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.”

– Alvin Toffler

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

Browse Available Pieces Here

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

Click Here & It's Yours

"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." 

– Mixolydian Blog

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"

11"x17" Poster Prints

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

Full HD Video | Stream/Download the Audio

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!

Toad Painting From Gratifly & Arise Festivals | Aya Awakenings Video | My New Visionary Culture Gig

“Creativity occurs in the moment, and in the moment we are timeless.”

– Julia Cameron

Finally back home from all the traveling. Ready to dig in for a few months and finish some much-loved but long-overdue projects. Very eager to share recordings from this summer – the music, yes, but also my talks on transformational sobriety (wow, THAT one was well-attended!) and art as politics (because we vote with our attention).

Time to huddle and create for a couple months, until Art Outside in October:  new studio music and paintings, and A LOT of writing for my new gig at Globalish, and the necessary sweet moments of stillness that punctuate the creative act.

I'm still available to book for custom work or gigs on a lark.  Until then...  ❤

Żabka

Like/Comment/Share

Canvas Prints & Posters

18"x24"

Painted live with Molotow, Montana, Elmer's, Sharpie, & Liquitex paint markers at:

Gratifly Music and Arts Festival (2014-07-26, 27)

during Wildlight, The Polish Ambassador, Zach Deputy, Rising Appalachia Music, William Close And The Earth Harp Collective, Closing Ceremony

ARISE Music Festival (2014-08-08, 09)

during Gaia Experiment, Organix Jam,KatsüK, Celestiowl, Sonic Geometry, Mikey Fisher Breaks, NumiNative, Inti, Buddha Bomb

"Żabka" is Polish for "little frog." Toads are amazing creatures – ancient, metamorphic, sturdy, adaptable. Their habit of consuming the skin they shed has made them an especially potent image for transformation. The most potent animal toxin comes from a frog (batrachotoxin, from Phyllobates terribilis); the most powerful hallucinogen does as well (5-MeO-DMT, from Bufo alvarius). Amazonian tribes use the secretions of another species (Phyllomedusa bicolor) as a ritual purgative to purify themselves for hunting. (This "kambo" ceremony renders people temporarily and inexplicably immune to the shock of electric eels.)

I used to draw frogs for a living. Working as the scientific illustrator for the Department of Herpetology at the KU Natural History Museum, I stippled the description plates for dozens of new species of frogs my boss, Dr. Rafe Brown, discovered in the Philippines.

The trend continued in grad school, when I was hired by my graduate advisor, Dr. Sean Esbjörn-Hargens, to provide a frog-themed cover illustration for his amazing book Integral Ecology: Uniting Multiple Perspectives on the Natural World.

Come to think of it, I've always had a thing for frogs and toads. My first recognition as a writer was for a short story I wrote in the second grade, about talking dart poison frogs. My earliest attempt at an illustrated manuscript was on the life cycle of frogs and toads, the year before. My first detention was for skipping class to hunt for toads in between school buildings, growing up in Florida. (I spent SO much time catching toads and tadpoles as a kid.)

My most enduring shame is the memory of killing a toad by throwing it, before I was old enough to know what death is. That's probably why I defended them so fiercely from bullies in middle school...and why I love that scene in E.T. when Elliott liberates the frogs from his school's bio lab.

My great inspiration Ernst Haeckel, who coined the term "ecology," is also famous for saying that "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" – meaning, the development of individual organisms is a kind of re-enactment of their whole evolutionary history. We all start out as single cells, then grow into worm-like creatures, then fish, and so on...humans do this in the womb but frogs and toads go through their transformation out where everyone can see. Perhaps that is part of their enduring mystery and appeal. Certainly it resonates with my own open-studio process as a live painter, letting everyone observe the work unfold in public.

This piece in particular marks a turning point for me – the moment when I took paint pen technique into a new dimension of blending and transparencies. A little Alfons Much, a little Futurama, with this painting I find myself one turn up the spiral of my lifelong love for these amphibians.

Clip from the Austin Aya: Awakenings Panel Discussion

A short clip from my hour-long panel discussion (free download here) with directors Rak Razam (Aya: Awakenings) and Mitch Schultz (DMT: The Spirit Molecule) on "mnemonic cross training" and how the entheogenic experience can help us learn to maintain our integrity through complex, difficult situations.

Futurism & Visionary Culture Writing with Globalish

I am so, so glad to be back in the saddle as a writer – this time, a futurist and visionary culture correspondent for Globalish, a very cool team tracing the outlines of emerging planetary culture.  Name an aspect of the human experience and they're covering it – emphasis on dazzling visual content, framed by deep commentary.  Here are a few of my first pieces for them:

This Hilarious Old Spice Commercial Is A Window Into Cyberculture

Japanese Artist Arrested For Open-Sourcing Her 3D-Printed Vagina

Lux Moderna: Reviving The Role of Priestess In Sacred Ritual

THC Without Cannabis: Biohacking Yeast For Future Highs

Light & Sculpture Twist Together In This Awesome Brainy Installation

Brainterface Mind Controlled Synthesizer To Hit Markets In September

Vantablack: The Darkest Material Ever Created

Hozier's Powerful Music For The First (And Last) Religion

Coming Soon

Skytree Collab | Aya Awakenings Panel | New Visionary Guitar Electronica | Hummingbird Hats | Summer Festival Calendar

“Altering perception alters the claims reality makes on you."
– Erik Davis

"The only way to do great work is to love what you do."

– Steve Jobs

It's that time of year again – when I cast myself out onto the open road and throw myself wholeheartedly into the blessing and crucible of festival season.  Part fishing expedition, part pilgrimage, I cherish this season for all of the new friends made and old friends revisited, the meditation of the highway, the sizzle and fervor of the festival weekend.

This year I'm not only playing music and live painting, but giving talks on entertainment as social action and leading open discussions on transformational sobriety at festivals across the country.  My summer tour calendar is below.  I hope to see you out there...in the meantime, enjoy the abundance of music, art, and ideas I have for you in this newsletter.  May they alter the claims reality makes on you.

Thank you so much for reading and listening!

Guest Appearance on Skytree's New Album

The opening track of crystalline bass wizard Skytree's new album Cirrus Sapiens features some glitchy guitar and ukulele courtesy of yours truly – along with samples from ethnobotanist Dennis McKenna talking about the curious part of our brain responsible for religious experiences.  Check out "God Detector," and the rest of this amazing album, here.  LostInSound.org gave it a great review you can read here.

Visionary Plant Medicines – Panel Discussion

Stream Online | Free Download

This February I was lucky enough to participate in a panel discussion on indigenous plant medicine traditions, modern entheogenic experiences, and the future of human consciousness with documentary directors Rak Razam (Aya Awakenings) and Mitch Schultz (DMT: The Spirit Molecule).  Stream or download our far-ranging conversation for free here.

In this video excerpt from the discussion, I explain how a DMT trip in 2008 taught me about mind, nature, and reality:

Watch in HD | Add to Youtube Playlist

New Visionary Guitar Electronica Live Sets

Stream Online | Pay-What-You-Want Download

Upbeat, cinematic, invigorating – great for a "getting things done" montage or a drive across the sunset. I was honored to be the first musical guest for Create Culture, a new First Wednesdays monthly by the Third Coast Visions art collective here in Austin at Lanai Rooftop Lounge.  About a dozen of us get together for live painting to DJs and the occasional live musical act in a slick upstairs open-air nightclub.

Stream Online | Pay-What-You-Want Download

Real bluesy and deep.  A performance at Wake the Dead Coffee House (San Marcos, TX) supporting Texas Wild Rice Festival – improvised to live visuals by Topher Sipes of ARTheism, featuring Ashleigh Stone on vocals & George Matthews on human beatbox.

Custom Painted Hats

Like | Comment | Share

This hat and the one below were painted as a pair for a couple that loves hummingbirds.  Since my own recent hummingbird visitation on a hike in the gorgeous Texas hill country – and because it is the spirit animal of Sonic Bloom Festival, my longest-running annual festival engagement – these beautiful birds have been on my mind a lot of late.  

Metaphysically they represent love, joy, buoyancy...a kiss from the sky.  But my paleontologist friend once pointed out to me that they're always on a sugar high from all the nectar and extremely territorial – if they were the size of turkeys we would fear them.  Funny how that works.

Like | Comment | Share

Like | Comment | Share

My Summer Festival Calendar

Every year I get better at picking only the juiciest, heartiest, most dialed-in transformational festivals to give my time, love, and energy.  These events are some of the finest boutique small festivals in the country.  Look them up if you're not familiar – good things are happening everywhere, these days!

FB Event Page

FB Event Page

FB Event Page

FB Event Page

FB Event Page

FB Event Page

New Live Painting | Ken Adams on SolPurpose Conversations | Audio-Visual Psychedelia with Topher Sipes | Two New Concert Recordings

"Don’t think of night as the absence of day; think of it as a kind of freedom. Turned away from our sun, we see the dawning of far-flung galaxies. We are no longer sun-blind to the star-coated universe we inhabit."
– Diane Ackerman

So the summer begins.  The last few weeks in particular have been among the most transformational of my whole life to date...new home, new lease on love, new insights into Being...a fuller update is going to have to wait, cuz Duty Calls.  Or maybe I'll just let the art speak for itself.  :)

Enjoy these latest offerings.  I'm honored to share them with you.  As always, art prints are here, email me if you want something custom, like my page if you haven't already, and feel free to reach out to me at any time for any reason.  Thanks for reading!

"The Soul of Night"

Buy 11"x17" Poster Prints | Like/Share on FB

24"x32" – paint markers on masonite panel

Painted at:

• LANAI Rooftop Lounge 2014.03.05 for Fractālà, Ram-Z, Pharo, Blunt Force

• Head for the Hills Music, Arts, and Brew Festival 2014.03.07 for Gobi, Dimitri's Ascent

• Studio 2014.03.22, 04.09, 04.10, 04.12

In honor of H.R. Giger, may he rest in peace. Also inspired by Mardis Gras, Jumping Spiders, Lingerie, Fabergé Eggs, Christmas Ornaments, and the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors. What more can I say?  

SolPurpose Podcast with special guest Ken Adams

Read More / Free Download

“It’s important that we pay attention. We only have this attention for a very short time in this human frame, and what we put our attention onto is where the most magic and power is. It’s where the most freedom is. Really the ONLY place there’s any freedom is where you put your attention. And it’s time for us to turn our attention to preserving the planet, to loving one another, to sharing what there is…there’s plenty to go around.” 

– Ken Adams

For anyone new to this blog, I'm the editor-in-chief of SolPurpose – a creative nexus for visionaries covering the amazing art and ideas, festivals, music, and healthy life practices of transformational culture.

In the latest episode of our podcast, I speak with Ken Adams – experimental filmmaker, longtime friend and collaborator with psychedelic philosopher Terence McKenna, and director of Imaginatrix: The Terence McKenna Experience, a masterful new work of psychedelic cinema. Ken’s greatest gifts to the community, though, may be his peaceful and compassionate demeanor and the perspective cultivated over years at the front lines of conscious evolution.

For a great conversation on the history of the psychedelic revolution, aging as a spiritual path, and the importance of elders in evolutionary community, you can download our chat for free right here.

Live Digital Psychedelia:

Michael Garfield + Topher Sipes = A/V Medicine Journey

Watch in HD | Like/Share on FB | Download the Music

Simulated DMT Trip performed in light and sound...

Here's the full 22 minute cyberguitar performance I did at the Austin Scottish Rite Theater, the oldest theater west of the Mississippi River, back on February 6th – a collaboration with my friend, digital animator Topher Sipes, following the screening of my friend Rak Razam's film Aya Awakenings.

Topher "danced with light" along to my loosely scripted guitar looping improvisation using the Boss RC-300 Loopstation. (Looping enthusiasts will probably appreciate my application of the three sets of independent transport controls for counterpoint and sample hits, especially toward the end of the performance as things pick up pace.)

Enjoy! Shares and feedback always appreciated.

Two New Live Concert Recordings

2014.02.06 – Scottish Rite Theatre (Austin, TX)

Download it Here

The audio from the video above...since this was an intermission performance between the screening of Rak Razam's ayahuasca documentary Aya Awakenings and a panel discussion about the film, Topher and I tried to make it as jungle triptastic as possible.  Those of you who have any experience with the Vine of Souls are more likely to appreciate how this piece rears its jeweled and streaming head for full-on medicinal overwhelm over an accelerating 22 minutes...programmatic music tracing the opening movements of a transcendental inner symphony.

Download "Dream Snakes" for free.

2014.02.15 – Tantra Coffee House (Austin, TX)

Download it Here

Violinda Lola and I went totally nuts in the climactic moments of this concert we performed together for a Texas Wild Rice Festival fundraiser at Tantra Coffee House in San Marcos, Texas.  I used to have doubts about my ability to launch a crowd to their feet in dance, but this show obliterated them – by the end of the 45 minutes, over 200 people were spilling out of the café's side yard and into the streets, adults and children dancing, people packed up at the front of house, a gorgeous and intense celebration of life I was honored to facilitate.  Super great energy!

Download the whole thing for free until May 28th, and "Do The Aquarena" free after that.

The Sacred Geography of 21st Century Renaissance Civilization

(If you got this by email, read it as a web page for full rich media splendor...)

Reading Music:

"Meridians" – improvised at Art Outside Festival 2011
(download this track for free)

“As viewed by astronauts from the moon, the earth lacks those lines of sociopolitical division that are so prominent on maps. And as recognized here below, the web of interlacing socioeconomic interdependencies that now enfold the planet is of one life. All that is required is a general change of vision to accord with those contemporary facts.”
– Joseph Campbell, comparative mythologist

“It’s not science to me unless it’s integrated, in such a way that it makes a story. I have this holistic view. If symbiosis is simply the living together of organisms in the same place and the same time, in physical contact with each other…then Gaia, which is the whole Earth living system, is symbiosis as seen from space. You can’t talk about cost-benefit and cooperation/competition because those words are proper for the banks and the basketball courts, but they’re not proper for a scientific explanation.“

– Lynn Margulis, evolutionary biologist

This month marks the maiden voyage of a most exciting collaboration as lead blogger for The Renaissance Project – an international team of writers and film-makers chronicling the emergence of a new planetary culture, performing a new evolutionary mythos through the personal stories of genre-breaking creative innovators.

As part of our launch, I just published what I think might be my finest piece of writing so far – a jazzy, poetic romp inspired in equal parts by Google Earth, media theory, archeoastronomy, and ayahuasca.

If my calling is indeed to inspire by sharing what inspires me, then it's time for me to take up the sacred sword and devote myself to the illuminated word – to give a voice to this swirling nexus of culture and consciousness, art and science, religion and everyday life in which all of us find ourselves as we cross the threshold into a new way of being.  Out of the clamor of interconnected perspectives, we can hear a new tune playing – the angelic choir of seven billion people unified in a blooming ecology of mind, our flesh quickened in exaltation of the transcendental living mystery in which all of us are woven – the song of the human condition as it awakens ever more deeply to itself through a re-animated sacred and sentient cosmos.

So please, enjoy this declarative first step down the pilgrimage road of my newly-inhabited role as the muezzin for this post-historical call to prayer – I welcome your comments, your sharing, and your reflections as I gear up to expand this work into a regular flow of philosophical performances and, perhaps, finally, a book:

"We Get Around: The Sacred Geography of 21st Century Renaissance Civilization"

"This all starts right here by recognizing that you live on a spherical creature spiraling around the Sun’s own helical trajectory through the dynamic interstellar medium, through cosmic dust and lightning storms, and whichever way you point we can go no deeper into 'space' than we already are. And as the feeling of humanity as a layer stretching out in every direction on the surface of this sphere increases, as you can almost sense those people in their houses, watching tv or making love or crying about work, the children wondering what adulthood is like, the adults wondering about God…this is you, this is your body, and everyone’s successes are your successes. Every new idea is as yours as your heartbeat – out of your control but part of what defines your being in this time and place." (read more)

This is an open-ended project and we welcome collaborators.  If you feel inspired to contribute to this with your own celebration of world creative culture in an accelerating age, you can fill out an application on the website...here's the video I made as part of that process, to state my interest and intentions.  It's the closest thing I have right now to a mission statement:

Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.  :)

EarthKidzUSA's 2012 Visionary Art Calendar

While we're on the topic of awesome creative projects in which I am honored to participate, here's the coolest wall calendar you've ever seen (Long Now Foundation clocks that measure time in the passing of seasonal flowers don't count).  "FutureEarth" is both a solar and lunar 13-month calendar that gives not only the standard weeks and months but also the Dreamspell dates some people use to feel a closer connection to the harmonic currents of time reimagined as art...and with contributions from an all-star line-up of visionary artists (including Martina Hoffmann, Android Jones, Amanda Sage, Adam Scott Miller, Autumn Skye, Jessica Perlstein, and almost the entire Colorado live painting crew), it's easy to see time as art.

AND the $20 you spend on this calendar funds a FREE Youth Art Workshop Series for 2012!  So you're empowering the next generation of creative brilliance by picking up some of these for your family and friends.

Here's my page – big thanks to Justin Maynes for organizing this, and for making me May:

Buy the FutureEarth 2012 Wall Calendar

So Many Hats

I've been on a roll with the hand-painted hats, of late, and here's your proof.  Most of these are still available for purchase, if you see something you like:

"Fireworks" – check price/availability on fb

"Heart Display" – check price/availability on fb

"Tesla" – check price/availability on fb

"Neon Streamers" – check price/availability on fb

"Nightscape" – check price/availability on fb

"Desert Flower" – custom design for Whomp Austin

"Lite Brite" – custom design for Paul Rush

Stay Healthy For The Holidays!

It's out of form for me to publish a bunch of health links in this blog, but I am after all addicted to sharing, and just found some helpful short articles about psychosocial health and nutrition I think it would be a crime not to spread around.  Here you go – a few easy tips for staying sane and in top form during one of the most stressful times of year:

• Smiling Makes You Smarter

• The Health Benefits of Gratitude 

• 29 of the Healthiest Foods on the Planet

• How to Build A Good Work Environment

From the above article:

"Avoid openly trying to reform people. Every man knows he is imperfect, but he doesn't want someone else trying to correct his faults. If you want to improve a person, help him to embrace a higher working goal — a standard, an ideal — and he will do his own 'making over' far more effectively than you can do it for him."

Forthcoming:

Austin is treating me better than I could have imagined.  Not only do I get to celebrate my 28th birthday and Saturn Return with a free concert at Austin's utterly delectable Whip In on January 8th, but – dude! – I just landed an opening slot for two of my favorite bands in Texas, at one of my favorite venues in Texas.  Click the flyer for more info...I hope to see you there!

...and, lastly, if you've made it this far then you probably have the attention span and dorkitude required to reap full satisfaction from the two-hour interview I just did with poet, former MIT cultural historian, and planetary culture pioneer William Irwin Thompson.  It was an incredible conversation that took us from the religious underpinnings of the singularity movement, to the emergence of new multimodal electronic art forms, to comparisons between the current economic crisis and the critical emergence of photosynthesis on primordial Earth.  And I've never met anyone with betteradvice for a future-shocked planet on how to surf accelerating change.  I can't wait to share it with you.

In the meantime, much love and many thanks to each and every one of you for giving me your time and support!  Lord knows I don't get to book shows at amazing conscious festivals, publish on thoughtful and inspiring websites, and create art that adds lustre to a viewer's soul without this amazing network of friends and co-conspirators turning me onto amazing opportunities and making resonant introductions.  Anything I can do to repay you for your help, please let me know.