The music video. Part III. Synchronicity, timing, vision.
I chatted in an earlier blog posting about why I chose to reference Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues music video for my The pinkStardust Blues music video - in an alleyway, tossing cards with bits of song lyrics on them. Referencing Dylan’s video (early 1960s) conceptually aligns with the Timeline of the pinkStardust installation / conversation about our atomic testing times.
Filming my music video in the alleyway tangles the past to our present in a similar way that the pinkStardust installation Timeline itself tangles events with the people who experienced them – directly, or just by being alive while their world was “happening”. I myself being in that world and of that world, having been born in 1954, just 2 months before the infamous Castle Bravo test (our first thermonuclear test, conducted in the Pacific) and personally experiencing the fallout of the Cold War both physically and emotionally.
The pinkStardust installation timeline (above) as it appeared on my studio wall before completion, meaning I finished developing what the layout will be when installed for exhibition, and chose what events will be highlighted with “pictures, forms and sound” (4th versed of The pinkStardust Blues). The Castle Bravo test (mentioned above) is one the events that will be highlighted.
BTW – when I capitalize and italicize the word Timeline, it refers to the Timeline that will be in the exhibition of the pinkStardust installation – an ‘object’ so to speak. The lower case, unitalicized word refers to working the timeline for the development of the installation. On the right is an image of the first timeline incarnation in 2012, masking tape that ran along my apartment wall. I saved it – taping it onto the pages of a notebook.
Back to creating the music video
To create a bridge from past to present a bit further, one that could be traveled either way (past to present, present to past in a abstracted way) I asked my filmmakers Joey and TJ to continue editing the filming we did in the alleyway into black and white, keeping their brilliant idea to tint the umbrella and toss cards in pink.
The pink umbrella featured in the music video first emerged as a symbol for the presence of radioactive fallout in an installation Timeline event highlight, The Four Enola Geisha (4 life-size painted images on canvas) and continues to reference radioactive fallout in the music video – both with Zoe’s channelling of Edie Sedgwick in the alleyway, carrying the umbrella, and later in the video with studio some cut-a ways. I will use that same umbrella when I construct another Timeline event highlight for the installation, the Duck-n-Cover Altar, a sculpture that I have designed and collected material for, including a 1960s era school desk, but as yet have not completed.
Footage shot in the studio will remain in color – as one of the other brilliant ideas my filmmakers had (Caryn, Joey and TJ) was to include shots of some the finished works (11 of 32) of a companion series to the pinkStardust installation that I am working on called The 32 Most Notorious Atomic Tests (I blogged about the series in an earlier posting and there are some Instagram postings about them both at carlisle.studio and mymanhattanproject – yes, all one word). Simple but effective special effects using light takes their idea to include some of the paintings into extraordinary imagery for the video.
And, in past postings, I have chatted about how Andy Warhol became my main muse when I was struggling to create the poster for the pinkStardust installation back in 2012.
That I reference him in the music video then, is no surprise. How?
One, by including my daughter Zoe as she channels Edie Sedgwick, Warhol’s main muse for a while, and sometime girlfriend of Dylan’s. Zoe’s striped tee with black stockings, large earrings (a custom creation made for Zoe by a very talented Melissa Robinson: artist, jewelry maker, mom and Zoe’s former art teacher – and she’s still teaching art to student today!) and a fake fur (it was cold that morning) are what Edie might have worn that day. The fake fur is not a leopard coat like Edie had, but remember we are referencing, not trying to replicate.
Edie in her leopard skin coat
Two. I myself dress to conjure Andy - pay tribute to his inspiring and informing me not only for the creation of the poster, but the whole look of the pinkStardust installation. And now, The pinkStardust Blues music video too.
Andy:
Andy in his striped tee, black jeans, and Ray Bans
Below, a still of me channelling Andy in The pinkStardust Blues music video, with Zoe and Steve (our reference to Bob Neuwrith from Dylan’s video) in the background – still in color.
It is obvious with this project that things happen in the time that they are supposed to happen. That has certainly been true with making this music video. The song, written in 2012, (the same year Andy and I created the poster to keep me on track with the look and feel of the installation), speaks to more than just my stedfast dedication to the project.
The recording of the song, along with those who played on it, Saja (vocals, guitar, mixing and recording), Cliff (harp) and Matty (stand up bass), and finding the right people to film the video (Caryn, Joey and TJ), would be so different had I been able to move forward on it on my own in the many years that followed the initial spark.
Although I did what I could in the years since I first began in 2012, continuing to research and develop the installation while working full time, raising Zoe and making other artwork, once I was able to retire (I did so early so that I could finish and exhibit this installation before I leave the planet from a totally pooped old body giving out!) I have been able to focus on the project and bring the development to completion as I finish making the work.
Next posting will include more discussion about RatWorks Productions, the company who’s filming of The pinkSardust Blues music video I am proud to say is their inaugural project. I will also include some images of some toss cards that I made in 2012, comparing them to what I created and used in 2023/24, and some more stills of the making of…
Hopefully the finished video will be in my hot little hands by the end of this month – to be included in my exhibition proposal that is also finished and ready to submit. Here I come Los Angeles!
carlisle studio 