I was writing the previous post about my experience of painting, and I thought of Ornette Coleman. He came to mind because it occurred to me that when I’m working in the studio I rarely think about the work of other painters (it does happen from time to time – for instance I named a recent painting after Asger Jorn because I saw something in one of my paintings that reminded me very much of his work). I do however sometimes think about music and musicians when I’m painting.

Ornette Coleman by Eugene Knapik, acrylic and acrylic spray enamel on canvas

At one point in the late 90s, I fell in the habit of listening to Ornette Coleman CDs while I painted. There is something about his approach to jazz that feels right at home with my paintings. I not so sure anybody else sees that, but it is something that was intuitively obvious to me. In fact I even named a painting Ornette Coleman back in 1997.  I’m still very fond of that painting, one which happily has a good home.

So since he’s on my mind, let’s listen to some Ornette Coleman. Here is the Ornette Coleman Quartet performing Dancing in your head in 2010