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Inspired by the picture `The MuseŽ
by Marja Kruijt, England (by kind permission) and through recollection
of the Sumerian priestess Enheduanna, daughter to
King Sargon and the first woman poet of note, approx. 2350 B.C..
pillar and neck: apple wood
sound box: pear wood
height 144 cm
Large, double-row wire-strung harp made at the autumnal equinox of the year 2002.
On full-moon, summer evenings, when the sound of
this
`harp of fireŽ penetrates the lonely natural surroundings, you may perhaps
hear the wild, haunting and infinitely beautiful music of the fairy folk
beneath the hills.
Made at the summer solstice of the year 2002.
The wood, in its tree form it sings in the wind and listens secretly to the song of the stars. Growth and shape of the mighty elm trees give way to the form and the nature of the sound that imbues these trees.
My work brings forth what remains unseen beneath the bark of a tree. Not only is it the wood that produces the tone, but also the design and the strings; each time the instrument is played, the beauty of each individual sound of a harp is reborn again and again by a personŽs mental state. Whenever you play this `harp of airŽ its sound will transform you, and your tune will never be the same, no matter how often it is played.
I owe the photographs of this particular
harp to coincidence. Really they come from an excursion I undertook once
the harp was finished and, as so very often, I happened to have taken
the instrument along with me.
The purpose of my assignment was to supplement the material collected
to date on the subject entitled `Harp, a journey to a different worldŽ
by reexamining that very material and supplying new data. Although the
locations had been selected carefully and led to places renowned for being
dubious, the excursion, as such, was unsuccessful.
Nevertheless, the photographs taken were given to a team of experts for
more precise evaluation, and these experts are of the opinion that there
is actual evidence for the existence of natural spirits. This has led
to the assumption that the types of wood used account for the above phenomenon.
The negatives and the original evaluations are available, and for anyone
who wishes, they can be consulted at any time.
