[originally from new york, laurie lipton is an american self-taught artist who has spent most of her life experiencing europe and living in london. inspired by 15th century flemish masters and filled with a true patience concentrated in the fine sense of drawing, she enjoys to use pencil, paper and charcoal to create her dark monochrome tones. powerful, deeply beautiful and personally unique in her own art, laurie's work showcases a world full of honesty.

recently, musicisart asked how music influences her creatively
and this is how she kindly responded.]

 

 

Music is an intrinsic part of my creativity. When I look at a drawing I remember what I was listening to when I drew it. My tastes are very eclectic. I choose music to evoke a feeling when I work. It helps to accentuate an atmosphere I’m trying to create, and even influences the way I move the pencil around the paper. If I’m drawing something extremely tedious and repetitive, like wallpaper or a thousand people in a city, I will put on something hypnotic like Phillip Glass or Gregorian Chants. If my energy is flagging and it’s late at night, I’ll put on something with a beat like Blues or Rock & Roll or Motown….. although the latter is dangerous. It makes me get up and dance and mime to the music instead of working. I use my ruler like a guitar.

Here are 5 examples of work
and the music I listened to while I was creating the drawings.

 

 

THE THREE FATES
[pencil on paper, 146 x 93 centimeters]

This piece took a VERY long time to do. Months. I listened to a lot of music during that time, but when I look at this I remember Buddy Guy‘s “Damn Right I Got The Blues” and and Aretha Franklin‘s “Chain of Fools“. Both are standards that I used to give me the energy, oomph and momentum to draw hundreds of heads. Weird or what?

~*~

 

 

DEATH AND THE MAIDEN
[pencil on paper, 43 x 34 centimeters]

This picture was inspired by the death of my mother. We were very close. I listened to Offenbach’s operetta, “Tales of Hoffman“, when doing this. A woman (Antonia) sings with her dead mother during one of the last scenes and it always moves me.

~*~

 

 

FAMILY REUNION
[charcoal & pencil on paper, 66 x 96 centimeters]

This was part of a show I did inspired by the Mexican Day of the Dead festival. “Mama I’m Strange” by Melissa Etheridge put me in the mood. I also listened to a lot of Mexican Folk music for the show.

~*~

 

 

LOVE BITE
[charcoal & pencil on paper, 137.4 x 96.5 centimeters]

This drawing is HUGE. It’s also very disturbing. Every time I walked into my studio to work on it I would jump in surprise and horror. “Number One Crush” by Garbage is sooo evil and disturbing that it was in harmony with the atmosphere of this piece. I played it over & over & over.

~*~

 

 

DANCE HALL OF THE CORPSE COUPLES
[charcoal & pencil on paper, 84 x 74.5 centimeters]

Prokofiev’s “Romeo & Juliet” has a wonderful piece in it that is a ballroom scene. The music is jerky and gallumphing and you can imagine the couples careening around the room.
Perfect for this picture!

~*~

words, art & playlist by laurie lipton

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This entry was posted by musicisart on Sunday, May 18th, 2008 at 8:12 am and is filed under folk, mia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.