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Celia Richards

Celia Richards is an artist living and working in Edinburgh. She removes the notes from sheet music to make installations that I find very poetic and delicious.


Celia Richards: Sheet music with the notes removed


Celia Richards: Notes from The Planets (for Two Pianos) by Gustav Holst

I particularly like her works using pianolo rolls because my grandad used to have one in his garage. He had a big box of the rolls and would let us sort through them to load into the machine. We were always awestruck by the undeniable magic of an instrument that played itself.


Celia Richards: Untitled

While exploring her website, I was delighted to find that she’s also been using stitch on some of her pieces, including this darned pianolo roll.


Celia Richards: Untitled


Celia Richards: Untitled

There’s more of her delightful work on her website and her Flickr pages. Thanks to the Rag And Bone blog for alerting me to her work.

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Posted on October 22, 2008 at 12:54 pm  |  Tags:

  • Hello. Thank you for linking to me and writing such lovely things. The Gustav Holt piece is associated with my grandfather as the only record I own is The Planets was his, and also the idea of the absent notes being star patterns. I shall endeavour to update my website and expand further for the interested.

    Take care
    -Celia
  • kim
    That is incredible! delicate and poetic. Thank you!
  • I have read and re-read this post several times. I am amazed by the 'material' use of sound... like the notes from 'The Planets' are different - or have a different material value than the notes from, say, a Broadway Musical. I love this use of context, history and form.

    Kathy Hinde recently did a very interesting set of works focussed around music boxes with punched out cards and a player piano with player piano rolls... www.kathyhinde.co.uk

    ...but the darning on the music adds to the materiality or substance of it somehow adding a whole new meaning to the idea of 'sheet' music.

    I will look up her websites for myself, and think further on sewing, darning, cutting and music...
  • Oooh this is amazing stuff!
    Thanks for the heads up on this artist and her work... very interesting.
  • deb
    Hi, this work reminds me of something I do... check it out if you like, thanks for the post, I really enjoyed the work at her website.
  • Oh I've seen her work before but I'd completely forgotten about it! Its fabulous - thanks for the reminder!
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