Lexicographies
Since 2018 I have been developing asemic calligraphy based on patterns and shapes in wild landscapes for use in graphic music scores. To date, Lexicographies comprises works derived from the glacially-sculpted topography of Hardangerfjord in Norway, and coast live oak trees in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Included are “dictionary” pieces that demonstrate each calligraphic “language,” as well as work-in-progress graphic notation experiments.
My wilderness calligraphies are rooted in firsthand physical experiences. I study an environment by spending time within it – walking, scrambling, climbing, sitting, sleeping, watching, listening, touching, and documenting via photography and audio field recordings. Out of this boots-on-the-ground research I distill gestures, which I draw first in pencil, then transpose to brush and ink. “Characters” or “glyphs” emerge and are gathered into asemic collections. These are not traditional languages, as “characters” are not mapped to specific words, letters, or abstract or musical concepts, and there is no formal system for combining them into words, phrases, scales, melodies, or rhythms. Instead, because they are the result of many layers of translation, interpretation, and fabrication, these calligraphies and music inspired by them, are necessarily abstract and improvisational. They are an invitation to consider aspects of the natural world that are beyond normal human scales of time, perception, and comprehension.
Glaciermarks (2018-22)
In June 2018 I was an artist-in-residence at Kunstnarhuset Messen in Ålvik, Norway. Situated on the north shore of Hardangerfjord, hiking trails lead out of this small town and climb steeply up the side of the fjord. My time at Messen was full of mini-expeditions, during which I explored the local glacially-sculpted topography. Through forests and berry bushes, along singing streams and gem-like lakes, over and around granite slabs and boulders, I wandered higher and higher, until I reached a plateau 1000 meters above the waters of the fjord. As I wandered, I admired the fantastic, rounded granite forms that define the landscape in this part of Norway, many of them scored with scratches, cracks, and chattermarks created by the movements of glaciers long ago.
I began perceiving these marks and shapes as inscrutable texts, sculptures, and inscriptions in icy languages incomprehensible to humans because we operate within such a fleeting timeframe in comparison to the “life” of a glacier. This dissemblance between geologic time and human time is so extreme that it’s almost as if glaciers and humans inhabit different existential planes. What might we discover by attempting to understand and speak “glacier”? Intrigued, I copied down these “writings” into abstract, asemic calligraphies, and hatched a plan to create graphic musical scores from them.
I am currently working with seven different glacial “languages.” These “languages” evolved out of patterns and gestures ranging from inch-high scratches I could run a finger over and try to read like braille, to massive geologic joint patterns that delineate the overall topography and were photographed from an airplane. For each language I have tried to embody scale and source in both the nature of the characters themselves, and how they are placed on a page. These concepts also underpin how I think about musical decodings of the calligraphy.
Coast Live Oak (2020-22)
I live across the street from the northeast corner of Golden Gate Park, and since the beginning of the pandemic I’ve become utterly smitten with the coast live oaks that grow there. At first, I simply admired Quercus agrifolia’s fantastic, distinctive forms: cartwheeling branches, muscular trunks, and curly tresses. Together the trees create otherworldly arches, gateways, and tunnels. Like with Ålvik’s glacial landscapes, I couldn’t help but see calligraphic forms in the oak trees. With this in mind, I obcessively photographed these micro-woodlands. Meandering through these ornate architectures it was easy to imagine being in a much wilder locale, somewhere far beyond the bounds of the city.
These particular oaks have a fascinating history which resonates with me in these strange distopian times. Coast live oak is the only tree in San Francisco County that grew here before European colonization, and acorns from these oaks were an important food for Native Americans in the region. This particular grove predates Golden Gate Park and is hundreds of years old (Quercus agrifolia can live to be over 1000 years old). Though most of the rest of the park was originally sand dunes, here outcrops and ridges of chert created a protected environment in which oak trees thrived. When work on the park began in 1871 approximately 50 acres of wooded oak were left as “wilderness.” In the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake the oaks were cut down and used as firewood by people living in encampments. However, the stumps re-sprouted, and some of the trees in the woodlands today are those sprouts all grown up.
It’s incredible this ancient forest is here, just steps away from busy Fulton and Stanyan Streets. Even though I’ve lived in this neighborhood for 25+ years, I never noticed the old growth oaks before the pandemic. Now, as I study their shapes, trace their forms, and contemplate what the music of a 1000-year old tree might sound like, I also wonder what we humans can learn from the oaks about tenacity, community, and regrowth.
