Please join us to celebrate Tom Nunn’s exhibit of Skatchboxes and Skatchplates in our window gallery! The evening will include a brief performance by Nunn, and an interview hosted by instrument builder and window gallery curator Bart Hopkin. The exhibit is on display throughout September and October.
Tom Nunn will be exhibiting a number of Skatchboxes and Skatchplates. The Skatchboxes here are part of a series of painted Skatchboxes called “Paintboxes,” created between April 2013 and February 2014. The Skatchboxes are made of cardboard boxes that originally contained computer parts (larger boxes) or computer keyboards (smaller boxes). Various objects are glued to the surface of the box and played with specially shaped soft plastic combs. The sounds are amplified using contact microphones (piezo pickups) taped to the underside of the playing surface (inside the box).
Skatchplates are similar in the objects used and the use of pickups, but the body of the instrument has a flat triangular shape with open ends – the result of simply folding a single sheet of cardboard at two points. The small panel is made to fold under the playing surface for compact packing/carrying.
About the Artist
Tom Nunn has designed, built and performed with original musical instruments since 1976, and has built over 250 instruments. His instruments typically utilize commonly available materials, are sculptural in appearance, utilize contact microphones for amplification, and are designed specifically for improvisation with elements of ambiguity, unpredictability and nonlinearity. Tom has performed extensively throughout the San Francisco Bay Area for over 30 years, as well as in other parts of the U.S., Canada, Europe, and New Zealand, both as soloist and with other musicians. Tom also performs with T.D. SKATCHIT, RTD3, MUSIC FOR HARD TIMES, and GHOST IN THE HOUSE and has appeared on a number of recordings, including his solo CD, Identity (2007), T.D. Skatchit & Company (2009), Skatch Migration (2010), Skatch Surveillance (2012), and Ear of the Storm (2013) (Edgetone Records). In 1998, he self-published WISDOM OF THE IMPULSE: ON THE NATURE OF MUSICAL FREE IMPROVISATION.