Bay municipality. It was organized by Barbara Adams.
After sitting looking at the piano for some time, I decided to change my original idea. I thought the design would work better to frame the landscape with abstract lines and colour variations. I wanted to play with the idea of peace and my thoughts turned to John Lennon’s “Imagine.
I painted some music in thin lines across the landscape image section, but I made a mistake with the spacing of the notes and as I reworked that portion it occurred to me that it might be good to just leave out the musical notes, allowing people to fill in their own music for the space in their imagination.
As I worked, students from the school would stop and ask questions. At the start of the project I was repeatedly asked why I was painting a piano. They seemed mystified that anyone would paint a piano because pianos were meant to be black. brown or white. As the work progressed The students became quite excited about the colours and stopped asking why I was painting a piano. They seemed more interested in where it would go and if they could play it. Some students asked if I would place their names on it and so I did. They were so excited to see their names as part of the painted piano and they would bring their friends around and show them. More names were added by request. (I didn’t use their last names.)
I placed nuclear formulas across the surface. Some for nuclear war. Some for nuclear medicine. It is about choices.
The colours and the decorative look reminded me of the Beatles Rolls Royce and so I emphasized and worked with that in mind.
I like the idea of taking something that has an expected quality or image and then transforming that into something more fun and less establishment. Making it more unusual. Not unlike the idea of finding a piano in the street or in a landscape where one would not expect it.
I take my art seriously. I have introduced several ideas into this work. I am interested in war and peace. Communication is difficult and it can lead to conflict.
In the art world, there are those who like the abstract and those who like more traditional works such as landscapes. They often have a lack of respect for each other. One easily dismisses the other. I’m fascinated by that because, like most conflicts, the two sides often have many things in common than they might realize.
That is why I have combined landscape with the abstract in this work.
I think they can work together well and I enjoy both.