"A deeper feeling of care begins with allowing ourselves to move into awe—with all of the different creatures, no matter which ones we’ve picked. If we would attend to them, we would see their colossal grandeur. Abraham Heschel said that awe is the first step into wisdom."
– Brian Swimme
– Brian Swimme
Vote For Me in the Creation Skateboards Design Contest!
Make this dream a reality by voting for my "Every Day Is A New Year" deck at the Creation Skateboards design competition! One of the coolest skateboard companies ever – judging from the all-star roster of visionary artists who have contributed designs – they'll pick the winner on February 1st by whose skateboard graphic gets the most "likes" on Facebook.
Look, I'm getting tired of competitions too. I'd rather put your precious energies and attention to a nobler cause. But success is shared, and I know that it'd make a lot of people happy to skate on this bad boy. So take a moment if you please!
(If you missed the post about this most-epic-of-my-paintings, you can read it here.)
(If you missed the post about this most-epic-of-my-paintings, you can read it here.)
And now on to the really juicy stuff...
Soaring (The Opposite of Trees in Cages)
+&+2012+12+31+City+Hall+(Amon+Tobin,+EPROM,+Kastle,+Future+Simple+Project,+Seied,+Digital+Connection).jpg)
Painted Live At:
2012 12 30 Cervantes Masterpiece Ballroom
(Random Rab, Tipper, Ill-Esha, Human Agency, Seied, Cualli)
2012 12 31 City Hall
(Amon Tobin, EPROM, Kastle, Future Simple Project, Seied, Digital Connection)
My last painting of 2012 (and my first painting of 2013) sets the tone for a year of dynamic and reverent animal art...
I saw 67 red-tailed hawks (63 live and four dead) on my drive out to Denver for New Year's Eve...that was a pretty big hint that I had to give this bird its due in my next painting. The hawk is a powerful animal totem, symbolizing vision, truth, and initiative – all good things to hold in heart while setting out on the new adventures that 2013 is bringing us.
The hawk reminds us to nurture our latent power, to notice what others miss, to view our lives from a higher perspective and move forward with bright eyes and a bold heart...
"When you look at yourself from a universal standpoint, something inside always reminds or informs you that there are bigger and better things to worry about.”
– Albert Einstein
"I refuse to be enslaved by a single perspective."
– Timothy "Speed" Levitch
– Albert Einstein
"I refuse to be enslaved by a single perspective."
– Timothy "Speed" Levitch
Thanks to my design shop at Arts Projekt, you can buy this painting on a number of handy items, ranging from cool to crucial. I only make about 10% on these sales (most of it goes to the website), but it's such a fun way to offer my art to everyone:
Click to view the painting in progress:
My Next Embroidered Grassroots California Flatbill
I'm so honored to have another great hat by Grassroots California coming out in just a few weeks! The first one was a huge hit and I'm still running into people wearing it everywhere I go. With this one I wanted a subtler, classier design that would suit more people (the first one was so overtly psychedelic it took a special type to even wear it). And GRC just got a new mold to make size 8 1/4 hats for all of us with giant heads!
Preorder through me if you'd like to support the artist – I won't profit from any sales made on the GRC website. I'll also waterproof your hat for you at no extra cost, and I'm happy to paint it up a little too if you'd like.
To preorder, just send $55 to michaelgarfield[at]gmail[dot]com via Paypal as a personal gift, and leave your hat size and mailing address in the note box. I'll take it from there! And you'll get your hat in early February, just in time for spring festivals. :)
Evolution & Guitar:
My Set from Art Outside 2012
What does my training in paleontology have to do with my career as an improvisational musician?
This is my first combination talk/concert, a blend of improvised cyberacoustic guitar loopscapes and the science ideas that inspire my musical experiments. For a half hour introduction to both my music and ideas, you can't do better than to download this free EP.
In it, I explain why we have a lot to learn about the silver lining of humankind's current evolutionary crisis by looking back at earlier events – like how algae almost killed off all life on Earth by inventing photosynthesis. And how, by studying how the fin became the leg, we might be inspired to find creative new uses for old, familiar tools...
Thanks to Art Outside for giving me a stage to inspire people, three years running...!
More Custom-Painted Hats
The latest couple of one-of-a-kind custom designs. Check out my full gallery for ideas if you'd like to order one of your own...
Top Mystical Films on Reality Sandwich
I'm a regular contributor to one of the coolest blogs I know, Reality Sandwich – an exploration of consciousness, ecology, culture, relationships, politics... (And what isn't covered by that list?) They just published a list of everyone's favorite mystical films, and I chose The Fountain – easily one of the most awe-inspiring films of my life so far:
Darren Aronofsky's epoch-spanning reincarnation love story is about more than the quest for eternal life or the fanatical love that justifies it. Somewhere in the interference pattern between a dizzying braid of worldspaces past, present, and future, Aronofsky shows us the transcultural yearning that defines our human condition, regardless of (or, rather, beyond) space and time.
(You can read my original 2007 review of the film here.)
And that's all she wrote, for now. Thanks for reading, stay in touch, and live in health!
