Variations on a Theme
The installation Joyful Sound by sculptor Julieann Worrall Hood continues to evolve through variations on a theme, exploring the possibilities of re-invention. The original sculpture, consisting of over 1000 recycled piano keys, first ebbed and flowed through our windows in November 2017. The twisting, undulating form was created to visually embody music and to celebrate the honest beauty and craftsmanship of the 18 pianos from which the keys came.
The sculpture is performative, made in direct response to the building. The piano keys each carry their own story, of the makers hands and the hands of those that played, tuned and mended them. The form twists, rises and falls, invisibly connecting between the walls of the adjoining buildings.
In 2018 you may have seen how Joyful Sound expanded through the addition of woven, intertwined white threads and a myriad of tiny lights, going on to welcome Spring in early 2019 with a burst of Schiaparelli pink paper blossoms. Now the honesty of the original materials and making are exposed once more with the focus brought back to the beauty of an old piano and a moment of potential, as if we are peeking backstage before the curtain rises.
Pause
In the pause we wonder, reflect, sense awe, and conceive of eternity. The pause is when we open ourselves for the moment to the concepts of both freedom and destiny. – Adam Phillips
These windows have the same potential magic as a stage – a place to suspend disbelief, to enter other worlds. At night the theatricality becomes most evident with the transformation brought by lights in the darkness.
Have you ever experienced the familiar as something unfamiliar, seen something mundane and everyday through new eyes? Take a moment on one of these dark nights to peek into the lit rooms of your home from outside, like a stranger looking into someone else’s life. Listen for the strains of distant music and voices, floating through the air like memories.
Fermata means stay or stop in Italian, in music as a hold or pause, indicating that the note should be prolonged. The latest variation of Joyful Sound offers us a pause, a frozen moment of possibility, of memory and of potential.
