Precious Pairing

I had an “artful” experience earlier this week when two special items came in the mail—the wind chimes to be used in my upcoming art video, The Chimes. In this short film, the interaction of the two wind chimes as accompanied by winds and passage of days tells a love story near and dear to my heart: the brief life-moment of happiness I experienced with my recently deceased boyfriend, Don.

As I shopped around online for two wind chime sets that could anthropomorphically act as the “main characters” for my concept, I listened to samples to make sure that the wind chimes I chose were actually musically tuned; this requirement refers to my real-life experience of giving Don a gift of wind chimes that were tuned and would sound pleasantly melodious when played by the wind blowing at his porch. Yet this time, the idea would get meatier: Not only was I looking for wind chimes that were each tuned, but they had to sound good together, complementing each other to give my audience a feel of a kind of love and chemistry that can be found in the most cherished of human moments.

And when these wind chimes arrived, they certainly accomplished this expression, but even more richly than I anticipated.

What I noticed upon pulling them out of their boxes was that, first of all, neither of them seemed to need much nudging by outside forces to begin making their music. Secondly, it appeared that, no matter what speed or amount of force they experienced (I’d practice swinging them gently and violently to stimulate variable winds and to test volume differences), their random combinations of tones always meshed harmoniously with each other and kept consistent volume, one wind chime never overpowering the other, despite the difference in each wind chime’s size. It felt like watching a love story in action!

I get a feeling this musical couple will fill their roles adeptly and recount my autobiographical experience the way it should be expressed, and only in the way a capable pair of wind chimes can do it.