Amazing Grace

#9

01.09.10

Tonight we attended the Grace Choi exhibition 'A Small Space Within the Lagging of Time' at the International Gallery of Contemporary Art in downtown Anchorage.  Grace is the mother of one of our son's classmates, and she is a wonderful person and artist.  We have been anxiously awaiting her exhibition since we learned of it last fall.  Tonight she told us she has spent the last year and a half in preparation for tonight's exhibition.  She has also exhibited in her native Korea 5 times.

The iPhone camera was really able to pick up the vibrant colors of this painting entitled 'Rest', especially at the top of the canvas.  I wish it could have picked up the whiteness of the feathers better, but I was losing definition in the feathers and color saturation everywhere else when I tried to brighten those.    I was still happy with the photo.  Here is the full piece hanging on the wall:

This is another painting I liked for it's repetition of odd geometrical shapes and the use of metallic bronze and copper paints:

Focusing on the right lower quadrant (an area that is dark in the full frame photo above) you can see the canvas has a reptilian skin appearance:

A hearty congratulations to Grace on a job well done.  It was cute to see her daughter and our son play in the gallery while everyone enjoyed her work on the walls.

The music you are listening to and which I hope you are enjoying is '(That's How You Sing) Amazing Grace' by the slowcore band Low.  I chose the song because the title is by itself appropriate to our host artist this evening, and secondly because I adore Low. They are from northern Wisconsin / Minnesota, and their sound fits what life in that region might reflect, much like Alaska, particularly in winter.  The main duo of Low is a husband-and-wife team, who happen to be LDS.  I have never heard of a more major LDS band that doesn't focus on religious songs, which makes them even more unique in my mind.  Just as art, like that of Grace Choi, gives me a chance to look at an object or theme from multiple perspectives; this song  offers a minimalistic and haunting confrontation to the classic hymn.  I embrace the idea that everything can be questioned, and indeed ought to be questioned, if we are ever to arrive at a honest personal belief.

I have been following Low since 2001 when they released 'Things We Lost In The Fire' - an absolutely brilliant collection of sparse music.  I vividly recall the circumstances in which they first laid sound upon my ears.  I was sitting at the computer in a dingy office at Presbyterian Medical Center in West Philadelphia.  I was an overworked second year surgery resident listening to SomaFM.  This is an internet radio station that streams music from different genres; I have always preferred the "Indie Pop Rocks" webcast which was, and remains, DJ'ed by Elise.  I am listening to it now as I type this, and I highly recommend you explore their site and different music stations.  I support them whole-heartedly, and the world would be worse if there were no SomaFM.  And yes, my iPhone proudly sports the SomaFM app for listening on-the-go. 

Anyhow, I had left the E.D. where a C.T. scan was being obtained on an ankle injury.  Once in the resident's office I fired up Indie Pop Rocks to listen to music while I played Tetris.  Music and Tetris was how I kept awake when I needed to remain awake, along with many bottles of Mountain Dew Code Red and Snickers bars.  By this time it was well past 2 a.m., and I had been in the hospital working since 6 a.m the prior morning when I had arrived to round on patients.  This was the pattern of my life every 4th day for 730 days; the first two of four brutal years in residency.  One of the songs that Elise played was 'Closer' by Low off 'Things We Lost in the Fire': 

Hold me closer than that,

Hold me closer than that.

How'd we get here so fast?

Hold me closer than that.

Things we lost in the fire.

How'd we ever get by?

Words we'll never take back,

Hold me closer than that.

And I was hooked.  The hushed harmonies and spare guitar / percussion matched the despair I felt over those long days and nights and weeks and months and years of residency.  It soothed my soul to know others felt as 'low' as I did, yet still managed to get by.  

The song featured today comes off 'Trust', which album they released the following year.  If listening to the song up to this point has you scrambling for your shrink's phone number or searching the couch cushions for a fistful of Paxil tablets, you've missed the chance to embrace a moment of undiluted melancholy.

Until tomorrow... thanks for looking, listening and reading.