walking to caesarea (eli eli)

Sunday, February 28th, 2010 | The Score is a Work of Art, series | No Comments

I finished another piece in The Score is a Work of Art series based on the hebrew song, walking to caesarea (eli eli). It is a very powerful piece – originally a poem – written by poet/playwrite/warrior Hannah Szenes who did not live to see 23 years old. The music was written by Israeli composer, David Zehavi.

For me, this is a simple song about walking on the beach and wondering why there is so much unrest in humanity.

I’d been trying to figure out how to do execute this for a while and am still unsure whether this is a study or a final. I had thought about working with polymer or resin casting in order to be more literal, so I may do another version of this piece in future trying those techniques.

I found this series of wooden frames that I liked when framing a print of …Wandering Aengus and on an impulse decided to use the frame and it’s glass as part of the art for Eli Eli, though I think the glass is perhaps too smooth and too close to the sand to be representing water. The idea is that the sand (glued in layers to the canvas) is under the water. The hemp strings of the staff are like fishing nets under the water digging lines in the sand. The pebbles here are floating on the water, which I like because it’s fanciful.

All in all, I really like the way this turned out though the photographs don’t really show the depth very well.

Here is the version of this piece that Harris recorded as part his masters thesis (we both always liked the song): http://harris.wulfson.com/mp3/New%20Music%202005/08-eli%20eli.mp3