Part III: paths of memory
and painting

c2010 Judy Malloy

in the foreground
individual instruments sounding together
as if by making the painting
in another studio
and I working separately
transported by paint and canvas
and looked out the window
ferns in a vase on the dining room table
unexpected domesticity
in the paintings of the Goldrush

in a cafe in Berkeley, listening to music
immersed in the histories of other times
on different trails
it has been a few months
as I wait for him to return
away from the known places
the colors of the Wine Country hillsides
seldom talks about what it was like
"Yes, I was there one summer"
what to say to each other

the difference that a small amount of blue
creates in the already dark green area
of the canvas
accumulated sketch books tell the story
what is in their minds so very different
every moment important
not sure what to do. It was the fifties
afterwards there was never anyone else
self portraits of artists
when he said it was the way I looked
lilacs from the garden
disclosed with books and letters known to the painter
"The organ was playing 'The Wearin' o' the Green'

To navigate this work, wait for the text to advance, or click on the lexia you
want to follow. The work begins with a series of lines of poetry from the
narrative. Click or wait for the text to change. After the narrative
begins, the work is best experienced by waiting for the text to change,
but readers are also welcome to proceed at their own pace by clicking on
the texts.

Paths was written for Firefox. It also works on Microsoft Explorer,
but the sound should be turned off to avoid Explorer's audible link
changing sounds.

About This Work

Each musician
making his way through the music,
with trombone, clarinet,
piano, bass, or drum.
Individual instruments
sounding together.
The playing of the work
again.

Written in three part contrapuntal composition, paths of memory and painting is
the third part of a new media poetry trilogy of the same name..
Told by Bay Area Figurative painter, Dorothy Abrona McCrae, the entire story brings
together the narrator's recollections of her life beginning in Berkeley in the
last years of World War II, the development of her vision as an artist, and her
stories of the lives of California painters.

The Paths of Memory and Painting trilogy begins in
where every luminous landscape;
is continued in when the foreground and the background merged;
and -- although it is not a conclusion to the saga as a whole -- this part of the story concludes in paths of memory and painting

In this part of the narrative, she is sitting in a cafe in Berkeley in the
present time. While she waits for her husband Sid to return from an expedition
to Berkeley bookstores, she makes quick sketches of the people who walk by the
cafe and remembers the beginnings of the Bay Area Figurative style with
Rehearsal, David Park's painting of the studio 13 Jazz Band and the work
of World War II veteran Elmer Bischoff. The narrative also includes her recollections
of the parallel development of her own work, the painting of her self portrait
in her own version of the Bay Area Figurative style, her first meeting with Sid
and details of their love affair.

Selecting the coda returns the work -- with a series of lines of poetry from Part III -- to Part I: where every luminous landscape.

Interface and Structure

The original intention for the structure of the trilogy as a whole was to begin with
the dense eight lexia array that comprises where every luminous landscape, follow
that with an extended, lyrical interlude, and conclude with another eight lexia array.
But for a variety of reasons, the third part of the trilogy developed in a different
way, reflecting the painter narrator's present -- poetic, romantic, comfortable with
her life and her own vision. However, if the reader selects the coda, the concluding
piece allows for a continual return to the spirit of "walking up the trail"
with which the work begins.

The interface for part three is an array of three side by side lexia trails that
advance polyphonically. Because of the Early Music influence on the composition
process, the text of the work proceeds at a more rapid tempo than the rest of the
poetry in the Paths trilogy. The work loops until the "coda" is selected,
allowing the reader to eventually read all of the words by continuing to follow
the work. In fact, it is meant to be like a piece of polyphonic music -- a trio
sonata perhaps -- where the reader might hear different things every time he or
she listens to it, until finally the whole work is comprehensible.

The issue of whether or not the reader sees every word in the work is endemic to
hyperfiction because the author cannot know which paths the reader will follow
or whether the reader will read only one or some or all of the hundreds of lexias
that comprise the work. In the combining of music and lyrics in the creation of
vocal works, this issue has also been of interest, for instance, the importance
of the primacy of the words to composers of sacred music or the role of the
language in which operas were written in audience comprehension of the work.

In the case of Paths, a notation method could be developed that would allow
the lexias to be interfaced in a different way as a guide for the reader, but I
am not sure whether or not this is desirable.

California Art Writers

I have been told that Dorothy Abrona McCrae is so "alive" that some readers
think she is a real person. Thus, it should be noted that this narrative
and all that I have written about the fictional Bay Area Figurative painter,
Dorothy Abrona McCrae, would not be possible without the scholarship and
books of the men and women who write about California and California art
and the publishers who have made the histories of California and California
art available, particularly the University of California Press, Heyday Books, the
California Historical Society, The Irvine Museum, and Hearst Art Gallery,
St Mary's College of California.

Among many others, thanks are due to Thomas Albright, Jacquelynn Baas,
Nancy Boas, Brother Cornelius, Janet Driesbach, William H. Gerdts Ann Harlow,
Alfred C. Harrison, Jr., Kimi Kodani Hill, Katherine Church Holland,
Edan Hughes, Caroline A. Jones, Harvey L. Jones, Clarence King,
Susan Landauer, Jay T. Last, Gordon T. McClelland, Joan Irvine Smith,
Will South, Jean Stern, Karen Tsujimoto, Holly Wermiel, and Charles Wollenberg.

Access to information about California Visual Artists is also available on the
Art California web portal, that I host in partnership with the California Studies Association and which also features the work of California Musicians.

The Influence of Early Music

A well spent childhood of Sundays at Boston's Gardner Museum, ten
years of violin lessons, continually in my life following a trail of
Renaissance art -- I have always sometimes listened to Early Music
and as a writer of new media literature have been interested in polyphonic
structures. Generally I just listen -- not trying to precisely emulate
the way these works were composed, but interested in their structure as a
parallel but different process.

Because of the way the voices interact and are more distinct, there
are parallels in my new media wrting with Early Music. But, for the most
part, although there are Early Music influences in the contrapuntal composition,
the timing in my work has been primarily filmic, i.e. the artistic impact of the
forward motion has been determined by the juxtaposition of written scenes.
However, while cutting and pasting some timing charts for paths of memory
and painting, I noticed how Baroque music had surprisingly influenced the
timing of this work.

Thus, I have been thinking in terms of where this could be taken. It
is not that counterpoint was written with lexias, but rather that
it seems that this might be possible. Like the experiences of many
of us who work in art studies and/or in the contemporary arts
-- and so it was/is also in Early Music -- there is a discovery of a
new trail, and I do not yet know where it leads.

I am grateful to the musicologists and musicians whose programs, recordings,
and books have shown me the possibilities. They include musician and
musicologist Davitt Moroney, Professor of Musicology at UC Berkeley,
Catherine Bott and Lucy Skeaping, hosts of The Early Music Show
on BBC Radio 3, and Donald Macleod, host of Composer of the Week on
BBC Radio 3.

paths of memory and painting is a work of poetry, yet it can be better
understood by listening to Early Music. When I was working on the flow of this work, I particularly remember listening
to Davitt's recording of Le Clavecin Français - Music from the Borel
Manuscript. (Plectra)

Background

Judy Malloy, "Hypernarrative in the Age of the Web",
National Endowment for the Arts NEA arts.community, 1998

Judy Malloy, Dorothy Abrona McCrae, 2000

Judy Malloy, A Party at Silver Beach, 2002

References

Bay Area Figurative Painting

Thomas Albright
Art in the San Francisco Bay Area 1945-1980
Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1985

Caroline A. Jones
Bay Area Figurative Art 1950-1965
Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1990

Susan Landauer
Elmer Bischoff - The Ethics of Paint
Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, The Oakland Museum of California, 2001

Karen Tsujimoto and Jacquelynn Baas
The Art of Joan Brown,
Berkeley, CA: University of California Berkeley Art Museum, Oakland Museum of California,
University of California Press, 1998

Artists of the Gold Rush

Janet Driesbach, Harvey L. Jones, and Katherine Church Holland
Art of the Goldrush
Berkeley, CA: Oakland Museum of California, Crocker Art Museum and University of California Press, 1998

return to paths of memory and painting