"I have been possessed by a great yearning to go and find, far from men and far from toil the place where dwell the vast forces that cradle us and possess us, where my overtense activity might indefinitely become more relaxed...To me in turn, as to all the sons of man, it was speaking as every generation hears it speak; it was begging me to surrender myself unreservedly to it,
and to worship it."
(paleontologist-theologian & my patron saint)
While you're browsing my recent live paintings from my now-annual stint as Sonic Bloom Festival's live art gallery coordinator, enjoy this dinosaur-skeleton-inspired number from my recent gig at the Dallas Natural History Museum. It's free track on my new album, A Million Anniversaries: CyberAcoustic Guitar For Lovemaking – a 94-minute voyage through America's sacred landscapes and the hyperspace of improvised acoustic-electronic music...
Next week, I'll have the memory reel from this year's awesome twelve-person live art lineup at Sonic Bloom (because I had so much fun making the video for the Wakarusa live art team). But for now, here is the latest harvest of psychedelic art – you can click on each image to view it full-size:
Sigil Egg
2011 06 10, 11 Tribal Convergence (SunDragon, Manoj, Mazeguider, Solus, Cohen)
& 2011 06 26 Sonic Bloom Festival (Tipper, Signal Path, Future Simple, An-Ten-Nae)
opaque pens on tempered hardboard – 24"x24"
signed 11"x17" posters – $20/each or two for $30 (plus $5 s/h) – email me to order
check availability of the original painting
Starting with the automatic writing (aka "channeled text," aka "light language"): The first layer of seemingly meaningless symbols, the closest I've ever come to direct translation of the grooves and melodic strains of live music, are constantly re-identified by friendly strangers as some kind of angelic script. To me it's free jazz – honing the razor edge of my intuitive spontaneity until I can move with the music like one wing in flight.
And yeah, ongoing pine cone obsession. (And yeah, there were pine cones everywhere at TideWater Falls during Tribal Convergence – a remarkable congregation of intentional creatives from across the Western U.S. and a weekend of potent practical idea-sharing as well as celebration...) And the seven-sided star ties this piece back to my pine cone painting from Wakarusa through the archetype of the Virgin Mother (the number seven is historically associated with indivisibility/purity/virginity).
As cloud chamber tracings of a different kind of wild pure energy laps like waves around the protective sigil, the prayer of the scribbled glossolalia blanket and illumine the sleeping cone/egg...
Erosion
2011 06 24 Sonic Bloom Festival (Zilla, MartyParty, Break Science, Prophet Massive)
opaque pens on stretched canvas – 24"30"
signed 11"x17" posters – $20/each or two for $30 (plus $5 s/h) – email me to order
check availability of the original painting
The latest in my ongoing exploration of incompleteness – letting each new layer cover a smaller and smaller area and thus leaving the entire process out in the open. Must be a holdover from my paleontology years, my fascination with fossilization and sedimentology: how the dead dinosaur is covered by mud layer by layer, then its bones replaced by minerals layer by layer, then the fossil bones eroding back out with wind and time after millions of years...
Expect more of these:
Sound Pond
2011 06 25 Sonic Bloom Festival (Octopus Nebula, David Starfire, Tipper, EOTO, Vibesquad)
opaque pens on tempered hardboard – 24"x32"
signed 11"x17" posters – $20/each or two for $30 (plus $5 s/h) – email me to order
check availability of the original painting
Keywords: topographic map, sound waves, interstitial, canyons, corduroy, myosin, rain, onions, cross-section, terraces.
Special notice to the white highlights on white banding that gives the whole thing a much more sculptural feel:
Custom Hats!
Hand-painted and waterproofed, each hat completed in a state of sensitivity to the buyer's natural energy and personal disposition. Like with body painting, these hats create a savored opportunity for me to connect with people on a kind of profound and mysterious level.
If you'd like one, write me with your specifications: budget, colors and patterns, and whether you have a hat already or need me to find you a particular size and style. Got a couple of relatively mellow weeks ahead of me – plenty of time to make you something beautiful.
for Allison
for Caleb
for Sarah
uncommissioned – check availability & details
And that's not even touching on the beautiful work from last week's Electric Forest Festival – where the vivid, swirling nightscape of color-shifting LEDs and blacklights on endless branches seeped into me for some of my most otherworldly art to date. More on that next week. :)
