Fontana Mix (Dark Grey) 1981

The composer John Cage made this print, Fontana Mix (Dark Grey), though I don’t know when or with what materials. But those undulating black lines…they give me a sense of visual music, a kind of score, and I can almost hear the sounds. You know, it is like Cage started with a neutral ground, a gray, and then introduced these whimsical, wandering lines. The solid ones seem confident, while the dotted ones are more hesitant, like whispers. I imagine him, with his methodical madness, plotting the placement of each mark, maybe using chance operations, you know, like throwing dice, to decide where the lines would go. There is a straight line that cuts across the curves, and then there is that tight grid at the bottom, like a foundation. It seems a bit like Cy Twombly meeting Agnes Martin. What’s so special about painting and art making is that we’re all in this big conversation across time. We are all inspiring each other, riffing off of each other’s ideas, and making something new.