everything is everything

It started when I saw this:

Phillip Glass’ “Geometry of Circles” created for Sesame Street in 1979.

It made me feel a little giddy inside, and I was reminded of a conversation I had the other day with a friend about how essentially (in my eyes at least) everything is everything. You know, sort of like (loosely)

art:music=dance=emotion=color=(now that I think about it) shape=geometry=math:science

They all sort of eventually run into one another! I know my explanation of the science end is likely highly lacking. Perhaps I should toss chemistry in after math? Maybe? Anyway, I love how the “Geometry of Circles” film sort of brings like to the whole everything being connected thing. It kind of mixes it all in there. Similar to Norman Juster’s “The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics.” (If you didn’t watch it when I posted it last year, click here). They sort of give character and motion to shapes and therefore geometry and therefore math, something which we generally might take as something lacking in creativity. You might thing of yourself as being either math/science oriented or art/languages oriented. Left brain vs. right brain. One or the other. Whereas, in truth, they all obviously intermingle. One of reasons I love designing clothing is all of the thought and little calculations that I found (surprisingly) were involved and (even more surprisingly) I actually kind of enjoyed. It’s architecture for the human body. It’s taking a shape, dissecting it, splicing it, moving it around to get differing (hopefully) aesthetically pleasing looks. I’m the “artistic one” of the family who found herself surprisingly spending odd amounts of time trying to calculate (or something?) the best way to dissect a curve. I might be full of it, because I don’t remember exactly what I did or was doing; only that I’ve spent good chunks of time calculating strange things (but, hey it was beneficial! Skirts fall so much more gracefully when everything is evenly spaced).

And then, of course, I was/am completely obsessed with color. I have loudly proclaimed that a blue paint that was handed to me was not right because it wasn’t “happy” enough. The lady working in the paint department in Sear’s Home (or whatever it was) looked at me like I was nuts (this was in Delaware). Regardless of that…Don’t you notice how we tend to prescribe emotions to color (feeling blue! the mean reds! green with envy!)? Personalities even?

I discovered Ken Nordine’s spoken word jazz album Colors (1966) in college when I was supposed to be writing a research paper. He takes 34 colors and tells jazzy little stories about each one. I thought it was the best most hilariously wonderful thing ever and I was immediately consumed by it’s novelty. I do not know how to put just songs up here, but I did find (!) some youtubed video of Kinetic Typography (cool!) of two of the colors created by students at Oklahoma State University:

These are fabulous for the way they make the movement meld with the mood and beat of what he’s saying. And of course, for the stories of the trials and tribulations in a land where colors are people-ish.

And then there is dance. Of course, dance! For me, dance is kind of like being in the music. It kind of gets into your bones and under your skin and when your dancing you’re not necessarily “you” but a living representation of the music. Twyla Tharp’s choreography of “In the Upper Room” to Philip Glass’ music exhibits this wonderfully:

Isn’t it beautiful? How the layered movements interact and represent and mingle with the layers of the music. Sometimes, often, in dance telling a story takes precedence but this was just being and living out the music.

At the same time, for me, music feels kind of like this:

both by Marilyn Cvitanic

I once explained it like this to a friend who asked which I would choose if I could only have one, Color or Music:

“I couldn’t choose because they’re the same. It’s like moods and colors are connected and you listen to certain music perhaps when you’re in certain moods you might sort of “feel” like a color (pantone 292!)…. and then it’s like within the music the colors are dancing around and mixing and bumping into each other and it’s all art. color, music, dance, etc.”

Close your eyes and listen to this:

What did you see?

(And of course.. it can all be led back to science:

Wikepedia on Color

And you know, I’ve read that we all might very well have a little bit of Synesthesia in us.)