Written by Adelaide Roueche-Beard, TAG Curatorial Intern
In conjunction with the Narrated Memories exhibition running from September 5 to December 7, The Art Galleries at ACC are hosting three gallery talks. These talks explore the themes in the works of ACC alumni Laurie Frick, Heather Parish, and Michael Villarreal. The first talk, called “Art + Music,” happened on October 3rd in Gallery 2000.
The Art + Music program focused on the creation of Laurie Frick’s mural, A Mood. The discussion featured composer and ACC student Elizabeth Vary and ACC Music Professor Steven Sodders, and a live in-gallery performance of the piece by ACC Professors and associates Julia Watkins-Davis (voice), Julie Linder (clarinet), and Valeria Diaz-Navarro (piano).
The gallery talk began with an introduction by TAG Gallery Outreach & Programming Coordinator Olivia Spiers. According to Spiers, self-proclaimed “Data Artist” Laurie Frick “aims to point out that we all have this inherent ability to recognize pattern.” Frick’s work combines data, which is often seen as impersonal or artificial, with lively and organic creations. Invoking the patterns that she sees in Vary’s music composition “A Mood,” Frick designed a mural that interprets Vary’s composition by translating individual notes into bars of color and arranging them in a visual composition that can be followed like a score.
Laurie Frick, A Mood, 2023, latex paint, 8 x 40 ft. Photo by Joaquin Morin.
The musical composition is slow and melancholic, which contrasts with the vibrant mural. Elizabeth Vary and Professor Steven Sodders stepped into the spotlight to talk about the origins of “A Mood.” The piece was written by Vary in Sodders’ class; the assignment asked music composition majors to compose a piece using a poem as inspiration. Professor Sodders required students to collaborate with live performers during the composition process: “It’s really important for our composers to write for live performers who can give them feedback and help them learn,” says Sodders, “you have to know where that music comes from.”
“A Mood” gets its inspiration and lyrics from a poem of the same name by Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836-1907). Says Vary “I did not intend for the piano to play a specific part . . . but I realized the piano plays the entire time, it represents how life moves on regardless of how we feel.”
Composer Elizabeth Vary gives us further insight into the creative process: “When I started [the composition], I wanted the clarinet to capture the feeling, the mood. It comes and goes.”
Frick’s focus on color and pitch in the mural doesn’t capture the music’s dynamics—how loud each part is. In the creative process of Vary and Frick, they both respect and interpret the original material differently. Vary turns Aldrich’s poetry into music, and Frick visually explores Vary’s composition. Vary explains, “When I saw this mural in Gallery 2000, I thought, ‘Hmm, I can see it.’ I can recognize the pattern in the vocal line, and the colors match how I imagine the pitch. I know this is my work.”
Narrated Memories features artwork from ACC alumni Laurie Frick, Heather Parrish, and Michael Villarreal. It explores how memories are collected and rebuilt in our personal lives, as well as in broader social contexts. This exhibition is on view from September 5 – December 7, 2023.
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