Art Shorts: An Artist Interview Blog Series – Question 6

When you create, do you like silence or do you listen to music? If the latter, what type of music typically fills your studio?

A.L. SWARTZ, 2D Mixed Media
I listen to loud, heavy, skull crushing metal. And also the Skyrim soundtrack.

VICKI DENAURG, Mixed Media
I listen to very loud country music! Most of my abstracts are titled after, whatever song I’m listening to when it’s time to sign!

CHIHARU ROACH, Painting
Complete silence!

BETH CONKLIN, Computer Generated Art
Turn the music up! My favorite music for creating changes often but right now I’m really into Iron and Wine, Mazzy Star, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

KATE WILSON, Painting
I like both silence and music when I create. When I do listen to music, I choose something ambient and instrumental, such as Thievery Corporation or Lotus.

CHRISTY TURNIPSEED, Jewelry
I love having noise in the background when working, and having another job working with Birmingham Mountain Radio, I listen to the station or whatever is my favorite at the moment on spottily or my vinyl stereo. Lately it’s been Wild Cub, Civil Twilight, and Haim.

ATHLONE CLARK, Painting
I usually listen to whatever music that sets the tone. Mostly Bob Marley, Stephen Marley, Burning Spear, Thelonious Monk, Billie Holliday, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Robert Glasper, etc. I also enjoy Hip Hop, The youth mostly get their information from their songs of choice and so I learn their language so that I can use my art to have a dialogue with them. I also like international music from almost every culture. As someone once said, “I like country music, just name the country”

JILL SHARP, Jewelry
It’s a mix. When I’m hammering and filing and doing the more energetic work, I listen to everything from 80’s Hair Bands to classic rock. When using the torch for more delicate soldering operations, I listen to what used to be called “alternative” in the 1990s, or instrumental music. When I’m sketching designs, I really need silence. I usually take a tray of gems and the sketchbook up to my bedroom, plump up the pillows and sit there in total quiet, to get the ideas flowing.

BUTCH OGELSBY, Photography
Silence, but sometimes I have acoustic guitar playing on Pandora.

CHARLES TERSOLO, Painting
I burn special Cd’s with a mix of music, a symphony of styles, that open with one country or classical, followed by house music and a pop song of some genre. Opera, roc, some heavy metal; the music moves following intensity, theme/subject, or variety. The idea is that whatever style of art I am creating, traditional architecture or surrealism, the styles do not become too rigid.

JOEL LOCKRIDGE, Wood
Music and audiobooks. I spend hours at a time with any variety of genres.

MICHAEL ZAVISON, Metal
Silence

MITCHELL BERG, 3D Mixed Media
I often tell people that I don’t listen to music when I’m making art. I make art so I can spend all day listening to music. I lean towards to energetic, rhythmic side of most things, but I prefer every kind of music there is.