Audio Interviews - Art and SoundArt
Interviews originally broadcast on SoundArt Radio (based in Dartington, Devon, UK)
This post first appeared April 19, 2009 on PeterBright.info
Creativity is something we are all born
with to greater or lesser degrees. It is a vital part of our
physiological make up and development. We learn to play and fantasize as
children, skills we carry forward into our adulthood. However, if
creativity takes hold of your entire existence then it becomes a disease
that is parasitic, eating away at your whole world. It might sound
melodramatic but creativity can become a cancer of the body or the
trigger for psychotic episodes.
Listen to Alisha,
a doctor, a GP who is also a poet. I try to find out if creativity is a
madness, a disease, an anesthetic or a poison but find out that maybe
it could be a ‘Zebra’. Does she use creativity in diagnosis and
consultation.
Can a creative person ever be truly
happy as they constantly strive for perfection in their chosen art?
Listen to an interview with Garry Smout,
who talks about the problems of using early portable black and white
video cameras in the 1970’s, pioneering literary review website the
Barcelona Review, early synths and how to kill your babies. The problem
with being creative is that everything has to be pushed to the limits.
I did an interview with Jake Bright
about the difference between playing bass for ‘The Dastards’ and double
bass with The North Devon Sinfonia. This interview took place
in-between rehearsals for the Sinfonia’s performance at the Landmark
Theatre (Ilfracombe) which was on April 18th 2009. The programme
included: Brahms’ Academic Festival Overture, Strauss’ Four Last Songs
with the soprano Naomi Harvey from the Welsh National Opera and finally
Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, op.64. The disciplines required for both
instruments influences Jake’s own compositions.
There is also an interview with Dave and Sadie Green.
Dave is a photographer and Sadie has spent the last few years in the
funding side of the Arts. This interview discusses the demise of
‘ArtsCulture’ in Devon and the vacuum left behind by this organisations
disappearance.What’s it really like living with creativity? Look back over the years at the tortured artists, drunken writers and drug-crazed musicians who litter our heritage and you might start to ask the question: is creativity a blessing or a curse?…the temptation to contain creativity and make it conform to ‘the norm’ is what normally happens in businesses. You can’t have a random, inspired, maverick shooting off left right and center – this is chaos….or is it?
Juggling with creativity, trying to make it fit into your daily life is a logistical nightmare. In an interview I did with Claire Barker,
an artist, illustrator, author, mother, wife, farmer, she explained to
me how she talked to the solicitor of the estate of Ted Hughes (UK poet)
to get their permission to use one of his poems and still managed to
deliver lambs.
Edward James (Ted) Hughes,
OM (17 August 1930 – 28 October 1998) was an English poet and
children’s writer. Critics routinely rank him as one of the best poets
of his generation. Hughes was British Poet Laureate from 1984 until his
death.
Hughes was married to American poet
Sylvia Plath, from 1956 until her suicide in 1963 at the age of 30. His
part in the relationship became controversial to some feminists and
(particularly) American admirers of Plath. His last poetic work, Birthday Letters
(1998), explored their complex relationship. These poems make reference
to Plath’s suicide, but none of them addresses directly the
circumstances of her death. A poem discovered in October 2010, Last
letter, describes what happened during the three days leading up to
Plath’s suicide.
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