Tempered Ear
2019
Bees wax, tuning forks, wood dowel, string, wire
15.2 x 182.9 x 4.4 cm (6 x 72 x 1.75 inches)
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Tempered Ear (2019) is a sculptural mobile that hangs from the ceiling approximately 6 feet above the ground. The sculpture contains three beeswax casts of my left ear, three tuning forks, a wood dowel, string, and wire.
Tempered Ear addresses the history of European musical and tonal standardization — A at 440 cycles per second — in relationship with my maternal Grandmother’s musical history. Anna L. Hayes Bradley — my Mother’s Mom — was a trained classical singer who performed in Canada during the 1930s until the 1950s when A440 pitch was in its new prime of standard tuning practice.The history and continued practice of standardized tuning are one all of our ears unconsciously share and are conditioned by.
Tempered Ear attempts to tune into western musical tuning before the advent of industrialized travel and mass communication, when pitch was less homogeneous and varied dramatically from place to place.