It seems to be the struggle of an artist, choosing there medium, over coming technical issues in order to see your visions through. It is incredibly important to know your intention in creating, in order to focus it so the work can teach you something about your intentions. I’ve seen lots of work that isn’t based in some sort of intention and it is read as arbitrary and a bit confusing. Their intention wasn’t to confuse. They “just wanted to make something” which I take issue with. If you “just want to make something” why share it? I am interested in the idea of the art, and rarely the art itself. So keep you thoughtless art at home were it belongs.

Here’s Meredith Monk. She is a singer, director/choreographer and creator of new opera, music theater works, films and installations. A pioneer in what is now called “extended vocal technique” and “interdisciplinary performance,” Monk creates works that thrive at the intersection of music and movement, image and object, light and sound in an effort to discover and weave together new modes of perception. Her groundbreaking exploration of the voice as an instrument, as an eloquent language in and of itself, expands the boundaries of musical composition, creating landscapes of sound that unearth feelings, energies, and memories for which we have no words. She has alternately been proclaimed as a “magician of the voice” and “one of America’s coolest composers.” During a career that spans more than 40 years she has been acclaimed by audiences and critics as a major creative force in the performing arts. (Monk’s site)

Monk seemingly doesn’t singing about anything in particular, her work is about explores ‘the intangible’ with voices, attempting to make things “other worldly”.  Despite the ethereal and abstract nature of her work, Monk is incredibly considerate technically about about her composition.

Shirley Gnome is a cuntree music burning sensation. Born on a farm just outside of Regina, Saskatchewan, her miraculous birth is a local legend. Her mama, Ingrid “The Flappy Flaps” Robins, shoved a garden gnome into her cooter one horny night, and was struck by lighting at the same time. This act o’ God caused the gnome to get Ingrid “in trouble”, and 9 months later, Shirley Gnome was born. Her mother died in a freak tractor fucking accident when Shirley was just a child. She was 15 when she joined a traveling sex circus, where she first cut her performance chops with her famous “happy octopus” trick. She moved to B.C. hoping that the cool Northwest weather might calm her calamity of a cooter, and began to write songs as a way to turn her urges into catchy “cunt tree” tunes. Look up Shirley on Facebook for more filthy, dirty, downright nasty marketing info!

Installation Artist Patrick Dougherty

More about Sam3/2010 here