myth – Page 3 – A View from the Wheelhouse

Mars-An Artwork in Progress

Posted on December 30, 2013December 30, 2013 by Dogfish Bay

The paintings have each taken on planetary aspects and this one seems to be heading toward Mars. I’ve been trying to preserve a loose, fluid handling, but it always becomes a struggle.

It’s like meditation. When sitting, my mind wanders into monkey territory and I need to refocus-come back to the breath, mantra or visualization. And this is Okay. I’ve heard it said that meditation was about shedding light into the darker corners of confusion and afflictive emotions; confronting obstacles, not avoiding them. Something similar is being played out on canvas.

Ghostly figures emerge from pools of raw umber, terra rosa and paynes gray as if they wanted to give me tips on technique. Maybe they want to tell me it’s all good-just chill and take up a new canvas when things get too thick.

And since these posts are a big part of this process, I’ve decided they should also be more spontaneous-straight from the heart. Just whip it out without worrying it too much.

At the same time, I’ve continued to grapple with Jerusalem. I read of Los’s (poetic genius) struggles with Urizen (reasoning power) to re-establish harmony among the 4 Zoas (similar to Jung’s 4 functions) in the imaginative project of building Jerusalem. There are are verses that, while memorizing them, beguile me with their stunning imagery and painterly use of upper case letters. Some have all the pithy weight of a zen koan.

In my Exchanges every Land

Shall walk, & mine in every Land,

Mutual shall build Jerusalem,

Both heart in heart & hand in hand.

Paintings in Progress

Baked Soul-an Artwork in Progress

Posted on December 26, 2013December 26, 2013 by Dogfish Bay

death's door 3 cropped — *Death’s Door-painting by Craig Spencer*

I recently dreamed that I went back to my old studio in Seattle. Its proximity to the neighboring building cut off most of the natural light. The new tenant had hung a mirror on the neighboring wall that reflected sunlight into the studio, creating a greater sense of spaciousness.

This dream seems to reflect the dilemma I face with each new artwork.

Every painting presents an opportunity to break into new territory, beyond habitual modes, toward a more fully realized statement of my particular vision. Each stark white field stands before me like a challenge to move beyond easy solutions; invites the spontaneous gesture that preserves the initial inspiration. It is the free spirit exemplified by Blake’s Songs of Innocence. But the luminous energy of spontaneous creativity is immediately followed by the discriminating mind as shadow accompanies light. The state of Experience is Blake’s necessary counterpart to that of Innocence.

Often, my own “strengths” are an obstacle. I want my work to break boundaries, open spaces where imagination has room to expand.

I begin with laying out broad swathes of muted color to set the stage-to invite images into the memory stations, or conjure a player from behind the Gothic pillars of a Blakean stage-set.

A shift in perspective is also necessary to understand Blake.

Blake recognized that God and Angels reside in the mind. Unlike Christian dogmatists, he saw Christ’s resurrection not as a single event of historical time unique to a single individual, but as expression of the universal Christ-spirit within “…Heathen, Turk or Jew.” This interiorization of the mysteries is a step in the evolution of consciousness, a withdrawing of childish projections, and the realization of the Divine Human.

Materialist science sees the phenomenal world perceived by the 5 senses as the only measure of reality. Blake’s work reflects the Neoplatonic doctrine that acknowledges the primacy of the spiritual world and sees nature as the “vegetable glass” reflecting spiritual truths. Post-Cartesian science that recognizes only natural phenomenon as sole measure of truth is the fundamental error which precipitated Jerusalem’s’s fall. Los, embodiment of the poetic genius and agent in the soul’s recovery, takes a walk through London streets:

(Los)…saw every Minute Particular of Albion degraded and murder’d

But saw not by whom; they were hidden in the minute particulars

Of which they possess’d themselves: and there they take up

The articulations of a man’s soul, and laughing throw it down

Into the frame, then knock it out upon the plank, & souls are bak’d

In bricks to build the pyramids of Heber & Terah.

-from Jerusalem

Paintings in Progress, videos

A walk through the Memory Stations-an artwork in progress

Posted on December 12, 2013 by Dogfish Bay

The best way to approach an art exhibit is to work on all the pieces at once. I’m prepping 7 canvases, working on the memory stations and doing the memory practice. Here is a video to give an idea of how it works.

Paintings in Progress

Higgily-Piggily Mindscape-an artwork in progress

Posted on December 6, 2013December 7, 2013 by Dogfish Bay

Here is a small study for a larger piece. I’m wanting to keep it lean, avoid accumulation of extraneous detail and focus on atmosphere, light and a general feeling of spaciousness. This one seems to suggest loss.

Shadowy forms step forward from the mists with a single swipe of the paint rag. They appear in my dreams silhouetted against ancient fires, as if to demand I attend to their their melancholy plight wandering the in-between.

The memory practice is working. I went from recalling no dreams at all, to writing 5 pages this morning. These seem to have associations with the art project, “real” life, and offer encounters with Asiatic shamans in crazy hats who get on my case for some vague act of forgetfulness.

The intent to work with the spontaneous flow of dream imagery-the attempt to bring unconscious content into the light of day-involves a confrontation with subject/object paradox. Who is doing the observing? Who is observed? Looking inward brings up thorny issues about perception and reality that artists have been struggling with since Cezanne, and which mystics have explored for centuries.

How needing of compassion are the ignorant and the deluded, bound in this confining dungeon of egotistical attachment and the subject-object dichotomy…

The Tibetan Book of the Dead

Blake saw his brethren bound in this dungeon, and sang of fallen Albion held in thrall to the satanic, scientific-materialism that set man apart from nature, charity and the Heaven within himself.

Saturnius McWhirr stories

Old Hand’s Babylonian Voyage-The Escape

Posted on October 19, 2013October 20, 2013 by Dogfish Bay

Attention! Attention! Tsunami alert! Tsunami alert!

The speakers on the church walls crackled over the dismal howl of sirens.

Dust of crumbled masonry rose from the collapsed reliquary amid screams and prayers for deliverance. I ran into the streets and made for Old Hand. I leaped onto the dock as the engine roared to life above the frenzied tumult of the throng. McWhirr had just cast off the dock lines when a repulsive splog pirate wielding a cutlass grabbed my monkey jacket and said in a malodorous, rasping tone: “Are you sure you want to close your Babylon account?”

A blast from the ship’s deck sent him sprawling into the rank harbor. McWhirr threw aside his smoking musket and hauled me over the rail before jamming the ship full throttle and steaming for deep water. A glazzy spam-bot, with wires dangling from her stove-in side, gushed at McWhirr as we bore away from the pier-head: “Look! It’s Gregory Peck! I saw you on MeTube. Can I have your autograph?”

We headed for open sea just as a group of cyber-ruffians thundered onto the wharf with a volley of deprecatory oaths and small arms fire.

Once clear of musket range, I lifted my head above the rail to inhale the sea air. It lay calm and of a such a limpid sheen that I fell into tranquil revery. It felt as if all the fetid smog of Babylon were dispelled by the sweet Levantine zephyrs that wafted over the sun-dappled main like Mother Gaia’s beneficent caress. I silently offered a prayer for the gentle hand that had rocked the Adamic cradle of mankind. It was as if I quaffed from the verdant spring of the mystic Green One of Araby-that master of masterless souls who wander the globe’s Byzantine seaways seeking the vivifying elixir of immorality.

“Look sharp, Mister Spencer.”

McWhirr’s cautionary words roused me to behold the distant horizon demarcated by an edge of deep ultramarine blue that advanced steadily upon our gallant ship.

“We’re in for some fun and games now.”

Saturnius McWhirr stories

Old Hand’s Babylonian Voyage-The Sermon

Posted on October 17, 2013October 19, 2013 by Dogfish Bay

“Hey sailor, lookin’ for a good time?”

The voice hissed from the shadows. I turned to see a toothless hag in fish-net hose and leather thong clutching a length of chain in her skeletal hand.

“How ’bout I clap ye in virtual irons and tickle yer bum with me E-Lash?” she leered. “Just like the real thing.”

“Er, no thanks,” I said and quickened my pace.

As I walked through the lurid, labyrinthine back-alleys of cyberspace, I beheld woeful scenes of hunger and vice.

It was Sunday and, as a pious man, McWhirr had given me leave to knock about on my own; hoping, for the good of my soul, I might attend the sacred service to our lord.

I passed a low dive with a weathered sign that bore the name: Bucket of Spam. The carved, cedar chisel marks suggested its date of manufacture to be (roughly) early 21^th century.

Below this it said: We have WI-fi.

I could see, through the fogged window, sleazy spam-bots lit by the eerie blue glow of duck-taped lap-tops inside. I went on.

At last, I arrived at the ancient stone church. An inscription on the facade said something about a guy named Swedenborg. Clear voices sounded through the ancient, stone walls:

“By the Rivers of Babylon…”

I pushed open the heavy oak door and found a pew. The congregation fell silent. A portly preacher in a plaid suit and brown toupee ascended the pulpit and solemnly spoke with the stentorian delivery of Orson Wells:

“And the lord spake unto Noah: I shall make it rain for 40 days and 40 nights.”

He looked up from the good book and continued in a confiding tone: “And here shipmates, we find already deeper truths than was ever sounded by our learned interpreters of holy texts-aye it comes from the lips of the almighty Himself. And what water are we speaking of here? Is it the water that flows from the reeking taps of the Babylonian waterworks?”

“No!” responded the pious congregation.

“Is it the water of sewers that carry Babylon’s foul waste into the vast oceans of the globe?”

At each interrogatory his voice grew urgent.

“Is it the rain that nourishes our genetically modified corn?”

“No Suh!” responded a dread-locked harpooneer.

“Is it the water which rose ever higher to make Babylon a busy, working port?”

“Make it plain!”

“No-o, it is another kind of rain of which I speak,” he warmed to his theme like a southern preacher:

“It is the flood of materialist greed which immerses ma-AN-kind in self-love and se-ELF-ish desires. He wishes ON-ly for con-firm-A-shun of his vile ways through sensory DAY-ta and the false gods of materialist SCI-ence. He EE-vun denies divine kn-OW-ledge and the possa-BIL-ity of an-GEL-ic per-CEP-SHUN.” He banged the pulpit with his meaty fist at each accented syllable. “This is the da-AY-luge that engulfs Babylon today: a flood of kn-OW-ledge that is comp-LETE-ly de-VOID of CHAR-IT-Y!”

The last words resonated with a low rumble that seemed to rise from beneath the worn flagstones of the church. The heavy arches over the altar swayed wildly and collapsed into dust with a thunderous roar. From somewhere in the distance came the mournful wail of sirens. A speaker sputtered and blared:

This is NOAA Weather Radio- Tsunami alert! Tsunami alert!

Saturnius McWhirr stories

Old Hand’s Voyage into the Babylonian Heart of Darkness

Posted on October 16, 2013October 16, 2013 by Dogfish Bay

“Eh shipmate, stand us a pint,” the sleazy drawl of the villainous sploggy reeked at us with an air of imperious command.

McWhirr slowly turned: “Say, do you boys ever ship out on real seas, or are you afraid of getting tar on yer nighties?”

At these words and the atmosphere grew thick with menace.

I saw the miscreant clutch tighter the marlin-spike in his beefy fist and hastily interjected:

“My good sirs, may I introduce Saturnius McWhirr?”

At this, the lout grew pale as an albino baluga, saying:

“Pleased to make your acquaintance Captain,” and retreated to his piratical laptop with an obsequious bow.

“Nice Chaps…” said McWhirr, “for a couple of grog-blossomed bottom-feeders. Since we’re stuck in this god-forsaken port shall we splice the main-brace?”

He hailed the barkeep.

Soon, having to pump the bilges, I sought the urinal of the rank Stygian pub and passed a distinguished, bearded gent who sat before an old Underwood typewriter. His gaunt frame seemed mummified in musty, moth-eaten tweeds while his ponderous brows were wreathed in a smokey corona of amber light. On closer inspection, I saw he was merely one of the automated fortune-tellers found in the gaudy theme parks of Babylon. His face was vaguely familiar. On the table front was displayed a sign which read:

The Great Marlowe. Your fortune 25 cents.

I dropped a coin into the slot. There was a slight sound from under the table which again halted, began again and increased in speed and volume until the music of bellows and steam pipes sounded over a cacophony of grinding gears like the high registers of Saint Mark’s Cathedral organ. The machine then sputtered to a wheezing halt and ejected a sheet of paper at my feet. I held it up in the murky glow to read:

The horror! The horror!

Old Hand's northern voyage, Uncategorized

Reef-net fishing

Posted on September 24, 2013September 30, 2013 by Dogfish Bay

The sky turns red/orange over the hills west of Fisherman Bay.

I row out to the narrow finger of rock that protects the entrance, to photograph the rough-hewn, skeletal remains of reef-net boats along the shore.

They say Reef-netting is one of the oldest forms of fishing. In ancient times, fishing was continuous with the sacred traditional ceremonies. These ceremonies were held with elaborate theatrics.

The simple act of fishing was performed with a cherished respect for salmon spirit that ensured their annual return. Everyday life was interwoven with the sacred like the twisted, cedar bark nets they so cunningly wrought and watched over through the centuries.

A reef-netter still floats by the western shore, its tall, stark ladder inverted upon the surface of the bay.

The water’s surface is the boundary, the imaginal space between worlds of height and depth. The sinuous patterns that shimmer over it’s surface are reflected in the curvilinear shapes of Salish art. It evokes the intermediate realm of dreams and myth; a place not found among the mystic way points of GPS. It is where the first salmon people hied up the narrow channels with the flood and into human consciousness.

On reef-netters, the watcher (in earliest times, the tribal chief) would ascend the rough, cedar ladder high above the bow and intone the quiet prayer honoring the annual return of the salmon.

While rowing in, I seem to hear an old diesel engine that drums faintly over the the inland sea like the rhythm of the universal heartbeat. Or is it the spirits of dead fishermen still drumming over the waters?

Welcome, Swimmers.

Upon seeing the salmon enter the net below, the robed and cone-hatted watcher, stark against the red sky, sings to his mates below:

Lift, lift.

As one, the crew raises the net, the catch glistens in fading sunlight

Welcome, Brothers.

These old songs are sung in another place than that found on the yellowed, dog-eared charts of linear time. The primordial drama is still re-enacted upon the weathered scaffold of artifice in the winter dancing houses of ancient memory.

videos

Seamarks 3 by St.-John Perse

Posted on August 13, 2013August 14, 2013 by Dogfish Bay

Paintings in Progress

Raven Visitation 2

Posted on July 23, 2013 by Dogfish Bay

Carrying on with the Raven Visitation. As Raven is the messenger who dwells between worlds, the stained glass window motif fits the theme. It frames the shifty threshold where spirit travels between waking and dream.

Stained-glass demands a faithfulness to process which brings you back, again and again, to the logical form of it’s making. It is fitting that the material for scribing of boundaries in stained-glass windows is Saturn’s element, lead.

It is also fitting that the base material of the painter is charcoal, end product of the calcification process in Alchemy. Composition is a fiery process where all superfluous passages are burnt away, leaving only the original inspiration, the point of it all. It is a reminder of the point of all this shifting between worlds, and the spirit I need to maintain through the fiery calcification process: that my heart’s work may benefit all beings. It is Raven’s wake-up call.