Keeping Your Whistles Tidy?

[ytliek]

At least let me empty my bucket...






I did have fun and from searching I have a whole new slew of pop-ups to habitually ignore while they keep popping up.

And, I thought everyone was just getting warmed up.

[oleorezinator]

[Feadoggie]

There are a few nice ones to be had though:

Yes, I would agree. If I had to make an off the cuff assessment of what we have shown so far it might be that the whistle is viewed largely as a child's toy or an object of fairy-tinged fantasy throughout much of the art world. I expected the pastoral scenes. I expected the images of children playing. I expected the even littler people. But there are isolated regions where the whistle and its cousins and the players of such instruments are viewed as a part of the musical culture for all ages. Ireland obviously has the mature view of the whistle and some of what we see from there portrays the whistle very well.

Any of you have a different take on what we have seen?

This thread went places I would not have imagined.

Nicholas Lander has collected some art concerning the recorder for some time on his excellent site. There is some beautiful imagery shown there. I don't think the humble whistle has been treated as well overall from what we have seen here. But maybe Lander didn't hold on to the chaff of recorder art in that analysis.

Thanks for digging up all these images. I hope it has been an adventure.

Keep 'em coming if you have more.

Feadoggie

[Mr.Gumby]

I have gone through a lot of this stuff looking for piping images so most of it was not really a surprise.

Google image searches, the first port of call, let's face it, will only give you stuff from the internet. The content is drawn into the pointy eared fantasy side through sites like deviantart.com that are easy to upload to and contain a huge quantity of stuff. Speaking for myself, it's by and large imagery that would make me feel a bit queasy. And I find there's more of it whistle related than piping related. I am not a really big fan of the overly romanticised twee stuff either, all the aulfella's in flat caps and girls in long dresses can wear you down very quickly.
I like some of the stuff that doesn't take itself too seriously and isn't trying too hard. And there's some genuinely nice ones. Ones that come from a vision on reality that betrays the eye of an artist at work.

What I do regret a bit is that no sculptures of any (Irish)whistle players. OK we have Willie Clancy but he's playing the pipes in bronze. I have seen (and photographed) some lovely sculptures of pipers, fiddlers and the odd group and dancers (and some less lovely as well). No whistler has turned up so far.

Here's a few more, more generalised traditional music ones, I know:






And there's this:

[ytliek]

Well the artworld is going to have to behold the whistle in all its' grandeur. The lesser cheezy stuff seems to have already been covered.

Why wouldn't an organization like Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann take on an imagery campaign to accompany the music? Well done sculptures of whistlers would be a nice addition. And organizations beyond CCÉ, heritage/cultural societies/institutes. And not solely the Irish ethnic.

The whistle maybe needs to be tagged, discussed, and brought to the fore in social media... regularly... to spread the word whistle. Perhaps the better known whistlers (in all their travels) could pose the question of why the artworld doesn't include the whistle(r) more often in artworks. Why wait until death to memorialize? Just saying.

The tin whistle is going viral!

[Mr.Gumby]

As I said earlier, there are a few really nice portraits of pipers playing the whislte included in the piping iconography, Paddy Moloney among them, but I am unable to find them on the internet and I don't feel I should lift them and put them on-line.

Art isn't really Conhaltas' strong suit. There is some graphic work they commissioned for some of their posters and recordings that include whistlers.
This sort of thing:



And sculpture wise there's this one at Bru Boru:




But other than that I suppose they leave the fundraising and installation of art up to the local branches.

[Mr.Gumby]

I'll add a few more, while we let the thread slow down into retirement:

Although not completely at home in a whistle iconography Deborah Reid's music paintings, The Open Field should get a mention for their depiction of traditional tunes in colour, texture and form. Eg The Morning Dew:



And her sketches of musicians and sessions from the nineties are nice too:



Philip Morrison over in Lahinch has a lot of colourful images, many of which I like because they have a take on the bleakness that is West Clare that makes it look like it's a bright and happy place. He has a few musicians but only one image including a whistle and I don't particularly like like that one (another middling photo rip off, of the three Russells) but I'll give you this:




JBV has a large output. I used only a few so far. Sometimes I feel he has a few that look like they were done on an off day but his work is worth a look overall and I like some of them a lot. A few here of very many:











And another one of the archetypal red haired variety.

[ytliek]

Nice ones.

[Mr.Gumby]

Fiddle player John Kelly has taken to painting:



There's a nice portrait of Willie Clancy he did that's in Oidreacht an Chlaír that I can't find on-line.

[Feadoggie]

Yes, good stuff for certain. Thanks, Mr. Gumby.

I like this one of the low whistlers.

[Mr.Gumby]

I'll add these for now and leave it at that for now:





And going full circle to the start of the thread:

[Feadoggie]

Yes, the painting of PM, natty duds and all, is a keeper.

And we have come full circle. I'll never understand the phrase "clean as a whistle", at least not judging from some of what I have seen in the second hand whistles I have come across.





Feadoggie

[ytliek]

I was hoping thread would stray again... for the gunslingers.



For the farmers.



The antiquers.






And the animal lovers.



Clean as a whistle here.

[Mr.Gumby]

Waiting to get a haircut in Ennistymon just now, keeping the whistle player, sort of, tidy, my eye was caught by a print of Norman Rockwell's 'Shuffleton's Barbershop' hanging on the wall. I did a doubler take, even if I knew it wasn't a whistle player in the backroom.
Surprising nobody here has reworked that one.

[Feadoggie]

Here's the original photo the painting was based on for comparison. Yes, that could easily be mistaken for a whistle.


You're right. I don't think I have the software to pull it off.

The recent MFTV movie had a different twist. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbicQmCl5T8

Feadoggie