June 19

Jill Olm

Quiet Disturbance

After Sound


I was looking at this drawing a while when someone said the word “fizzy” regarding the multitude of tiny circles concentrated on the drawing’s right side. That’s right, I thought, it’s sonic. This drawing is like sound. But how was it achieving this effect? Though it was non-representational, my first association after seeing a digital reproduction was The Blue Angels, the US Navy’s flying acrobatic team. If you have ever heard jets training overhead, you know the noise. I imagined a jet’s roar from falling jet-like forms on the left and a kind of popping from the hundreds of circles. Then I remembered the title. Ah yes...

The medium appeared to be ballpoint pen and marker on what looked like Bristol board. I wanted to see the surface of this drawing, which was behind glass. Even more, I wanted to see the drawing without the black frame. White maybe? I imagine that without the frame the effect of falling and floating and the impression of sound and movement, would be more effective.

How to hang a drawing. This is always a problem to solve. Every solution presents a condition that becomes part of the work. In this case the use of non-precious media and the visual imposition on the drawing by the frame would argue for the drawing to be hung directly on the wall. I am harping on this only because after thirty minutes in front of the drawing the piece became more and more optically effective, seemed to expand. Seemed to make noise. It had a huge wall onto which its interesting afterimage could be projected. Part of the afterimage was that rectangle holding it back, holding in the sound that wanted to reverberate.


EF