mythique imagery's Journal
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
mythique imagery's LiveJournal:
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| Friday, January 9th, 2004 | | 7:46 pm |
// "Nearness of Apple" /
"Nearness of Apple"
1993
40"x20" Berol Prismacolor on heavy black matteboard.
Artist's collection. Current Mood: accomplishedCurrent Music: "Music Tapes - 14 - Song for the Death of Parents" | | 6:37 pm |
// "Bird of Paradise" /
"Bird of Paradise"
2004.01.08
14"x11" Acrylic on stretched canvas.
Artist's collection. Current Mood: creativeCurrent Music: "Gsw1994-10-27d1t04" | | Monday, December 29th, 2003 | | 12:08 am |
| | Thursday, November 27th, 2003 | | 3:14 am |
// "Ascent into Madness" /
 "Ascent into Madness", a.k.a. "the crazy tree woman". Started 1994, finished 1996, big gap in the work in-between. Acrylic on an old ragged piece of unstretched canvas. Currently hanging in my foyer. Not the best picture, but close enough for government work. I think it's something like 4' tall. Current Music: "Miss Emma Peel" by Dishwalla | | Tuesday, November 11th, 2003 | | 1:53 am |
// Dream Dump. /
Dreams. Lots of dreams, and I can't remember which go to which nights very well since it's been so long since I've tried to write them down. But some images linger on. ( dreams, before sleep ) Current Mood:  sleepyCurrent Music: "Lost My Mind" by Matthew Sweet | | Friday, September 19th, 2003 | | 4:05 am |
// Rambling Dreamings /
The points are converging, and I've got the sinking feeling that when they finish coming together I'm going to have a whole lot of work in front of me. My gut says I've got until sometime around 30 to make this next transition, whatever it is. Then, my dreams tell me, the Pure Choice. How can I describe this? It's not like I know where I'm going, as such, but the feeling of flux has been slowly falling away and being replaced by some deeper drive, the unique voices are merging into a song of strong notes supporting each other. I hear my own voice, too, feeling for a moment foolish; of course I've been singing! The Winged Man walks at the edges of my thoughts often again lately, offering witty commentary on the slideshow of conceptual contortions. I've been ( dreaming. ) Current Mood: sleepyCurrent Music: "Satellite" by Dave Matthews | | Monday, July 7th, 2003 | | 2:42 pm |
// Visiting Ereshkigal /
I did my second day of work on my art Project last night, and got the basics of the main figure sketch laid out. It's taken life in my head, and I felt that soft, exhilarating *whump* as something took control of my processing and redirected my pencil. Instead of using newsprint for the prelim sketch like I normally would, I decided to use some watercolor paper. As I was sketching, it occurred to me that I could clean up my pencil lines after I was done with the transfer, and then go back over the initial sketch in a different media for a variant feel piece. Kind of like a buy one, get one for half price deal on the energy expended.
I've always considered self-portraits to be the most emotionally challenging of all art to produce. This might not make sense to anyone but me, but it's the spiritual equivalent of walking into a party in a dress designed to let every one present know exactly what your body looks like. Art brings absolutely everything to the surface as consciousness becomes inverted and logic takes the background to the force of the dream-time. It tears me open, digs around inside, and reads my own organs for me as I look down in mute horror. It brings me the company of angels and demons and ancient caves of initiation. It takes me like a lover, filling my being with the flavor of foreign yet enigmatically familiar energy.
It drains me, this past week, and I know why. I am fearful, nervous, I yet resist complete surrender to Art's toothed and clawed embrace. I have assigned myself a Project that I know I cannot complete without letting go. I might Play on the side as I work, particularly if I need to work on techniques, but now there will be Projects, there will be goals, there will be discipline, and there will be change. This is a keystone, and it's going to be worth the work to bring back into balance. It's a screaming omission yet remaining to be fully reborn. This is all just creative labor pangs. Current Mood: indescribableCurrent Music: "Effortlessly" by Sister Hazel | | Thursday, July 3rd, 2003 | | 4:41 pm |
// Alex Grey on Mondrian and Modern Art /
"Abstract shapes and patterns have long been part of the world's sacred art traditions. In fact, the art of both Judaism and Islam maintain that there must be no attempt to represent God iconically. This edict has brought the artists and craftsmen of these traditions to the development of dense and metaphysical patterning adorning many temples and mosques and has led these traditions to pour great invention and beauty into their calligraphy. Tantric and alchemical art have long used abstract and symbolic forms to point to the spiritual ground of being, yet just as often they portray the interrelatedness between the transcendent spiritual world and the immanent or manifest material world.
But in the artistic quest for spiritual abstraction in the twentieth century, a rift between the spiritual and the phenomenal world was espoused by some of the modernists. The idea that the universal is only abstract and not to be represented through references to the phenomenal world became a mandate for many artists claiming spiritual content in their work. In the words of Mondrian, "More and more, not only the uselessness of figuration, but also the obstacle which it creates, will become obvious. In the search for clarity, non-figurative art develops.... It must be obvious that if one evokes in the spectator the sensation of, say the sunlight or moonlight, of joy or sadness, or any other determinate sensation, one has not succeeded in establishing universal beauty, one is not purely abstract." Though seeking a direct way to make visible the transcendental domain, the early modernists could be said to have "camouflaged" the spiritual in abstract forms. The works were not exhibited in churches or temples but in galleries and museums alongside paintings whose creators held no spiritual intentions. As a consequence, the uninitiated did not readily perceive the meaning of hidden subject of the paintings. Many critics and art historians have discounted the spiritual claims of these pioneer modernists and focused on their revolutionary formal inventiveness. In the catalogue for Mondrian's recent retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, scant mention was made of his involvement with Theosophy, let alone its influence on his approach.
The question arises as to what effect an artwork may have on a cross section of average people. If artists consider their work spiritual, does it necessarily convey that sense to the viewer? Because recognizable spiritual symbolism is not obvious in their works, nor are the works exhibited in a "sacred" context, claims of spiritual content are subject to interpretation and, with rare exceptions, have been largely ignored by the mainstream art world and public." - Alex Grey, The Mission of Art, pp. 41-42 Current Mood:  thoughtfulCurrent Music: "Young Hearts Run Free" by Kym Mazelle | | 4:40 pm |
// Alex Grey on The Gates of Hell /
"At the opening of the twentieth century, one boldly inventive and sacred-iconic sculpture was Rodin's unfinished masterwork Gates of Hell, exhibited as the Paris Exposition of 1900. The prophetic nature of Rodin's Gates, with the piles of suffering and tangled bodies as the anxious "thinker" contemplates the scene, is remarkable, for it eerily anticipates the Holocaust and other horrors of the twentieth century. Rodin's composition for the doors was in many ways similar to Michelangelo's swirls of bodies in the Vatican fresco of the Last Judgment, or Rubens's baroque nightmare Fall of the Damned. But a crucial difference in Rodin's composition is the elimination of a sacred figure of redemption. The Christ figure has been replaced by the "Thinker," who was originally called "The Poet." The poet or artist is the closest the Gates comes to having a spiritual messenger, yet the poet/thinker seems to offer no transcendent potential and no hope. The poet's downward gaze is witness to a humanist nihilist chaos. Rodin's genius divined the position of twentieth-century existentialist artists." - Alex Grey, The Mission of Art, pp. 37-38 Current Mood: contemplativeCurrent Music: "Prince Caspian" by Phish | | Friday, June 27th, 2003 | | 8:37 pm |
// This has been my past week. /
"We all organize and interpret life according to a unique psychological filter or lens, our worldview. This psychological context, the way we hold the realities of life, including who we think we are, mostly goes unnoticed. Our mind and body use it somewhat automatically. In order to notice our own worldview, we have to think about the way we think; we have to rise above our habitual thought patterns and notice that they are habits. We have to question who we think we are. This happens only when our worldview is sufficiently challenged, when new visions collide with and unsettle our existing vision of life. If the challenge is great enough, our worldview will dissolve and either regress, break down, or transfer to a higher and deeper vision. Art history is a record of such breakdowns and breakthroughs." - Alex Grey, The Mission of Art, p.10 Current Mood: indescribableCurrent Music: "Overture "Die Meistersinger Von Nurnberg" Boogiepop Version" by Wagner | | Thursday, December 5th, 2002 | | 4:01 pm |
// notes : piercing Australian shamans /
Reading now about Australian shamanism in The Strong Eye of Shamanism...
"We may also remember that in a symbolism analgous to these visions of radical dismemberment, the Australian shaman is pierced through the back of the neck and outwardly through the tongue. Not only is the hole in the tongue indicative of the shamanic vocation but, moreover, the vocation somehow depends upon it, for if it heals, the shaman's powers will disappear."
and, on the next page...
"As we noticed earlier, the Unggud serpent had a feathered crown, and by virtue of this feature, we are told, this typically cthonic creature can fly. Indeed, in some areas of Australia the postulant and the initiating shaman are said to fly through the air astride this snake."
...
"In the Unggud serpent and its variations we can recognize a symbolism occurring with striking frequency among the world's various forms of shamanism. As a spirit guide, Unggud unites the three cosmic realms. It is a denizen of the depths, both in the waters below the earth's surface and in its home beneath the earth, a creature intimately associated with the earth's surface, which it scuds across on its belly; and, in this case, as the flying plumed serpent, it becomes celestial. It symbolically establishes a vertical axis that unites the shaman's cosmos." Current Mood: thoughtfulCurrent Music: "Once in a Lifetime" by Talking Heads | | Tuesday, December 3rd, 2002 | | 2:25 pm |
| | Tuesday, November 26th, 2002 | | 2:55 pm |
// Temporary post : explanation /
I realized that I should probably note that I'm FINALLY working on the editing of my really long "epic" dream series from early September that I keep talking about to some of you. There are many parts, and it might take me awhile to get them all done, but I figured trickling it out was better than sitting on it all forever. The one I posted last night is actually the second part, not the first, so there's one missing. I just posted that one because it required the least work to post of all of them. I'm amused to see you guys asking many of the same questions I did when I had the dreams, and I'll go back and answer them after I've got the whole series posted, since some stuff makes more sense later. I hope to have the next part posted before I go make lunch today. On the upside, my notes for this dream series are way better than my typical sets of dream notes, with lots of complete dialogue and action bits, which makes it a lot easier to get them get into posting form. Current Music: "There Goes God [Variant]" by Crowded House | | Sunday, November 10th, 2002 | | 11:47 am |
// dreaming : nightmare producer /
2002.11.10@11:47AM
I dreamt last night that I was employed in the craft of designing and producing nightmares. I lived in the dream-world, behind the scenes, like the Gourd world in Piers Anthony's Xanth world. I was working, surrounded by rough sketches, plans, storyboards, and conceptual artwork, at a white drafting table in a black chair. Someone I had known long ago had been touring through for some reason, and had seen and recognized me. They flipped out, excited, hadn't seen me in ages, how was I doing, what was I doing here of all places?
I explained that I'd been a ( Dreamer. )
I woke almost immediately after finishing my tale and praising my job. I woke up remembering the entire thing clearly, and was able to take my leisure before writing it down; it just stuck that well. It felt, still feels, somehow very important, although I must admit this time it's not really all that clear to me what my dream was telling me. Usually the meaning is so obvious to me I don't even bother musing about it or even writing down the meanings I sense, because it's just so obvious. But this one feels strangely obscure, particularly for something carrying such a significant feel. We shall see. Current Mood: perplexedCurrent Music: "Walking on the Spot" by Crowded House | | Sunday, October 13th, 2002 | | 2:36 pm |
// Further metaphoric spelunking /
(preliminary draft - "Song of Discovery" (tentative) - 2002.10.12 - ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) mythique - see also related sketches)
Í took a trip to the Isle of Man;
Crossed the seas and the land and dug deep;
Climbed the hill and sat within the circle
within the circle within the circle.
Í felt the cycles lap over my knees.
Í felt them flow around me, heard the sloughing of each season's scales.
Í went there to the center and watched the sun burn low.
Í laid the cards out before me, first one then two three four five six seven... seven then twelve then twenty-one and soon enough seventy-eight degrees of wisdom laid before me, layered and clustered, weaving a great pattern beneath my finger-tips.
Í saw you who challenged and wounded me, and Í thanked you;
because you gave me your weapons, your me;
you have built my dowry, made me strong.
Í saw you who nurtured and guided me, and Í embraced you;
because you gave me my power, my Will;
you have sharpened my edge, made me keen.
Í saw you who churn in my passing wake, and Í missed you;
because you have taught me that all things must die;
you have revealed the turning of the Wheel to my eyes.
Í saw you who strode and stumbled before me, and Í praised you;
because you blazed the path for me;
you have directed my feet to the trail, shown me the way.
Í saw you who will walk beside me, and Í danced for you;
because we quest for the greatest treasure;
you cannot imagine the beauty that awaits, ahead.
Í saw you who are yet to come, and Í delighted in you;
because you will raise your home here;
upon the foundation we sink deep, roots to nourish.
Í watched the turning of the world around me, and Í understood;
because the dice are rattling in the cup;
and I have placed my marker upon the table again. Current Mood:  quixoticCurrent Music: Peter Gabriel - Digging in the Dirt | | Thursday, October 10th, 2002 | | 2:22 am |
// For Lo, an Artist is always previously Wed... /
[ Originally quoted 1999.11.11 in a now-retired journal of mine. I generally mentally replace the word "Painting" with "Art". - mythique ]
"The moment has come to reveal to you my Secret Number 12: Every painter must have a wife and a mistress. But all three must live together, and live in the most perfect harmony. You realize immediately that this involves a menage a trois. With your legitimate wife you must begin to cohabit at the age of twelve, and at this moment she will be exactly 1300 years old. Her name is Painting, her cheeks are fresh as a rose, her breasts are the roundest that it has ever been given to you to contemplate, and you would take her, at the most, for thirty-six. And you must know that she will never age.
In order that your marriage with Painting shall be a happy marriage your love must not, as you think, be absolutely reciprocal, though it is quite necessary that it be shared. Remember the unhappy love of Cezanne with his Painting - he worshipping her so completely, and she, ungrateful that she was, remaining utterly indifferent. On the other hand, remember the uninterrupted honeymoon of Raphael with his Painting. In my own case I must avow frankly that Painting loves me more than I love her. And she is often put out with me, for each time I neglect her a little in order to write, I write only about her. I know that she will overwhelm me with bitter reproaches. For Painting cannot be satisfied with words, which the wind sweeps away. She wants you, my dear friend, to posses her at least three times a day, and not a single night will she fail to slip into your bed.
That is why it will be so difficult for you to find a mistress, and at the same time why she will become for you the rarest and most precious thing in the world, if you succeed in finding her. Rare and difficult, because at all costs she must not be jealous of your Painting, but on the contrary she must love her not only as much as you yourself do, but even more! And precious, because in spite of the fact that while Painting you will experience ecstasies, you have already understood that they are of a platonic nature. She cannot therefore gratify your libido, painter though you be. See, then, how lucky you are, since the one you will really marry when you are in your middle twenties and who, in the eyes of all the world will pass as your legitimate wife, or at least as your morganatic wife, will in reality of truth be only your mistress, with all the perpetual romance which this implies, while your marriage of all the most everyday moments of your life will be that into which you entered through the sacrament which you contracted in your early teens before the muses of Olympus, with your dear and well-beloved Painting. See, therefore, once more how happy you may consider yourself among men! To be able to live with your very wife as though she were a mistress into whose arms you were escaping from the soft, but too habitual conjugal bed!"
- Salvador Dali, 50 Secrets of Magic Craftsmanship
| | 2:13 am |
// "Self-Portrait With Emotion" /
[ Self-Portrait With Emotion - 1992. Acrylic on board. ]
[ "Self-Portrait With Emotion", image and tale : © 1992.04?, 2002.10.10, 2002.10.09 - mythique ]
Last updated 2002.10.10
2002.10.09 @ 1:05AM - At one time Í had my entire High School portfolio posted to my website, with descriptions and backgrounds for many of the works. Í've been meaning to use this journal to re-post some of it, Í just really haven't had the time. In fact, Í still don't have the time, but Í've been wanting to post this one for a very long time. Í originally wrote the description below for a legacy website of mine on 2000.01.20, and find myself uninclined to change it in any way, save for formatting and reposting. This was my first formidable breakthrough piece, the work that ultimately taught me to call up focused artistic energy rather than waiting patiently for it to loose itself from me. Í only wish Í had then had even the slightest clue of what Í was really learning in Coffman's Art classes. With each year that passes Í realize more and more that there's no concept large and unpolluted enough in my language set to describe the depth of gratitude Í have for the radical impact her "crazy" "nontraditional" educational style had on my life and perceptions, echoing powerfully still to this day. The statements in the tale aren't exact; Í don't have that sort of memory. Rather they contain the essence of the conversation and situation that led to this particular breaking point that afternoon. Truly, from that day forward Í understood what it was to "be an artist," though it will take at least the rest of my life to make any sort of rational sense out of the notion.
( Image and tale within ) | | Wednesday, October 9th, 2002 | | 12:32 am |
// Nailed on the head! /
[On a Quiz, Tarot, and Archetypes.]
Last updated 10.09.2002
 |
WATER OF FIRE. You are energetic and dramatic. You don't hesitate to take the initiative and aren't normally comfortable being cooped up in the house. You need to be involved in some kind of cause or activity. Your charismatic personality gets you plenty of attention. You'd make a good artist and are very creative. You have a strong will; beware of jealousy or instability. You fiery wench you. |
Quiz
created by Polly Snodgrass.
Hahaha! Yup, that's my significator, all right (of the court cards anyway). Of course, in my primary (Haindl) deck, this card is even more significant to me; the Mother of Wands in the East portrays Kali Ma, the Black Goddess/Mother Night/Kali Mahadeva, Great Mother Goddess of the East, wearing the moon crown, echoing Inanna/Ishtar/(Nut->Hathor->)Isis; this is one of the foundation archetype echosets Í work with. Particularly this past year, Í've been doing a great deal of meditation work with the wild sexual feminine creative-destruction so prominent in the Kali-aspect (which also echoes of the Eris-aspects, of course) of the greater archetype. See the Haindl Mother of Wands card below:
( image cut for employers looking over shoulders )
Divinatory Meanings from Rachel Pollack's The Haindl Tarot (Volume II):
"In readings, the Mother of Wands signifies a person - not necessarily a woman - with a wild female kind of energy. She can be vindictive, even cruel. However, she can also be a loving mother. She exults in her own power. She does not recognize boundaries, especially those of conventional morality. She has a dark power and a wild sexual energy. As a lover she awakes and gives passion. Her partner, however, may feel overwhelmed at times, even frightened.
Hermann Haindl describes Kali as the strongest, most magical of all the Mothers. He sees her as basically positive, for she represents a person who can deal with the dark energy of her own desires
( Reversed, ) Current Mood: highly amusedCurrent Music: Madonna - Human Nature | | Wednesday, August 7th, 2002 | | 12:27 am |
// dream-time : "Wrestling with the Veil" /
[ Enter the dream-time ]
[ "Wrestling with the Veil", a dream : © 2002.08.07, 2002.11.27, 2002.11.27 - mythique ]
Last updated 2002.11.27
2002.11.27 @ 03:42AM - Okay, this is the bit where the action starts to pick up. Maybe I should have clustered the shaman with the hanging, but the hanging just seemed to take SO LONG it deserved its own post. What do you think?
--Shamanic Feathers--
As Í sit in my dream-zazen, the sound of footsteps intrudes, and Í become aware of a middle-aged male shaman strolling along the ravine bottom. Í've never sensed him before, but sure enough he is here now. His path takes him directly in front of me, where he pauses for some time, watching me even as Í watch him from beneath my closed lids.
Abruptly, my eyes shoot open as the shaman bursts into ( laughter )
Current Mood:  exhausted
Current Music: "Secret World" by Peter Gabriel | | Tuesday, August 6th, 2002 | | 8:13 pm |
// dream-time : "The Hanged Woman" /
[ Enter the dream-time ]
[ "The Hanged Woman", a dream : © 2002.08.06, 2002.11.26, 2002.11.26 - mythique ]
Last updated 2002.11.26
2002.08.06 @ 07:49PM - This bit moved rather slowly, seemed to involve a lot of contemplation and processing. Which is, Í guess, appropriate, given the situation.
--Hanging in Inversion--
At some point, while Í'm hanging there upside-down lost in contemplation, a bird ( flies in )
Current Mood: contemplative |
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