Michael Garfield's Love Without End Tour Newsletter: October 2014

31 October 2014

Constant Unfolding Creativity – New Painting, Articles, Apparel, & Fall Art Sale

"Great art, music, and literature forces us to reassess our place in the cosmos. That’s what science does.”
– Lawrence Krauss

If we are to judge by petroglyphs and monuments left strewn across five continents and several thousand years, astronomy might be the oldest human discipline. The great cultures of human history saw and emphasized their relationship to the cosmos, through ritual, celebration, inquiry, and architecture. They re-enacted their creation myths in how they built their cities and their homes; they taught their children how to see the world as one coherent pattern, in which each life has meaning as a fractal microcosm of the whole.

Today our story is of randomness, our lives divorced from deeper purpose, and we see the fruit of this in burning forests, broken homes, and epidemic existential grief that manifests as cynical constriction to a smash-and-grab mentality, or worse, apocalyptic dread that seeks release in suicidal wars. We need a better story, one that honors our humility as infinitely modest members of a giant universe but also emphasizes our importance as the stewards of our planet and an adolescent race about to take its maiden voyage out into the stars.

It isn’t either/or. We are both infinitely insignificant and infinitely great, our vast potential matched by how profoundly tiny we must really understand ourselves to be if we’re to act with humor, grace, and decency as we develop godlike technological abilities. And for this reason, science justifies itself – not as the means to greater ends, but as the process by which we discover both the deeper meaning and the silliness of life, a post-religious holiness and future arts beyond today’s imagination. There isn’t any end to this at all. The end is in the constantly unfolding curiosity.

[...from my new writing gig at Globalish.]

Find me on Tsu

Right now I'm excited about a new social network that pays its users 90% of the ad revenue we generate – if you've ever felt like Facebook and others are this century's version of slave labor, join me over at tsu.  It's badass.  I'll still frequent those other sites but I'm eager to participate in what I see as an evolution in how we organize ourselves online.

(It isn't as progressive as minds.com – it's still proprietary, not open source.  But it's a step in the right direction.)

New Painting: "Fire Flower"

Oil and acrylic paint markers on 24"x36" masonite panel
Check out the process on Instagram here, here, and here.

Painted in studio 09 02 – 10 21 2014 and live at:
• 01 October – Austin, TX – Lanai Rooftop Lounge for Bumble, Funky Jesus, Luxor, Twips, Fractala
• 10 October – Austin, TX – Swan Dive for Jabu Mbara, Meganoke, Satalights, Myth Magic, Matthew Squires & The Learning Disorders, Deadbeat Poetry

Original painting available and currently on discount (see below).

New Articles For Globalish

Anyone who knows me knows how passionate I am about the big perspective – the importance of placing our quickly shifting age in context as a moment in the evolutionary story, to connect our generation's challenges with a greater understanding of life, the universe, and everything.


Globalish is all about that, and I'm so grateful to have a regular gig writing for them.  If you consider yourself in the growing global movement of creative urban seekers, you'll be just as glad as I am to have found this site.

Here are some of my most recent articles for Globalish:

Revolution:

Travel:

Art:

Life:

New Tanks, Tees, & Sweaters @ ArtistThreads

I'm excited to release a whole suite of new apparel through this California-based company, whose contracts are respectful of participating artists and whose prices are super reasonable considering the expensive dye-sublimation process that gives these awesomely bold, never-going-to-fade colors!  Check out their site – I'm on there alongside several other fantastic artists.  

Original Paintings Negotiably Cheap Until December 1st

If you're looking to gift someone some totally rad original art – lovingly-produced, hypnotically vivid eye candy created in high-energy environments and inspired by our world's deepest mysteries – I've discounted all of my live paintings to a pretty ludicrous degree for the next month or so.  Have a look. – the absolute worst thing that could happen is I distract you for the next five minutes.  Best case scenario, you take advantage of an awesome opportunity and we all go home happy...

Thanks for reading and have an awesome weekend!

16 October 2014

The Very Best I Have To Offer: Painting Sale, Live Music 2011-2014, New Art, Discussing Ayahuasca, More Art & Future Coverage for Globalish

“One of the definitions of sanity is the ability to tell real from unreal. Soon we’ll need a new definition.”

Many thanks to all of you for your attention, for reading and listening to my work, for sharing my posts – every once in a while money gets tight but it makes me happy to know it's in service of large audience who are are (even silently) benefiting from what I share and create.

This edition's big news are my cyberguitar retrospective, a sale on my original art, a new painting, and some of the finest writing I've produced to date.  Enjoy!

25% Off All Original Paintings

I think it's actually been over a year since I last offered discounts on my paintings...at any rate, I'm back to wanting them to find good homes more than wanting to ask what people tell me they're really worth. If you connect with a piece but can't afford 25% off the marked asking price, let me know – I'm happy to split the cost up into payments, budge a little more, possibly even make partial trades.

Any money I make on this is going to help me make it through the festival off-season and to continue volunteering my time as a writer and musician. Most of what I do is unpaid labor and I am deeply, deeply grateful to all of you for your support in helping me dedicate my life to my creative work. If you want to show some love but original art is still out of your spending range, I have plenty of poster prints and pins for sale.

My Epic New Name-Your-Price Retrospective

"Michael has mastered a method of looping and playing that is on a pedestal all on its own. Ultimately [this album] is an exploration into what you perceive music, the guitar, and technology can do…completely altering it. If you want to go someplace else, someplace new, get this album." 

These twenty-seven tracks are fossils of my favorite moments in four years of fully improvised performances. They chronicle the maturation of my voice and sketch the outlines of an epic tour and self-discovery...

I never thought this music would be soundtrack to the art, lovemaking, yoga, writing, childbirth, and magic that it has. I'm honored that it resonates with anyone at all. But then, we live in times when cyborg folk makes sense.

For now, this is what I consider the definitive collection of my work – THE place to start, for people new to what I'm doing, and rich terrain for introspection as I prepare for my next phase in life and music.

New Painting
"Freshwater Kraken"
Studio – 2014 – Paint pens on masonite – 16"x24"

Fourth in a series of chromatic explorations into the basic visual language emerging between microscopic life and antique vegetal design. Floral patterns, paisleys, and damasque collide with retroviruses, trichomes, and DNA in a self-organizing burst of juicy color...

More Writing For Globalish

I love to write.  I LOVE it.  And for years I have neglected this because I wasn't getting paid.  Poor form!  I know.  But now my friends at Globalish have me on board as one of their lead authors, and I'm deeply in the game again.  The topics reach from visionary art and futurism to religion, politics, and music.  You will love this website.

Here are links to all my latest – there are too many to read, realistically, so I've starred a few of my favorites:

    • Channel 1: Revolution
    Reza Aslan: There's No Such Thing As "Muslim Countries"
    Prince Ea & Glenn Beck Talk Love and Consciousness *
    The Equivalent of a Lady Pope: India's First All-Female Akhada
    City of Philadelphia Decriminalizes Marijuana

    • Channel 2: Travel
    Google Put Cameras on Camels to Map the Arabian Desert *
    Explore a Miniature Tokyo in this Tilt-Shifted Time-Lapse
    Eye of the Needle: A Psychedelic Journey with Ayahuasca

    • Channel 3: Art
    New Apps Turns Text Messages Into Face-to-Face Meetings With Strangers
    Check Out Mars-1's Freeform Psychedelic Masterworks *
    Journey Through Time and Swim at Midnight with Tokimonsta
    Drone Du Soleil: Quadcopters Join Popular Dance Troupe
    Portrait of a Dancer: José Navas Shows Paradox of Living Today *
    Is the Future of Car Commercials Visionary? *
    Inside Me: 3D Scanner Imagery Digitizes the Human Body *
    That's Not Supposed To Happen: A Film About the Mystery of Life

    • Channel 4: Life
    YourBot App Sold As Way To Preserve Legacy for Hundreds of Years
    Smart Chopsticks: Your Simple Cyborg Health Ally
    Enlightened: Divinity Will Not Beckon On Your Terms
    An Indian Satellite Is Now Circling Mars
    Prophecy: The Future Will Be Absolutely Fantastic
    The Human Heart Is No Longer Necessary To Life
    Cymatics and 3D Language: Who's Aware of the Story? *

Art Outside is in One Week!

My last festival appearance for the time being is going to be a doozy: in addition to performing my fifth annual set and live painting, I'll also be performing alongside cellist Jen Mulhern and vocalist Tina Rodriguez as the musical accompaniment to the ethereal dance & projection work of ARTheism.  Add about a hundred awesome musical acts, a superb and extensive visual art lineup, and some choice workshops, and you get probably the best festival for its price in the United States.  No joke.  Hope to see you there...

Aya Awakenings Panel Discussion Video


The full half-hour video of the panel discussion I had with Mitch Schultz (director of DMT: The Spirit Molecule) and Rak Razam (director of Aya: Awakenings) after Rak's film screening in Austin this February.  Rak and Mitch are amazing guys.  We went DEEP.  It was awesome.

Parting Shot: MG Ravenectar Dress in Cosmic Village's Video
Full HD Video

Uche Sandra Ike wears it proud in this cool shoot for her "Creation Sessions," making music alongside painter Ali Kapper and flow artist Christine Katherine Dice.  It's a cool song and a lovely pastoral clip.  You can buy that dress she's wearing.

Thanks for reading, listening, and sharing.  I hope you have a magnificent week!