Garry Greenwood's Leather Alchemy
Musical Instruments
Garry Greenwood’s first creative experiments with instruments made from leather were inspired by the design of stringed instruments. Delighting in the sinuous curves that are a feature of the western stringed instruments family, his resultant (non-sounding) sculptures often exaggerated and augmented the sheer sensuality of these forms.
From these non-sounding pieces, Greenwood’s interests turned to creating sculptures that could be played, the first of these being leather drums and stringed instruments. Further research into the qualities of sound chambers led the artist to create an instrument titled Suspended Harmonic.
Greenwood’s next musical experiments involved wind instruments which, he reasoned, were basically a tube through which air travelled. His first instruments were natural horns intended to be played with a trumpet mouthpiece, the sound consisting of the notes of the harmonic series. These were the forerunners of a series of instruments that he called Bowhorns, named for their similarity to the shape of an archer’s bow.
Interest in creating an instrument with a long, slim body (as opposed to the wide-set tubes of the Bowhorns) led Greenwood to design a bassoon which he titled Serpentine Bassoon because of its sinuous shape and ‘shake’s head’ out of which the horn of the instrument emerges. Its successor is the Dragon Bassoon.
Like the materials he used, Greenwood’s instruments are organic. Each instrument in a series is different in some way from the previously finished item. The sense that every price is unique, or the product of a natural process of evolution, is particularly obvious in his Mountain Harp series. In keeping with his desire to coax subtle variations in tonal quality from his instruments, Greenwood’s Mountain Harps can be played in various ways – the different techniques of playing demonstrating the diversity of sounds that the Harp can produce.
Other instruments featured in the exhibition include leather ocarinas, titled Poco Pods, Shwahorns (wind instruments fitted with saxophone mouthpieces), percussion instruments known as Clams and playable masks.
Garry Greenwood’s fascination with sound sources and technology led him to design extraordinary instruments that combine acoustic resources with stunning visual properties. They are truly unique.
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