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Art school Britain in the 1960s and 1970s – a hotbed of experimental DIY creativity blurring the lines between art and music. In Blank Canvas, multi-genre musician turned university lecturer Simon Strange paints a picture of the diverse range of people who broke down the barriers between art, life and the creative self.
Tracing lines from the Bauhaus 'blank slate' through the white heat of the Velvet Underground and the cutting edge of the Slits, Blank Canvas draws on interviews with giants of the genre across music, gender and race spectrums, from Brian Eno to Pauline Black, Cabaret Voltaire to Gaye Advert. Illustrated is a picture of two decades erupting in a devastatingly diverse flow of outspoken originality as an eclectic range of musical styles and cultures fused.
Does modern day music education suffocate the soul and inhibit the impact of the bohemian artist?
This book asks questions of today's artists, musicians, and educators, looking for the essence of creativity and suggests how lessons learnt in and around art school education show a path for the cultural evolution of both musicians and artists hoping to create the future.
Audience will include university students at all levels in popular music, popular culture and creative arts education. Academics, educators and researchers working in popular culture and creativity. May also appeal to a more general reader interested in popular culture and creativity.
With a Blank Canvas, anything is possible…
'Simon Strange handles all [the] material highly skilfully and it’s a testament to both his writing and his meticulous research that he manages to cover such a far reaching subject with hardly a false step. As both a lecturer at Bath Spa University and also a musician and producer he shows both a passion for intellectual study and left field rock music. It’s a difficult balancing act to pull off but much like the artists contained within these pages, he’s managed it using non linear narratives, rubbing against the form that both educates and inspires. Just like the good old days of breaking glass and guitar ignition.'
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii
PREFACE ix
INTRODUCTION 1
PART I
1. THE BAUHAUS ONWARDS 29
2. UK ART SCHOOLS 47
3. CONCEPTUALLY REDEFINED 60
PART II
4. THE RISE OF THE NONMUSICIAN 77
5. CONCENTRATION ON THE PROCESS 116
6. EXPERIMENTATION 159
7. RELATIONSHIPS 192
PART III
8. BLANK CANVAS 237
GLOSSARY 265
APPENDICES 267
REFERENCES 271
INDEX 289
ABOUT THE AUTHOR 295