• Dimensions: 24″x36″
  • Medium description: single sheet of cut white acid-free paper, mounted on single sheet of cut navy acid-free paper.
  • High resolution image

Music of the Winds and Seas is planned four-panel quadriptych, currently still in progress. Each panel measures 24″x36″, and features the music of a wind band composer. The series as a whole is an observation of humankind’s relationship with the sea.

Continuing from Wine Dark Sea, this second panel takes its name from Peter Graham‘s Harrison’s Dream. Graham based his composition on the story of John Harrison’s feverish struggle to create the first marine chronometer, an extremely precise clock which solved the navigational problem of calculating longitude at sea, which was causing deadly shipwrecks. Harrison’s achievement saved countless lives.

The clock in this papercutting was drawn with loose adherence to Harrison’s original H4 chronometer blueprints, with Graham’s melodies whirring in the clockwork. Graham’s bassline runs in the undercurrent, continuing in the same key from Mackey’s bassline in the previous panel. Above in the sky are the constellations Circinus (the Compass) and Horologium (the Clock). The panel as a whole is meant to represent humanity’s effort to tame the seas.

Thank you to Peter Graham for giving me his blessing to use his music!

Update: in April 2024, Harrison’s Dream was selected as the featured two-dimensional entry in the Library of Congress Professional Association Art Show.

(With gratitude to Joseph Hamilton for photography)