“My Italy” — a video poem…

This is a com­piled sam­pling of a few songs from VIVID MATTERS col­lab­o­ra­tive event per­formed by Lau­rence De Seve.
Lau­rence de Seve — com­poser, soprano lirico. Julia Tamarchenko — video.
Andrey Tamarchenko — painting

Vivid Mat­ters is an artis­tic col­lab­o­ra­tion between color and sound, mov­ing image and still paint, a woman and a tree — a dia­log both expressed and unspo­ken.
The point of depar­ture for this project has been a momen­tous con­ver­sa­tion with an ancient Lebanese cedar that has taken place on a bor­der of Lig­uria and Pied­mont in north­ern Italy.
To this ini­tial encounter Lau­rence De Seve brought her soprano lirico voice and a drum, Andrey Tamarchenko — paper, pas­tels and water­color, Julia Tamarchenko — a video cam­era and her eye.
The ancient tree brought a pow­er­ful energy full of vivid images and wis­dom that allowed the artists to go deeper into their artis­tic inquiry and process.
Vivid Mat­ters is the result — a com­bi­na­tion of poetry, music, oil paint­ings and draw­ings, video and per­for­mance, a cel­e­bra­tion of life in the cathe­dral of Nature trans­ported into a gallery/theater environment.

One night each year a small vil­lage of Capri­ata D’ Orba in Piemonte is trans­formed
into Beth­le­hem at the time of Jesus’s birth.

A room-sized pas­toral scene — over a hun­dred years old in the making.

Find a pow­er­ful sound source in Nature. Sit with your back to it. Close your eyes and take it in.
Focus on the sound and let it fill you com­pletely. When you are ready release this vibra­tional
energy onto the paper. Rather than try­ing to fol­low the rhythm of the sound — look for your
own rhythm instead. Find your own ebb and tide, your own point of ces­sa­tion and rest,
your own gust of tremor and trem­bling power.

Some­time ago we went up to the Turchino Pass — a point between Ovada and Genoa where
Appe­nine moun­tains begin their descent into the sea. Often, espe­cially dur­ing the win­ter months
the pass is shrouded in deep thick fog. Here is the record of that cre­ative encounter.
The noise you hear is the pow­er­ful mis­tral wind blow­ing from the sea.

Find a stream, a river or another flow­ing body of water nearby. Spend some time focus­ing on
and draw­ing the cur­rent. Expe­ri­ence the flow fill­ing your eyes and aware­ness,
mov­ing eas­ily through your hand and pen­cil, spilling out onto the paper.
The goal of this encounter is to cre­ate a con­nec­tion with our own flow.
By focus­ing on the process instead of a result, we allow the cre­ative cur­rent
to move through us undeterred.