Ear­ly on in his career, John Cage look towards mod­ernist writ­ers for inspi­ra­tion. Texts by James Joyce, E.E. Cum­mings, Gertrude Stein all found their way into his music. In 2012, the record label ECM released an album of these works. ECM cel­e­brat­ed its 50^th anniver­sary by com­mis­sion­ing a group of visu­al artists to respond to its legacy.

Sam Win­ston was one of the invit­ed artists, and chose to respond to Cage’s music and cre­at­ed a series of 183 draw­ings, and pub­lished these in a small, lim­it­ed edi­tion artist’s book.

The Artist’s Book of paint­ed ears and lis­ten­ing eyes includes the orig­i­nal Mod­ernist texts that inspired Cage, 183 draw­ings by Win­ston, and an inter­view with the direc­tor, Ed Pross­er, talk­ing about the ideas behind the draw­ings and some of the strate­gies Win­ston devel­oped in mak­ing the artwork. 

Com­mis­sioned espe­cial­ly for the launch of the project, Win­ston cre­at­ed 60 lim­it­ed edi­tion let­ter­press prints, titled paint­ed ears. Print­ed on 80gsm Munkin Print White by Phil Abel of Hand and Eye Let­ter­press, the print brings togeth­er the mod­ernist texts and Sam’s drawn inter­pre­ta­tions of Cage’s music. Pur­chase the print