Merriam-Webster definition of synesthesia (noun): 1. a concomitant sensation; especially a subjective sensation or image of a sense (as of color) other than the one (as of sound) being stimulated. 2. the condition marked by the experience of such sensations
Sanibel painter Hollis Jeffcoat learned that she had synesthesia when she was living in France in her early 20s, during a terse discussion over the accurate color of a weekday with a gallery curator. The curator informed her that “not everyone” associates days as certain colors. “I didn’t know everyone didn’t have synesthesia,” Jeffcoat says.
For Jeffcoat, sounds, numbers, days and smells all evoke colors. The evocations from music by award-winning flutist Kat Epple, birdsong and chanting interpreted onto canvas will be showcased in February at the Watson McRae Gallery on Sanibel Island in a collaboration between the abstract painter and musician in a reception, artists’ talk and exhibition called “The Color of Sound; The Sound of Color.”
A purist who works mostly in oils in her Sanibel studio, Jeffcoat has been prodigious of late. The exhibit includes eight to 10 new abstracts resulting from Epple’s flute compositions, osprey calling overhead or chanting, which for Jeffcoat has conjured voices of the ancient Calusa.
“I’m hoping that people can open up. People worry about abstract painting — what does it mean, where does it come from? I’m not trying to say, ‘Interpret it.’ If I hear a birdsong, it’s not like I would paint a bird. Same with Kat. We create a feeling,” says Jeffcoat. “I hope they look at the paintings and hear her music and relax into it and know that anything’s possible. There’s not just one way of either hearing a piece of music or seeing a painting.”
Connections
Jeffcoat and Epple bring to the collaboration hefty professional portfolios.
Jeffcoat, a third-generation Lee Countian, followed her innate curiosity and passion for art to the New York Studio School and to Paris, Montreal and back to the Big Apple. Her works are held in prominent collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
A Southwest Florida resident since 1989, Epple is a Peabody and Emmy Award-winning composer and flutist who has released 33 albums, and produced scores for nationally broadcast documentaries, and in many live performances.
They met about 16 years ago; in 2001, Epple played at one of Jeffcoat’s solo exhibits. “I have always loved her art and her energy. I enjoy collaborating with artists and musicians, so this was a perfect fit,” says Epple. In May, “I chose two of the artworks that I could immediately imagine the music that would describe the artwork.”
Epple created a composition called “Coquina Currents” to interpret the oil on linen, Coquina 1, she describes like this: “The music starts with a pool of watery flute, which then begins to ebb and flow to create waves and currents. A layer of sandy sound fades up from below the water, as the waves retreat, coquinas wiggle and shimmy to disappear into the sand.”
Epple’s “Flight of the Osprey” interprets Jeffcoat’s new works in a series called “Sound of the Osprey.” The first two originals have sold, but there’s more to be mined from nature’s well.
“When I’m out walking Gracie (my field spaniel) and the osprey are getting busy, it gets into my system. It is external but it becomes internalized because it hits me emotionally. I think that’s what happens when I listen to Kat’s music,” Jeffcoat says.
“It has to do something for me to really paint from it.”
Jeffcoat, who paints while standing over the canvas, began dancing during the process “quite a long time ago” and “it would kind of get things freed up. Then, spontaneous chanting started happening,” she says.
While creating Coquina 1, Jeffcoat was chanting when she had an ephemeral encounter with the long-gone Calusa. “I felt that some Calusa were chanting and I could hear them. I didn’t have anything like that in my mind. It was like, here it comes,” says Jeffcoat. “The painting was very different from any others I had painted before. And now, it happens all the time.”
The ancient connection runs deep. “It only started happening when I was right here in this studio on Sanibel,” says Jeffcoat.
Gallery owner Maureen Watson, Jeffcoat’s long-time companion, says that since Jeffcoat began consciously employing her synesthesia into her artwork with the first Osprey piece in 2014, it’s taken on a new dimension. Jeffcoat already had the formal aspects of painting mastered. “It’s the feeling she conveys through her work—that’s what abstract art is all about, it’s up to the viewer,” says Watson. “Now, the complexity and intensity in her work is something I haven’t seen before, and it’s something that’s not being done today.”
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