Walter Martin: My name is Walter Martin. I’m a musician/songwriter.
I have a bookshelf with all these artists on it, and I was like, “Maybe it’ll be funny if I wrote all about those people on my bookshelf.”
Michaelangelo up, under and fades completely.
I do struggle with talking about art, you know? I really love art so much, and I feel like it’s hard to, it’s funny thing to talk about, because….when I talk about music, there’s something that’s a little bit grittier about it…I can talk about the Rolling Stones. Yeah, I could talk about the Rolling Stones, how much I love the Rolling Stones, all night, and I’m very comfortable doing that. But for some reason, there’s something a little bit more abstract about the way I feel about art, I guess, that it’s hard to talk about it. It’s hard to say, “Yeah, that painting is amazing because of the yellow thing over there, and the red part up there.” There’s no explanation, a lot of the time for why things are so great, or so moving. And so talking about it is a weird thing to do. Or at least, it’s hard for me to do. I get excited when I hear people talk about it, and they express it really well; like, “Wow, I wish I could express it like that.”
Charles Rennie McIntosh under
Walter Martin: I feel like I grew up sort of surrounded by art, just with my parents, and...it was exciting to me. So I was like, “I want to learn more about art.” So that’s what an art history major does, so I did that.
Charles Rennie McIntosh up and under
He was a Scottish designer, architect, in around 1900. And he designed the Glasgow School of Art, in Glasgow, which I think it’s just a really beautiful building, all the details in it are great. There’s just something really magical and cool about it, that I’ve always really reacted to. And he also made these tearooms in Glasgow, where he designed everything in the tearoom, like the tables and the chairs and the forks, and everything in there.
Charles Rennie McIntosh up, under
And so on tour often with The Walkmen, I would go to his tearoom, sit there, and have tea.
Charles Rennie McIntosh fades into Watson and the Shark
The sort of ultimate art history figure. The very sort of stuffy, unsexy art history is I think of John Singleton Copley. But for some reason, I always liked his stuff. And I always liked Watson and the Shark.
Watson and the Shark
I just felt better writing about somebody like that, than writing about Jackson Pollock. And the lack of edge, or cool, to John Singleton Copley just made it seem like just a more interesting thing to write about.
I really like his stuff. So it just seemed like a perfect little combo.
Watson and the Shark
I actually just had to just tie two verses together that were unrelated, so I thought I would sort of talk my way through it, in the middle of the song. I guess I like the idea of seeing art from a kid’s perspective, just because it’s just really a little bit more pure about the way that you would react to it. I wanted to write about walking through galleries, and seeing history paintings and religious paintings, and other paintings that, obviously, would not be terribly interesting to a kid, and then seeing a person being attacked by a shark, and how that was <laughs> something that, obviously, he would react to more.
Watson and the Shark up and down to the end
Adam Kampe: THAT WAS WALTER MARTIN ON HOW ART HISTORY INFORMED HIS SECOND ALBUM, ARTS AND LEISURE. IN THE BACKGROUND, YOU’RE LISTENING TO “DOWN BY THE SINGING SEA,” A SONG INSPIRED BY ARTIST ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG. IT’S ONE OF THE “LEISURE” SONGS FROM ARTS AND LEISURE. I HIGHLY, HIGHLY RECOMMEND YOU CHECK OUT THE VIDEO FOR THIS SONG.
HIS NEW ALBUM, MY KINDA MUSIC, COMES OUT MAY 5.
FOR THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS, I’M ADAM KAMPE.
MUSIC CREDITS:
Excerpts from “Michaelangelo,” “Down by the Singing Sea,” “Charles Rennie MackIntosh,” “Watson and the Shark” from the album, Arts and Leisure, written and performed by Walter Martin. Used courtesy Walter Martin and by permission of Ile Flottante / Family Jukebox, LLC.
