omphalos

In this painting Bird flies top center as Sun-God. Leigh leaves for India in just a couple weeks!

"Unfinished." I'm doing this large painting in remembrance of Brancusi and Kristofer. They both loved playing with dual-sex imagery, integral spirituality, and alchemical hermaphroditism. That is Mt. Ishizuchi in the background; a real place. Leigh Bird took the photo I'm drawing from, and Bird flies top center as Sun-God =). We had just climbed the holy mountain and the mist suddenly rushed in. It was the perfect "Eastern" scene, the pregnant mountain vanishing, and the sunlight hovering directly in front of us behind the mist like an angel. On stage is a mythic creature made of van Eyck's Sheep- Christ, The Sorcerer, Maiastra, and prehistoric Goddess figurines moonwalking while giving life-blood to the world (a very "Western" scene). When the performance is over the mythical, phallic creature goes back into the solid, red box, yonic and vaginal. Dandelions at the bottom are also directly from the Ghent Altarpiece, which is a nice coincidence--I love painting dandelions. They are great distance markers, they take me back, and they are a kind of memento-mori/reincarnation story. The Ghent Altarpiece is significant not just because of its sacred symbolism but because it is by the van Eyck brothers who invented oil painting. They are the First Patriarchs, so to speak. The Sorcerer and other cave paintings were also oil paintings because their paint was made from dirt and charcoal mixed with spit and animal fat. However the van Eycks were the first to use glazes and whatnot. I want to go to Belgium to study the original so badly!

Best Sister Ever

My sister Jane, who is in town from Atlanta for the week, stopped by school this morning to give me a coffee! It's a delicious organic coffee from The Merc with soy creamer. Today from 11 till 2 I'm working the Saturday Life Drawing Session as "Instructor." The room is filled with high school students (some from Kansas City) with permission slips from their parents saying it's ok to study the nude human form. Life Drawing is also a great way to get into the nondual Flow state. "Relax your line!" God this coffee tastes good.

Last night I saw Drive. Mr. White from Breaking Bad and the red-haired goddess from Mad Men flanked the mysterious adonis Ryan Gosling in an interesting mix of poetic, artsy, subtle love story with sensational Noe-like graphic violence.

Little Dragon

Marija Gimbutas: "The thrilling hybrid figure of a man with antlered head, round eyes, a long beard, animal (lion?) paws instead of hands, the tail of a wild horse, and his sexual organ placed beneath the tail seems to be a more important personage than a 'sorcerer,' as he is called.... Abbe Breuil was right to call him the 'God of Les Trois Freres'....[This Master of Animals and Forests is] shown moving, probably dancing."

I am overwhelmed with joy. My Drawing 1 students' "Symbolic Self-Portraits" are so beautiful and intriguing. For this drawing we researched the very first self portrait, The Sorcerer of Trois-Freres, pictured above, and went from there. You might like Ken Wilber's interpretation of The Sorcerer he wrote in Up From Eden.

And a song by Little Dragon. (skip two minutes).

reflections

Finally I stole some time away from my other duties to paint. That's a murky pond in my town and a dead deer half submerged, bathing in the sun. Have you ever stumbled across this kind of scene before? I want an image that can demonstrate birth, old age, death, and decay, all at once.