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To watch the film with music Come, Stay and poem Continuum go to YouTube via the following link:-
Information about the artwork that inspired the making of this film, two details of which are pictured here, can be found on my Continuum page on this website.
The music Come, Stay
I received an award of funding from the Arts Council of Wales for the music in this film which had originally been planned as part of a proposed installation but which, as my work evolved, became part of the conflict work which I have been doing for some time both within my exhibition folio and in the course of my PhD studies.
The recording of Come, Stay sees professional singers perform my music for the first time, the piece itself having started life some years before as a simple cadence written a couple of years after my father’s death in December 1991. It was a time in my life when, for some mysterious reason, composing music came much more readily to me than the visual arts that had been part of my life for as long as I could remember. My father had been medically retired from his service in the RAF during WW2 when he contracted the devastating illness, ulcerative colitis. This disease was and still is incurable and, struck down at the peak of health while just in his early twenties, my father bore the burden of this illness every day of his life until he died aged sixty-nine years, twenty-nine years later than the doctors had predicted his life to last. Grief affects us in different and sometimes surprising ways and it took some time for me to get used to the idea that, in death, my father was out of the pain he had borne for so long; the daily awareness of his suffering was gradually being replaced by the realisation that this suffering was at an end and the life that his soul now lived – I believe in life after death – was one where all that suffering was no more.
I and members of my family had kept vigil, often by my father’s side, many times as he went through crisis after crisis that his illness inflicted on him and the music was born out of my own experience and also from contemplation on Christ’s watching in the Garden of Gethsemane before he went through the agony of the Cross. As I empathised with the pain of my father’s suffering, I turned to Christ and his torment in the Garden which I felt reached out to me and beyond myself, in loving support to all those keeping vigil by the side of one they loved.
So the chorus that repeats during the music was the first part to be written,
Come, stay and watch the night with me,
by my side, keep me company;
stay, and watch the night with me.
This concept of keeping vigil is not confined to accompanying those undergoing illness of the body or mind but can involve people in many situations, such as those who await news of loved ones missing from home or who are serving in the Armed Forces abroad and the music moves through pain and desolation, love and loss, ultimately, to the hope that is life’s salvation.
In the 1990s, I had made a serious return to music, receiving lessons in theory and piano, with the intention of studying for a diploma. At this time, however, I started to suffer more acutely from the chronic illness which affects my muscles, my piano playing was reduced to intermittent bouts and, unable to practise an instrument, my music studies came to a trembling halt. The melodies in my head remained largely unwritten and even my choral singing, which I enjoyed so much, suffered due to the gradually worsening muscle weakness. The work that I was doing in visual art, however, often led me to singing my cadences in my head and I realised that Come, stay was echoing so much within that I had to find a way to bring it to some sort of fruition. This then led to the collaboration with my son, professional musician Ed Harrisson.
Development of a theme
By this time, I had been living in Wales for some years, taking part in exhibitions in Wales and beyond and obtaining my MA at Aberystwyth University. This degree had initiated another development in my artwork, that of moving off the wall to construct installations and bring sound in as an integral part of the work exhibited.
This is an overall view of my first installation The Invitation photographed on exhibition in The Cloisters Gallery, St Davids Cathedral, St Davids, Pembrokeshire.
This installation formed my exhibition during my MA and, inspired by scripture and the spirit, it took as its theme meditations on Christ and the Apostles presented as abstract portraits in a Last Supper Setting, with freestanding panels representing Mary of Magdala and Mary, Mother of God.
This installation has its own music which plays on a loop while on exhibition and there is an accompanying book, pictured above.
Silent Polyphonies
This image shows myself by another of my installations Silent Polyphonies during set-up in the Willow Gallery, Oswestry. Again, there is music and also poetry presented with this work.
More information about these installations and another on the theme of He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven will follow shortly.
As indicated above, I was now introducing sound, mostly in the form of music, to interplay with my visual pieces. Musical phrases would often come to me together with words, poetry, sometimes in the form of songs, being another activity that I had carried out from my earliest years and Come, stay was just such a piece. My initial idea had been to construct an installation based around this theme of suffering and vigil with the visual work done in response to the cadences within the music. It was suggested to me that I should apply for funding from the Arts Council of Wales to develop this concept, beginning with the music and I was thrilled when news of the award of funding came through.
The music which had haunted me for so long could now move beyond its simple cadence and accompanying verse and I knew that my son, Ed, with his professional training – he has a Masters Degree in Music from Birmingham Conservatoire – and his excellent ear for harmony, was the ideal person to do this. We work well together and he started to build rich sounds from my original melody line. I had heard Ed sing with The Beorma Ensemble, a group of singers who had met while studying at the Conservatoire, when they performed a concert of music in the style of Russian Orthodox singing in St Chad’s Cathedral, Birmingham. I was very moved by the depth of feeling and musical harmony in their sound and I felt that the rich chords that characterise this musical style were what I wanted for Come, stay.
Pictured here are members of this flexible group, The Beorma Ensemble, who perform a wide range of differing repertoire, with founder bass oktavist Lewis Jones (seated second from the left) and Ed standing by the door.
To create the music in partnership with the visual elements, I felt it was not necessary to maintain the orthodox format in the full ‘Russian’ chords throughout, so Ed and I talked over how we could push and pull the musical forms to create interest and contrast without breaking away too much from the overall feeling of the piece.
I believe in the interrelatedness of artistic creativity whether in stitched mark, word or musical note, so for me, it was natural to construct the soundscape of the music using the colour of passages which involve the fullness of the whole body of the choir singing, interpolated with phrases using just two or three voices in word or simply sounding the musical chord.
At this stage, I had written three verses for the piece which extended the situation set up by the theme through words. The musical language of discords emphasised and extended further particular passages and in order to accomplish my objectives of a reciprocal relationship between the aural and visual elements, Ed wrote subtle discords into the verse that is sung by full choir.
It is also important to me that weight is given to both male and female elements within a work and I feel that, in this instance, the interweaving of male and female gives the piece both musical and emotional integrity. I discussed with Ed how the tenor and soprano voices could interact with one another in a duet sequence and we duly decided on a section of duet with Ed singing tenor along with soprano, Penelope Appleyard with, at another juncture, Penelope’s voice drifting above the male harmonies.
Recording the music
In visual terms, my piece Requiem, les Fleurs du Mal was a finished work and Continuum was under way but it was not as yet connected to the music which, with the funding from the Arts Council of Wales, I now arranged to record with the singers in St Chad’s Cathedral, Birmingham. Ed here had the dual roles of solo tenor and director of the musicians and it was a great pleasure for me to meet the singers and to work with them.
Pictured are members of the Beorma Ensemble with soprano Penelope Appleyard, Ed and myself.
The singers began with rehearsals in the cathedral’s crypt before going up into the nave for the recording itself. This proved to be a very interesting experience and entertaining in its own way through dealing with sudden wailing of vehicle sirens, loud traffic rumbles and people entering the cathedral by way of an obtrusively squeaky door! However, the atmosphere of the cathedral environment and acoustics in the building supplied just what was needed for the work and I am very grateful to the cathedral authorities for permitting the recording to take place in their beautiful building.
Once microphones were in place and all was ready, the singers of the Beorma Ensemble translated the harmonies of the music into a rich, full vocal sound, while Penelope’s clear soprano drifted across and blended with the deeper tones of the male voices. The duet by Ed and Penelope, together with the sections sung by full choir, allows for a sharing of emphasis between the parts which gives colour and contrast within the overall shape and feel of the music.
Ed singing and conducting, St. Chad’s Cathedral
It was both very interesting and extremely rewarding to work with Ed and the other professional musicians and I am thrilled at the outcome of this collaboration. Sound engineers were also part of the recording team and they afterwards worked on editing the result. Both Ed and myself were present during the final editing session and I found this to be extremely valuable in furthering my understanding of the recording and editing processes.
The singers during the recording session in the cathedral.
As said above, the music Come, stay had originally been intended to have its own accompanying installation, Vigil, but at the time of recording Come, stay, the artwork Continuum was progressing and I was starting out on the beginning of my part-time PhD in Fine Art at Aberystwyth University. The theme for this study quickly became conflict in whch I drew on my experiences of living and working in Belfast at the height of the Troubles and this theme also became my major concern in exhibition as well as academic work. This came about partly through contact and then working with Roberta Bacic of Conflict Textiles. It was becoming clear to me that the music Come, stay connected directly with my work on conflict and then Roberta Bacic asked me to write a poem for the piece Continuum which she was showing in her exhibition Stitched Voices in the Arts Centre, Aberystwyth.
Continuum
Red of blood soaks into
blanket while clamour of
rescue wails on –
passer-by
passes on hold on stunned
victim while still the children
cry and why do we allow
such pain? soldier and airman
look through years and what do
the poppies mean? more fears,
more tears – killers, silent,
secret, hidden ghosts walk
until moment
of atrocity –
but compassion, goal and
legacy of sorrowing
humanity, comforts
broken lives worn out by
grief, incertitude;
blaze of
love engulfs deeper
darkness of evil’s clawing
grasp, flows, unwavering
light through healing hands
inexhaustible,
into eternity.
I wrote this poem while contemplating the artwork and then felt strongly that its words were expressed musically in my piece Come, stay. The emotions of sorrow, fear and longing around the theme of conflict and how it affects those experiencing it were confronted in both the poem Continuum and the cadences and words of the music Come, stay. I felt that they complemented and furthered one another, so rather than create a separate installation that would deal with one particular aspect of these issues, I decided that the poem and music should be brought together. I contacted Ed and the film Continuum was born.
I have a studio at home and at Aberystwyth University and Ed and I decided to film me stitching one of my artworks in my studio in Aberystwyth University. Scenes of me working are interspersed on the film with images from the artwork Continuum and other artworks made on the theme of conflict. I read my poem Continuum in a timing that harmonises with the rhythms of the music as it is sung by the Beorma Ensemble with solos and duets by Ed and Penelope Appleyard and the images are chosen in relation to the words of both music and poem. Penelope is pictured above during the recording. As well as performing his singing rôle and acting as conductor, Ed also edited the film.
The film, as well as being a part of the Stitched Voices Exhibition in the Arts Centre, Aberystwyth, has played an integral rôle in my installation Conflict at Mid Wales Arts Centre, Caersws. It was then seen again with my Conflict and Redemption Exhibition in the Willow Gallery, Oswestry in conjunction with the gallery’s War and Peace Exhibiton that was a part of the Wilfred Owen Festival, Oswestry 2018 and, as indicated above, it is now available to watch on YouTube.
Film Towards the Light
I am a member of exhibiting group Prism Textile Arts and the group put on an online festival from 12th May – 31st July 2020 called In Search of (im)Possibilities. This was to have been an exhibition in a new venue in London for the group but Covid-19 meant that this could not happen so it was decided to put the exhibition online instead as Prism Virtual Festival. Due to commitments for my PhD which is in its final stages, I was unable to produce textile work for this exhibition but I was able to make a film of some of my poetry which I called Towards the Light.
The theme for my PhD is the relationship between stitch, sound and word explored through the prism of my experiences of the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland. Prism’s exhibition title In Search of (im)Possibilities, led me to consider how it had at one time been thought impossible for Northern Ireland to find a way out of the violence that had been causing such distress for decades into peace and yet this happened, almost unexpectedly though very much desired, with the Peace Agreement in 1998.
My working process is cyclical in that stitch leads into words which lead back into further stitch and, in the course of the work I am doing for my PhD and beyond, I have written quite extensively on many aspects of the ‘Troubles’. The poems go from speaking about physical experiences of the bombings to thoughts on memory and loss, to the joys and sorrows of love and family and the consolation of nature. In view of this exhibition’s subject-matter, it seemed natural to read and perform a few poems that take the listener on a little journey from the aftermath of a bomb blast to an sudden uplift of joy given by nature, in this case the inspirational sighting of a swan, to considering the passage of life in my poem/song Cormorant.
Still from the film Towards the Light
This year of 2020 has been very strange for all of us. In Wales, we have just come out of another lockdown into more updated rules to follow to combat the spread of the pandemic, with now the wonderful news that a vaccine has been approved and will shortly be given to those who need it most. Eventually, we will hopefully be able to return to something like our normal lives perhaps with some changes. In the meantime, I am working at my art from home as I stitch, write and record and, in true lockdown style, my husband, Arthur, filmed me in our living-room as I said some words and performed my poems.
Prism’s festival might be finished but my little film Towards the Light can now be seen here on my website:
A slideshow of my PhD Exhibition A Sorrowful Healing is also available. Information on my exhibition can be found by turning to the page about it here on my website and the slideshow can be seen on:
eileenharrissondotcom 