Los’s Bright Halls-an Artwork in Progress

So far, my process has been to create a setting, an environment in which to invite imagery into the 2 dimensional space of the canvas. It has been a time of preparation, and invocation. I was well along in this painting when I realized that it represented the “Sculptures of Los’s Bright Halls.” That’s how it is sometimes–it’s best to trust that inner wisdom will present guidance and direction if space is allowed.

 All things acted on Earth are seen in the bright Sculptures of

Los’s Halls, & every Age renews its powers from these works…

In all their various combinations wrought with wondrous Art…

In Blake’s mythology, Los is the fiery, artistic genius whose task is to restore Jerusalem and re-establish harmony among conflicting aspects of Albion, the Universal Man; an inner kingdom that has been usurped by the soul-denying power of reason (Urizen.) He sees soul divided into warring entities as a sign that Albion has fallen into a sleep that closes the doors of spiritual perception.

Blake writes of “Abstract thought warring against imagination,” and saw the tragic effects of Urizen’s reign in the squalor and slavery of the industrial revolution. He saw the minute particulars of the London cityscape as a theater in which was enacted the cosmic drama of spiritual redemption.

Los, caretaker of archetypal images, fluent in the language of correspondances, forges celestial links in his fiery furnace, as well as illuminates the inner, demonic specters that would banish Jerusalem forever.   Blake, long before Freud and Jung, recognized that these dark forces reside within.

 Specter of Albion! Warlike fiend!

In clouds of blood & ruin roll’d,

I here reclaim thee as my own.

My Selfhood! Satan! arm’d in gold.