two quiet autumn places in sound

During the month of October I  made two pieces of sound art inspired by a desire to create an audio analogue to the inner and outer energies of two quiet places in the autumn landscape.

The tools I used were simple: a steel guitar tuned to proportions that came from meditation and listening, a decades-old reverb unit with delay and echo settings I had made a long time ago, and a laptop for capture and mix.

The music was played and recorded in one pass, which resulted in the first piece below. The same material was shaped in mixing to create the second piece.As I worked I immersed myself in memories and  feelings from the places that were the inspirations.

October Colors and Textures (New Paintings)

Mountain Pond, October Morning

(watercolor and graphite)

October River ( watercolor and gouache)

                                                  October, View North ( watercolor and gouache)


                                            Paintings by Kevin Macneil Brown, October 2018.

Rust Mountain Poems

My dreams find

        home

in distant mountains.

What can we bring

that would be a blessing

to this clean new edge of sky?

Awake and wash

at pond’s edge; ice

has not yet formed.

See and feel the

feathery clouds in

morning’s wind-washed sky;

listen as October leaf

falls and finds the damp, soft

earth.

Whoever built this gate

has gone away;

hear the latch snick shut as

rust meets wood meets emptiness.

Deer running sleek

in sacred places:

open meadow meets birch thicket;

not far now to go, to find

cool shade of hemlocks and sleep.

   

Not quite

     reaching

crescent moon

white pine is

 dark and tall

and swaying

  strong

   but

   also

holding hard to

      earth.

Easy to see the wind

stir quiet water, make

ripples outward—

but it might take this lifetime

to know and become

ripples deep and inward.

                                                   - Kevin Macneil Brown