Transformation

So all of us humans whether we want to be or not are on the spiritual path. Some of us looking for a guru, which in Kundalini yoga terms means going from dark ,"gu" to light, "ru". As well as this literal dark to light change, there is also a refinement change.

Many years ago I visited the city of Granada in the south of Spain. The Alhambra contains the remains of the 8th century conquest of the Islamic Moors and therein lies  the Palace of the Nazarenes. The stone work and architecture is exquisite, so delicate and refined. We spent many hours wandering through courtyards looking at fountains and the most elaborate ceilings . The mosaics , tile work and general craftsmanship were superb.

Afterwards coming out of the Palace into the city I was struck by how primitive the large stone steps were outside, rough hewn stone just set as slabs to walk on. It caused within me a great jarring sensation. I wanted to stay in that sense of refinement.

I am still working on my set of Chakra Drawings, I have finished another one , the third eye.

Female/Male Imbalance

Well I am still working on the Chakra Series, I think I have finished the 4th Chakra see it below. Today I came across this interesting quote ,so my "notes" this week are dedicated to this quote.

Jada Pinkett-Smith: “The War on Men Through the Degradation of Woman”

As we look at societies where the women are lost, struggling for education and otherwise disregarded, versus those who consider women the center of their communities, Jada‘s words ring all the more truer. Read what she has to say below:

How is man to recognize his full self, his full power through the eye’s of an incomplete woman? The woman who has been stripped of Goddess recognition and diminished to a big ass and full breast for physical comfort only.

The woman who has been silenced so she may forget her spiritual essence because her words stir too much thought outside of the pleasure space. The woman who has been diminished to covering all that rots inside of her with weaves and red bottom shoes.

I am sure the men, who restructured our societies from cultures that honored woman, had no idea of the outcome. They had no idea that eventually, even men would render themselves empty and longing for meaning, depth and connection.

There is a deep sadness when I witness a man that can’t recognize the emptiness he feels when he objectifies himself as a bank and truly believes he can buy love with things and status. It is painful to witness the betrayal when a woman takes him up on that offer.

He doesn’t recognize that the [creation] of a half woman has contributed to his repressed anger and frustration of feeling he is not enough. He then may love no woman or keep many half women as his prize.

He doesn’t recognize that it’s his submersion in the imbalanced warrior culture, where violence is the means of getting respect and power, as the reason he can break the face of the woman who bore him four children.

When woman is lost, so is man. The truth is, woman is the window to a man’s heart and a man’s heart is the gateway to his soul.

Power and control will NEVER out weigh love.

May we all find our way.

Jada Pinkett-Smith

Back to the Chakra Series

Earlier this year I began a new series of Chakra drawings, trying to incorporate all the knowledge acquired from doing a year long series of Chakra workshops. As you may remember from an older blog I finished the 1st, 2nd,and 3rd, but the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th were very problematic- I have never experienced such difficulty bringing a drawing to fruition. I got so desperate ,as I restarted drawing after drawing, that I tried to force it, only to realize that no , best to put away the whole series and wait for a better time.

Now with the completion of the 7th Chakra drawing and the new Lotus series. I realize what has been going on, and why this happened like this. I have entered a new phase, that of being in the light, I can no longer use black ink to start a drawing.

The 4th Chakra or heart, is where if you are lucky enough, to have your eternal flame turned on , you can start to live in the light. Most of humanity operates from the first three chakras, security, sex and power, to see the truth of this, you have only to look at the world around. A very small percentage of humanity have moved towards awakening the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th Chakras. For me this move from darkness to light happened at a perfect time during this series, to show what it means in a very literal sense.

New Age

I was at a wonderful gathering on Boxing Day for those of us who are British, if Dutch the day is called Second Christmas, a time to celebrate with friends. What a great idea and what a great group of interesting people, I am making new connections. TB and I found ourselves at one point talking about our 10 and 5 year respective experiences, living at a Spiritual commune/school in the East county of San Diego. We left almost 16 years ago now, to move to Los Angeles, it was a time of great learning.

I was talking to a woman who asked why I was so anti-New Age. I didn't feel that I really answered her as it took some thought, so here goes. Before I joined the spiritual school I felt that I was searching for my purpose with great vigor. I read all kinds of New Age books searching for esoteric knowledge, like gathering stones on a beach. After 5 years a lot of that interest dropped away as I decided to focus on my life, my schedule,my finances, my creativity. In other words I stopped being so interested in the writings of others,the better to focus on what I know and what lies inside me.

The New Age movement is another dogma that causes us to look outside ourselves for guidance. Admittedly its more appealing, than Christianity/Islam/Judaism, but for me personally just as distracting and dangerous. So now I cringe when I hear people say "Love and Light", what does that actually mean, or maybe its just me.

I have finished another drawing in the Pandora series, check it out below.

Pithos or Pandora's Box

So it turned out that when Zeus told Pandora , do not open the pithos or large jar usually used for storing wine, oil or grain and often the size of a man. The Box ,came much later and its origin ,is in the misspelling  of Erasmus of Rotterdam. in the 16th century, instead of pithos he wrote, pyxis which meant box in Greek. Dante Gabriel Rossetti's painting of Pandora with a box, further compounded this . So back to Zeus, he knew that she would go ahead and open the jar revealing all the evils of the world, so why did Zeus set her up? Is this the change from the matriarchal societies, to the patriarchal world we still live in, that began around the birth of Christ. All that was female especially in term of religion was destroyed or absorbed, so the female energy was blamed for every ill in society. Seems about right to me.

This relates to my work because, I was working on a drawing that looked like all the evil of the world flying out onto the paper. The piece had started as the drawing of the 7th Chakra, but it just wasn't right , so I cut it in half ,added a panel of paper and carried on trying to finish it. I wanted to add the box of Pandora's  fame but it didn't seem right. After doing some research and finding out about the jar imagery, I finished the piece. You can see the results below.

Reverse Archaeology

The weekend before Thanksgiving I had my opening at a space in Claremont, I showed nine framed drawings. The lady who organized this, said ,of the opening "it was wildly successful" and it was. I met lots of interesting people, one of them, a geologist, talked about how difficult it is for some of her students, to recognize topography maps as the literal guides to the landscape , that they are. I suggested that she use clay or play-dough to see if they could come up with a three dimensional model of a part of a topographical map. As I was talking to her about my work, it struck me that I do my work in a reverse archaeology sort of way.

Let me explain what I mean, I start a drawing with the initial marks, then I keep adding layers, until all those layers are integrated. Those first marks on the paper look fresh and vital, as though they have been revealed in their perfection , along with the visual balance that occurs as the drawing progresses. This end result of the drawing is that each mark is revealed and is important  to the finished piece. Its as though by adding layers I am discovering the importance and balance of every single piece of the drawing, reverse archaeology.

With the landscape that the geologist I talked to recognized from her map, there is also a layering, literally as rocks are formed by uplift and volcanic actively, but also by erosion and weathering. An archaeologist  has a different set of tasks , to uncover civilizations that have been buried. It would be interesting to talk to someone in this field, to see if my supposition that its all about revealing what is buried. I can see clearly this accumulation of layering really in everything. This is the best part of showing my work, I get to talk to people who can give me so much food for thought.

Mind Control

I had to renegotiate my lease for my studio space last week. It made me feel very tense as I punished myself with my unworthiness. I had to go through the whole litany of my mind, making me feel bad for not being as successful as I think, I should be! What does this even mean, mind? It will never be enough for you. I have chosen a very difficult career, maybe, I have to face that there won't be a payoff anytime soon.

I am having a small show of nine drawings in a space on Indian Hill Blvd in Claremont. I framed the pieces ,at the normal sort of cost for this activity, which caused another round of anxiety. Great now the doubting Thomas of my mind ,has more festering worries to latch onto.

Meanwhile I go into my studio, not sure if it was the fact that my lease is now settled for the next two years, but I had a very productive time and finished four small drawings. The "Warrior Series", a quite surprising combination of colours and larger than normal collage element. You can see the result of my efforts in the image below.

Artist Statement

As a consequence of my father working for the BBC, I was born in Benghazi and lived much of my life living and traveling in different countries.  This has given me an incredible flavor of the world both visually and culturally.  I’ve lived in the US for many years and hold both US and UK citizenship. 

My training at various art schools, including my undergraduate degree from Trent Polytechnic in Nottingham, England and my MFA from Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in Providence here in the US provided a wonderful foundation for my work.  I went on to do a number of Artist-in-Residencies including the Core Fellowship in Houston, Texas where I have work included in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.  I am also in various private collections including the Edward Albee Foundation.

While raising my son, my art career was put on hold.  During this time I continued my spiritual exploration to understand who I am.  I have a love of meditation, which in turn has enriched my art.  My goal in life is to have an understanding of the inner world and the outer world.  This is reflected in my work in a very concrete way.  My art is very literally a journey of my spiritual exploration, for example, in 2007 when I began to work seriously again the work represents a black and white world.  As time goes on, I am exploring a truly Technicolor world as never before.

For the past seven years I have worked consistently on my drawings.  I have produced a complex body of work that I am ready to show the world.

Art Fiesta

This  past Sunday I was part of a posse of twenty or so artists all trying to sell their work. This was the first time I have done anything like this and I am not sure if I would do it again. I did have some wonderful conversations with lots of people and received some great comments. The best one was "yours is the best work here".

 I was situated opposite a man who had taught high school for thirty years and his son. They carried on a very charismatic performance piece chatting and showing their work. They did gather quite a crowd and were certainly entertaining to watch. Next to me were two landscape painters, rather accomplished and  they seemed to be successful in selling their work. I have to admit no one bought anything of mine, not a sausage sold.

This of course makes me wonder if this is a good way to sell art? We are all competing with China and IKEA , not directly because they sell reproductions, but by comparison, a sort of cheapness has entered the culture. I wonder if people really understand what goes into making art, the studio rent, the materials, the years of art school, the time spent looking and making.

It was interesting to watch people as they chanced on my work, they either glazed over, onto the next thing , not really looking or occasionally, someone's eyes would do a double take as they spied my work, a look of visual surprise on their faces. I tried to talk to these people and give them one of my cards.

I know from experience art can be a slow burn, especially new work that defies categorization , as I hope mine does. So I am trying not to be too discouraged , I know its all part of the process. Below is a drawing from the "Lotus Series".

"The Eye Behind the I Am"

Earlier this year I had finished this piece, "The Eye Behind the I Am" or so I thought, but it just wasn't right, so I put it away. Sometimes my work has a gestation period, and I have to wait until its ready. I loved the way the piece could be looking outward or inward through the eye shape. My question is am I looking outward to the cosmos or inward to the universe within? When I added  powdered graphite to the drawing it all went south for me. As I reworked it, I decided to cover all the graphite with white paint to lighten it up, this started to look like flashes of energy or fireworks. The central eye always reminded me of a whale,  the way there is such intelligence within a huge creature all contained within a small eyeball ,or is the eye the  universal consciousness. This part needed more dimension so I added tracing paper and more white oil pastel.

The drawing is finished now, at least I think so. I like the additional dynamism of the marks and the stoical eye. Interestingly someone I know who meditates everyday said she sees an eye within and was very interested to see my piece.