MERZsonata

Schwitters performing Ursonate, London, 1944

MERZsonata is a homage to Kurt Schwitters’ sound-text masterpiece, the Ursonate…Every sound…has a biographical connection to Schwitters (for example, he wrote a sneezing poem, and he used to bark like a dog each night during his time in the Hutchinson Square Internment Camp on the Isle of Man during the Second World War)…Like the materials of a Schwitters collage, each element is both itself and part of something new.’ – Christopher Fox, 1999. Continue reading “MERZsonata”

Frames of reference

A Pedantic Plaque

We made this plaque around twenty years ago. The wood was cut and shaped and painted with size and gesso and red bole, then gilded with 22 carat gold leaf and finally inscribed with a tongue twister. According to Iona & Peter Opie, editors of The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, this was in past times considered to be a remedy for hiccups when repeated thrice in one breath. But they don’t say whether it is Rowley as in rolled, or Rowley as in round. It seems to play on the possibility that it could be either. We think the former but there are some who insist it’s the latter. Maybe this will help –

Frames of reference