CEDE
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EILEEN MACARTHUR
Eileen MacArthur holds an MFA from the University of Guelph and a BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. She has exhibited her work in Canada, the United States and China. She operates the Arthur School of Art from her studio in Arthur, Ontario.
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SILAS CHINSEN
Silas Chinsen is a vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, and producer based in Guelph Ontario. He completed his Bachelors and Masters in Music Performance at the University of Ottawa, graduating summa cum laude with a major in Classical Guitar and a minor in Classical Voice. Outside of his formal education Silas is self taught in composition, jazz harmony, and recording/producing. He recently won the 2019 Ottawa Guitar Society “Call for Scores” composition contest, and wrote and recorded the music for a local Ottawa musical theatre production. Silas is also a choral conductor and plans to complete a Masters in Choral Conducting, and a Doctorate of Music in Guitar.
About the Project
Silas: Eileen and I began by discussing a general theme to guide the project, and decided to explore “certainty”. It being the first month of lockdown, and having recently finishing grad school/figuring out a life direction, this was an idea that resonated with me profoundly. We decided a time-lapse video of one her paintings accompanied by a piece composed to match the video would be the most expressive and engaging medium. Eileen sent me some of her recent works to give me an idea of what direction she would go, and I responded with a rough melody/harmonic plan.
Eileen then completed the painting side of the project, with a rough video edit. This guided my decisions in regard to instrumentation and lyrics. While I had initially planned a more rhythmic, multi instrument composition with multiple sections, the delicacy and natural growth of the plants and landscape in her painting led me to a simpler, shorter piece using only voice and guitar.
The title of the piece is “Cede” has two meanings. Firstly, ceding to the uncertainty of the future and the lack of control one can feel in their life. The second is a play on words, with the idea of seeding the plants in the video, as well as the seeds of a new mindset moving forward. Many of the words are chosen to reflect
specific events in the video, “rising, flooding, engulfing” with the water and trees growing upwards, while also signifying the emotional feeling of these emotions intensifying and overtaking you. Finally as the painting blurs and returns to what it was in the beginning, the lyrics “all that ever may or will be, will be” are meant to show a peace found within this, that while we may have plans of growth and goals in the future, all that we have is where we are right now.
Eileen: I have been working with memory, misinformation and parafiction in my paintings for several years. My process for Co-Create was to paint a narrative into an existing completed work, record the changes using stop motion animation, then completely remove any trace of what was added. The only record of the
process is the animation, which acts as a kind of embedded memory that can only be shared by those that have viewed it. The collaborative aspect was to incorporate the audio as a narrative voice that informed the imagery, timing and movement of the additional painted elements.
