Commission Story: "Crescendo" Our First Music-Themed Commission
By Jennah Litecky Yost
Spring is a time for reawakening, renewal, and growth.
This pattern can be seen all around us, not only in nature, but in ourselves as well. Each spring, after the Christmas rush, Paul and I usually travel and visit family around the world. We reawaken our connections with those we love after three seasons of art shows.
This year was very different. We spent our time at home; the Christmas rush was an online experience, our only family visit was outdoors, and we spent lots of time in the studio. With this extra time, we were able to focus on some interesting commissions and explore new designs while unexpectedly awakening old designs. One commission really stood out to me this season, and although it was a big challenge, I was able to create work that we are both proud of, and renew my creative ambition to reawaken old designs.
The commission started out as an inquiry through our website. Our clients asked for a copper piece inspired by musical notation. Even though we have never attempted a music-themed commission, we are always up for a challenge and love creating new designs inspired by our clients!
Mastering a New Technique to Design the Commission
After a few emails back and forth discussing the project, it was decided that the commission would be two horizontal pieces, the same size, and slightly offset with consistent continuation throughout the pieces. Our clients also asked for the piece to be an abstract motif and to make a design with subtle musical imagery as opposed to relying on letters and numbers. This approach was perfect for us, since abstract work is prominent in our portfolio. I was very excited; it was a perfect combination of challenges to conquer with my extra time.
After studying the form of musical notations, I picked out the notations that I would be able to draw, freehand, with my hand tools. It can be difficult to put detail in our work, so I was very particular in the notations I chose to recreate on the copper. I created a composition for the design and trained my hand to draw some of the swooping detailed lines throughout the copper pieces. Once I felt confident with the new technique, I went to the studio and got to work.
A Challenging Beginning
At first, the piece was going pretty well. I had created a background that I was happy with and the colors came out of the burn room perfectly. When I started drawing, however, right away my hand did not follow the training I had given it! My lines were not working out as I had hoped. The offset of the two pieces was very challenging to work with; my lines were off and I wanted to make sure everything lined up perfectly.
Transforming My First Attempts into a New FireSmith Theme
After much contemplation, I decided to start over and turn the two pieces into something else. These moments are where magic happens. I had to rework two pieces of copper art separately after I had already started designing the pieces together.
The detailed line work for this musical commission reminded me of some of my older designs. I decided to look at some of my old copper art that had line work in it, and was inspired by my printmaking from college. My prints were based on topography, geography, and location, and I used lots of lines in my printmaking designs. In the past few years, I had made a couple copper art pieces inspired by my time as a printmaker, and I decided to pull out images of my old copper work to reawaken my old designs.
Destination - One of our older copperwork pieces that influenced our new themes.
Since I was working on old designs, I became very introspective during the process. I thought about the past year, how much things have changed, and how much we used to travel. These thoughts turned into a theme and we decided to create a series based on the journey of the traveler and the journey within us. The "Inward Journey" Series was born. After finishing the first two “Inward Journey” copperworks, I was ready to tackle the next step in the music-themed commission.
Inward Journey Series: Crosswinds: One of the pieces that I built off of my first attempts at our Crescendo commission
Inward Journey Series: Destination: One of the pieces that I built off of my first attempts at our Crescendo commission
Using These Exercises to Inform the New Commission
When I went back to the original commission, I realized that the size of the pieces was not going to work with the design I wanted. In order for the design to flow continuously throughout the two pieces, with our client's approval, I decided to change the size. The new size was much easier to work with, and once again the background and colors turned out beautifully. The drawing was still a challenge since I was working with two offset pieces of copper.
I laid the first lines down on the copper and immediately was not happy with the result. I sat for hours looking at the pieces and thought about remaking them multiple times. It’s so easy to get into your head as an artist. One of the great things about working as a team is that you get to bounce ideas off of each other. It was clear I needed Paul's help.
We discussed the design, my vision, and the obstacles I had run into. Paul made suggestions that helped me work through the problems I encountered and the design turned out better than I ever expected. Paul framed the pieces and the design lined up just as I wanted it to. I was thrilled with the final artwork!
Our final piece, Crescendo
This commission gave me challenges and joy. Not only did I reawaken old designs, our newest series: "Inward Journey" was born, and we now get to explore music-themed copper art. We can't wait to see what we create next!