This piece's art was primarily inspired by the question "who was Leadbelly?" I found myself more and more confused the further I researched him. I think that's fitting, though, because I'm not sure Leadbelly even knew who he was. I titled this "In The Pines" simply because I love that song. It's probably because I've heart Kurt Cobain's version so many times.
Watching clips of Leadbelly acting or singing added to my confusion because it was difficult to tell which performances were coming from the heart, and which were just attempts to increase his fanbase. Seeing him act was a bit amusing because it was so clear that he was reciting a script; there was no emotion or soul tied to his words. And as Tony pointed out in class - Leadbelly had a very strong, distinctive face that just did not correlate to the weak, submissive characters he often tried to portray. I also find his eyes particularly striking. Not quite sure why.
For this illustration, I used a mixture of pen and ink and charcoal. I wanted to portray a lack of identity through these similar, gray people because that is how I ultimately interpreted Leadbelly.
Tony mentioned in class that he feels I have been putting more of myself into my art recently, and that my style has a New York/1920's flair (thank you for the compliment, by the way). I've been thinking about this a lot, and trying to figure out how these newer pieces are different than the older ones. In a way, I think it is because I put less thought into them - I was less concerned with tying the illustrations directly to the songs, and instead, just drawing whatever came into my head after I had listened to the songs and done the readings. Drawing without planning out the details is something I couldn't do before this class..so I'm really excited to see where this takes me. Maybe it really will be to New York one day!
