It’s been said by some that my work is inconsistent. In a sense, I can agree. I have not painted the same painting a thousand times. I have not painted twenty white canvases or twenty vases of flowers or twenty paintings of things on fire. I haven’t gone out and made twenty mountain landscapes. I haven’t sat down and created a series of still lives. For the record, I do have two still life paintings. They are of The Stapler and a Banana [and] a Gala Apple (I will post them one day).

Someone once said to me while thumbing through my portfolio: “This could all be by different people. Why not take this painting, for instance, and paint ten different versions of it – really hone in on just that floating block right there?”

To be honest, I really didn’t know why not, other than the fact that that idea sounded really quite uninteresting. While it seemed to be an interesting idea for certain and there are people in this world who do that, I’ve never felt like I’m one of them. And I think the main reason is that, in it’s almost scattered approach, my artwork is not an end in and of itself. What I mean is: it’s not my goal to paint the most singularly terrific silhouette that could possibly be the most emotionally evocative silhouette of all time – maybe even be the Mona Lisas of silhouettes.

I paint as if following a train of thought. I am one person with a thousand different facets (Maybe even, dare I say it, ten thousand!). By understanding all of these facets, by exploring them and allowing for them, I can become a better person. By becoming a better person, I can relate better to others, act more compassionately, etc. By doing this I and others can lead, perhaps, a healthier existence. When I focus my attention on any particular facet, that light/energy/vision that is this conduit of “me” passes through that facet and creates an image that is a reflection not only of me but also of my surroundings, my state of mind, my set and setting, what led up to that particular experience of life, etc. In order to see explore that particular facet, I go about painting some representation of it. “It” being a state of mind, an emotion, a psycho/spiritual understanding. When I am done, I look up: I am a changed person – subtly at times, vastly at other times. Sometimes such a length of time has passed and such a depth of experience has been poured out onto the canvas that finishing the piece is like closing a chapter on my life. And opening a new door.

My art is not about any singular experience. That singular experience changes, it comes and goes, ebbs and flows. Life: it is passing and changing and morphing into new and different visions while maintaining echoes of everything that has come before it.

it is because of this that my website is laid out not in any kind of numerical system or specific thematic order, but instead by place. I’ve lived in a number of different locales and, if history is to set a precedent, will continue to do so. Each of those selections of paintings represents a series of moments in my life that reflect my personal growth as it was experienced in that place and time. Ojai, Vermont, Costa Rica, etc… These places had a certain quality of light, I was a certain age, there was a specific energy about the time, and the places had a definite affect on me. What I ate, with whom I interacted, where I walked, how I spent my time, the landscape I traveled – both inwards and outwards: all of this gets translated onto the canvas. What you see when you look at my artwork isn’t the work of a person with a consistent studio who is assiduously retracing his steps ten dozen times to make sure he has really got the gist of the floating brick and, if asked, can paint the best floating brick ever. There are many people like that out there and that is all well and good and they are, in some cases, quite masterful and I applaud them and, at times, find them quite inspiring. However, for me, I find that every time I close my eyes and look inside for something to paint, there is something… else, something new. The visual representations of my path, my personal explorations and my archetypal language are always expanding – new words, new symbols, new passageways constantly want to be explored. If I deny that, then I feel like I am squashing my growth and, in doing so, am doing a disservice both to myself and others.

I’ve spent a lot of time disabling the inner “self-editor”. To allow it back in to say: no, no, no more paintings of anything other than the star pattern for, say, the next ten paintings. This seems like burden, a heavy weight on my soul of trying to fit into a mold.

Sometimes I find myself beginning the same line over again – and I try to interrupt it. What do I mean “the same line”? I mean a line that is so familiar – a curve, a silhouette – and I play “What happens if….” And it leads to new places… The mind is like this: if we travel the same synaptic pathways we create deep patterns in our minds – it becomes a part of the basic flow of our brains. If we dig deeper, ask “what else is in there?”, and really attempt to negotiate that space with an eye for what we might be missing, we might suddenly see something new – something different. And, in this, look at our lives with the same opened eyes.

Sometimes I think that the criticism of my semi-scatological approach to painting is because it would simply feel safer if I didn’t jump around so much. My work seems, at times, to be unpredictable. To be honest, I don’t often know what might happen next, what else might paint, what color scheme I might use. However, I think that the deeper underpinnings of my work are always there: a connection to the divine, a sense of exploring the human condition through semi-archetypal symbols and shapes, a pretty consistent color palette and a pretty consistent line pattern.

Viewing my work is like thumbing through a dictionary of the human experience: it is only consistent because all the words are of the same language and, for the most part, people can relate to those words because it is a set of symbols that describes, explores and, if successful, transcends, the human experience.

I’d like to share an excerpt from “Concerning the Spiritual in Art” by Wassily Kandinsky, published in 1914. I have found the visual representation of the job of the artist, as he describes it, to be particularly helpful when I try to understand my place in this world as an artist. Kandinsky, who might to some seem a bit antiquated today, was a visionary in his own right. As an artist, he was very methodically focusing the internal lens and paint what came up in a semi-logical sense. As a writer and thinker, he was looking to understand just what it is that makes up art, if it isn’t to be a reproduction of the physical world or be a regurgitation of spiritual/mythical symbolism. I’ve heard people say: but his work is just lines, circles, and weird mish-mashes of color. Think of his work as the first few steps into (or out of) the lucid imagination. If it had never been fully exercised and given free reign before (as we do now) then those first few steps were wobbly and unsure at times. But, like a child who has just walked across the room for the first time, the sense of triumph – the sense of really getting somewhere – is unmistakable. Few had done this before his time. He and his contemporaries were, I believe, some of the first pioneers into the world of translating the internal mental landscape, using art as a method of digging deeper and further into the mind-heart space.

Now, onto “Concerning the Spiritual in Art”…

{from Part I/Chapter II: The Movement of the Triangle}

“The life of the spirit may be fairly represented in diagram as a large acute-angled triangle divided horizontally into unequal parts with the narrowest segment uppermost. The lower the segment the greater it is in breadth, depth, and area.

The whole triangle is moving slowly, almost invisibly forwards and upwards. Where the apex was today the second segment is tomorrow; what today can be understood only by the apex and to the rest of the triangle is an incomprehensible gibberish, forms tomorrow the true thought and feeling of the second segment.

At the apex of the top segment stands often one man, and only one. His joyful vision cloaks a vast sorrow. Even those who are nearest to him in sympathy do not understand him. Angrily they abuse him as charlatan or madman. So in his lifetime stood Beethoven, solitary and insulted.

[My note: so Kandinsky is a tad sexist here: 'one man' - let's just give him the benefit of the doubt that, really, he meant more than man, more than woman. he meant any visionary]

How many years will it be before a greater segment of the triangle reaches the spot where [w]e once stood alone? Despite memorials and statues, are they really many who have risen to his level?

In every segment of the triangle are artists. Each one of them who can see beyond the limits of his segment is a prophet to those about him, and helps the advance of the obstinate whole. But those who are blind, or those who retard the movement of the triangle for baser reasons, are fully understood by their fellows and acclaimed for their genius. The greater the segment (which is the same as saying the lower it lies in the triangle) so the greater the number who understand the words of the artist. Every segment hungers consciously or, much more often, unconsciously for their corresponding spiritual food. This food is offered by the artists, and for this food the segment immediately below will tomorrow be stretching out eager hands.

This simile of the triangle cannot be said to express every aspect of the spiritual life. For instance, there is never an absolute shadow-side to the picture, never a piece of unrelieved gloom. Even too often it happens that one level of spiritual food suffices for the nourishment of those who are already in a higher segment. But for them this food is poison; in small quantities it depresses their souls gradually into a lower segment; in large quantities it hurls them suddenly into the depths ever lower and lower. Sienkiewicz, in one of his novels, compares the spiritual life to swimming; for the man who does not strive tirelessly, who does not fight continually against sinking, will mentally and morally go under. In this strait a man’s talent (again in the biblical sense) becomes a curse–and not only the talent of the artist, but also of those who eat this poisoned food. The artist uses his strength to flatter his lower needs; in an ostensibly artistic form he presents what is impure, draws the weaker elements to him, mixes them with evil, betrays men and helps  them to betray themselves, while they convince themselves and others that they are spiritually thirsty, and that from this pure spring they may quench their thirst. Such art does not help the forward movement, but hinders it, dragging back those who are striving to press onward, and spreading pestilence abroad.

Such periods, during which art has no noble champion, during which the true spiritual food is wanting, are periods of retrogression in the spiritual world. Ceaselessly souls fall from the higher to the lower segments of the triangle, and the whole seems motionless, or even to move down and backwards. Men attribute to these blind and dumb periods a special value, for they judge them by outward results, thinking only of material well-being. They hail some technical advance, which can help nothing but the body, as a great achievement. Real spiritual gains are at best under-valued, at worst entirely ignored.

The solitary visionaries are despised or regarded as abnormal and eccentric. Those who are not wrapped in lethargy and who feel vague longings for spiritual life and knowledge and progress, cry in harsh chorus, without any to comfort them. The night of the spirit falls more and more darkly. Deeper becomes the misery of these blind and terrified guides, and their followers, tormented and unnerved by fear and doubt, prefer to this gradual darkening the final sudden leap into the blackness.

At such a time art ministers to lower needs, and is used for material ends. She seeks her substance in hard realities because she knows of nothing nobler. Objects, the reproduction of which is considered her sole aim, remain monotonously the same. The question “what?” disappears from art; only the question “how?” remains. By what method are these material objects to be reproduced? The word becomes a creed. Art has lost her soul. In the search for method the artist goes still further. Art becomes  so specialized as to be comprehensible only to artists, and they complain bitterly of public indifference to their work. For since the  artist in such times has no need to say much, but only to be  notorious for some small originality and consequently lauded by a  small group of patrons and connoisseurs (which incidentally is  also a very profitable business for him), there arise a crowd of gifted and skilful painters, so easy does the conquest of art appear. In each artistic circle are thousands of such artists, of whom the majority seek only for some new technical manner, and who produce millions of works of art without enthusiasm, with cold hearts and souls asleep.

Competition arises. The wild battle for success becomes more and more material. Small groups who have fought their way to the top of the chaotic world of art and picture-making entrench themselves in the territory they have won. The public, left far behind, looks on bewildered, loses interest and turns away.

But despite all this confusion, this chaos, this wild hunt for notoriety, the spiritual triangle, slowly but surely, with irresistible strength, moves onwards and upwards.

The invisible Moses descends from the mountain and sees the dance round the golden calf. But he brings with him fresh stores of wisdom to man.

First by the artist is heard his voice, the voice that is inaudible to  the crowd. Almost unknowingly the artist follows the call. Already in that very question “how?” lies a hidden seed of renaissance. For when this “how?” remains without any fruitful answer, there is always a possibility that the same “something” (which we call personality today) may be able to see in the objects about it not only what is purely material but also something less solid;   something less “bodily” than was seen in the period of realism, when the universal aim was to reproduce anything “as it really is” and without fantastic imagination.

If the emotional power of the artist can overwhelm the “how?” and can give free scope to his finer feelings, then art is on the crest of the road by which she will not fail later on to find the “what” she has lost, the “what” which will show the way to the spiritual food of the newly awakened spiritual life. This “what?” will no longer be the material, objective “what” of the former period, but the internal truth of art, the soul without which the body (i.e. the “how”) can never be healthy, whether in an individual or in a whole people.

THIS “WHAT” IS THE INTERNAL TRUTH WHICH ONLY  ART CAN DIVINE, WHICH ONLY ART CAN EXPRESS BY  THOSE MEANS OF EXPRESSION WHICH ARE HERS ALONE.”

Read the entire book (which is fairly short) here: http://www.mnstate.edu/gracyk/courses/phil%20of%20art/kandinskytext.htm

As you may know I went to Art Basel Miami a month ago in December. While I was there I attended the Moksha Art Fair. It was a multi-faceted event and featured some really beautiful and powerful artwork. As I sat on the plane on the way home, a bit worn out from five days of, well, everything, I wrote a blog entry about it that was not entirely flattering and, I think, overly critical.

Ray Oracca, one of the organizers of the event, went out of his way to contact me and talk about some of what I had written. We had a long heart-warming conversation about art, communities, framing situations, etc. In the end, I could see where he was coming from and recognized the places I had misspoken.I sincerely apologize for any views I expressed that did not tell the whole truth, were tainted by my own lens, and, in the end, may have dissed an event that a lot of time, energy and love went into.

I don’t know a whole lot about the Moksha Family in Miami. Those people that I did meet, who were intrinsically involved, had warm hearts and a sparkle in their eyes. They were genuine in their openness and certainly working hard to create something beautiful. In the end, it seems to be a bit like my own Moontribe community – a disparate tribe hailing from many walks of life sharing a common love of art, music, dance, and fun. They are people who are working at being non-judgemental. They are allowing each other room for growth. They work at putting on events that bring people together in a communal space. They most treasure the open exchange of ideas and energy. In this way, we help each other with our spiritual evolution. They, we, all of us, working together on a common vision from a million different angles.

Thank you.

Coming back to center after what seems like a month (and is!) away from writing much. To get the words flowing again maybe we retrace our steps. It seems like there was this beginning of winter thing. Violet and I shared bouts of fluishness that left us feeling far less inspired than we would have liked. Along the way though we:

• Made a story book about Fortunata the Fearless Fairy for our niece Isabella as a holiday gift.
• Painted live paintings at a Christmas Eve party in LA (lots of fun)
• Did the best we could to help out with the Temple of Visions Gallery in LA
• Did 26 other things that are sort of a blur now

The storybook! The story is about a fearless fairy (hence the title) who gets lost in the woods and meets up with some possibly scary creatures and situations but her fearlessness sees her through. The point of the story is that fear is all in your head! Maybe we could have included the “Litany Against Fear” from Dune: “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

And, just like that, she finds her way home! We might in time have copies of this available for others. Here are a few images and a bit of the story (as written by Violet):

Live painting! Here’s a couple of photos taken by Ben Lin (www.lifeafterdusk.com):

And on to the Temple of Visions Gallery! Where do I even begin on that one? We’re stoked that Jimmy Bleyer has taken on this task and stoked to be able to have lent our support. From www.TempleofVisions.com:

“Temple of Visions Gallery seeks to bridge International visionary culture with the Los Angeles art world with a series of high impact shows, events, concerts, workshops, lectures and more.”

Course, that’s a bit formal. The truth is, if you’ve been left feeling empty by contemporary art galleries and feel that the general “gallery” scene just isn’t for you then it’s likely you’ll love this. The artists represented are diverse and inspiring: Amanda Sage, Adam Scott Miller, Mars-1, Check out the website… www.TempleofVisions.com

And come on Jan. 29th to DownTemple for a night of art, soft lights, and downtempo music with a live set from Eastern Sun as well as Dela, POD and the Galactic Groove Choir.

And the 26 other things! Ah well, all in good time…

The Moksha Art party that occurred on Saturday night (and well into Sunday) was a particularly crazy affair with the silk dancers, performances, fire dancers, art art and more art, lights, music – live and otherwise, vendors, carousing, spoken word performances, multiple dance areas, etc etc. One person told me it was the best party she’d ever been to. Awesome.

I was honored with a chance to paint on the main stage alongside Shrine, Alex Grey, and Allyson Grey. The painting I painted through the course of the night is called something like The Immutable Core. It is pictured above. I like the idea of creating a painting, from start to finish in one night. Granted, I will, in time, sharpen some of the lines and clarify some of the corners but, for the most part, it is a complete piece. The painting had six stages to it and I knew what I was going to create from the beginning. The best part was the white line: o how beautifully it connects the whole thing – that simple straightaway. Delicious!

Live painting enabled me to get out some disparate emotions, dive head first into a painting, and bring it to it’s conclusion before the end of the night – along with bringing my own mind into a sharper focus.

The tough thing with parties of this sort – where the intended focus is on the art is that the art sometimes gets lost in the spectacle of it. I wish people had been there for the lectures or in the daytime for some of the other things going on – where there were some real opportunities to learn something. I think that, as such, the level of respect for the art and the quality of it’s container is, in some ways, diminished.

In this, I think, is where the crux of the problem of how to bring this work to a broader audience lies and, as such, command a higher price point and find truly interested art buyers. While some might feel this sense of “monetization” is too mainstream or commodity oriented, the truth is: we artists need to eat and like to sell our work at a value that reflects it’s true worth. The broader audience is sometimes a bit put off by that porous container that this work is often presented in. Personally, I would want to give people some solid ground to stand upon – some firm footing for the ride the art might take them on. Also, while there are certainly differences between the way the work was presented (and the set and setting thereof) and perhaps a more austere and spacious setting, I feel there has to be a way to bridge that gap.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I like parties and have gone to many, many events over the years. Some were centered around art. Some around music. Some around music and art together. As I’ve gotten older however, it’s not that I’ve grown out of the parties, but, rather, I’ve become more and more aware of how the artwork is presented and the container through which it is perceived.

Looking around the rest of Miami, The Nada Art Fair, for example, was such a conflagration of booths, randomness, and unconsidered angles hung and strung with a mishmash of “contemporary” art that the art made even less sense than it might have edged upon otherwise. Scope Art Fair, with it’s breezy interior, bright wood floors and well-organized layout, seemed to support the edgy modernness it hoped to present. The main Art Basel event had all the trappings of a museum quality show that seemed to offer some reasoning for why they might be asking such absurd amounts of money for some seriously atrocious pieces of art.

Along the way, through these places, I ran across many gems. I saw some work by Jeff Soto, an artist I was familiar with but had never seen in person. It was quite lovely with a strange inner language, dreamy and dark. I saw an original Magritte, something like doves of stone agcruainst a blue sky. There was a beautiful chess set of brass fingers (literally) made by Dali, as an offering and response to Duchamp’s own Dadaist chess set, with small snow shovels as pawns (for whatever non-reason). There were all sorts of things and dreams like this, tucked away, along the many cubicles and corners. While, with all of these shows, there is a vast amount of drivel, there are also some really well done pieces. Such is art! Such is life!

When I looked at the Moksha Art Event through that same lens of “frame” and “container”, I had feelings that were about as mixed as my experience with all of the other events.  Much of the artwork presented at the Moksha event was quite beautiful, well-rendered, and deeply moving. I was especially struck by a gorgeous piece by Autumn Skye Morrison and a large and truly impressive thanka-like painting by Luke Brown.

What needs to change, I feel, for this work to reach a wider audience – and, mind you, I want it to reach a wider audience – is for us to reconsider the container we present it in. If we really care about raising consciousness (and not just of ourselves and our friends and mutual appreciators) then we need to open our doors a little wider and consider a broader audience and how they respond to our container as well as our work. We need to really deeply and honestly consider the frame within which it is presented. I challenge the artists to push the envelope a bit and, at the same time, sharpen the edges of the container just as they refine the edges of their own lines and gradients. In doing so, they can create crisp and beautiful visions of reality as it can be experienced. I think the challenge is to find and create spaces that reflect that solidity of vision and work with those who seek to create such spaces. If this doesn’t happen then this artwork will continue to be relegated to the fringes.

But the “fringes” are not the “edge”.  Perhaps there are those who would prefer to be on the fringes since the light there is dimmer and one can be less transparent. If that is the case however, then the work that is created there will forever be tainted by that dark unsettledness. Myself, I have no fear of darkness. It is the murkiness of that fringe that I am uninterested in. Murky, muddy colors: what good are those?

I’d rather step to the edge and experience the crisp endless darkness that lies at it’s depths because, only through that, can one experience the piercing light of day with a clear conscience. Yes, my friend, we have nothing to hide. The roots of our work, of the truly visionary art, lie in compassion and wisdom and that adds a depth and a height that these words will never be able to express.

I’ve got to step up inside myself and stand there at my door sometimes; you know, not hang out deeper inside the mansions of my mind, thinking someone might find me back there, painting or daydreaming, biding my time, enjoying the view. Sometimes I’ve got to step up and be the doorman. Welcome! Welcome I say, politely, but with gusto, not over bearing but with just the right amount of exuberance tempered by tactfulness as a good host must be.

There is often, I think, a great hesitancy of inviting people in like that: what might they find there? How well do I, myself, the supposed master of my house, know this mansion? Did I leave the doors unlocked? Are there any demons hiding under a bed or behind a door with sheets over their heads? How might it show it’s face? In what glance or gaze or quirk of speech or passing phrase might it be evident in the course of the conversation between you and I?

I watch these things closely. Not because I’m afraid of what my hand might show, but because I, too, wonder: what might be in there still. What is the meaning behind that statement, what is the intention behind that phrase or point of reference or inference. I watch them because I am curious about what might be the underpinnings of my belief systems.

I remember when I first took ayahuasca and the shaman who was leading the journey, an older man, small and wrinkled and from Peru, said something like ‘let us explore the mansions of my father’s house.’ I always felt that phrase aptly poetic for the experience of the inner world and for the journey we were about to undertake into the fractalizing and sometimes very compartmentalized nature of our minds. There are no closets in these rooms inside, only more rooms, closets that open into foot ball fields, rooms within rooms ad infinitum. Within some are altars. Within others, the dirty laundry. I suppose it’s for us to examine for whom or what the altars are for and also, while we are at it, separate and clean the laundry.

There were times in our lives when we revered a way of being, paid homage to a trait of personality. There were other times when a reverence was laid at the feet of the holiest of holies. The holiest shifts in meaning, growing deeper, wider, broader and, sometimes, completely redefined. Old  altars are forgotten, new ones constructed. By the same token, shrines to belief systems now defunct are not always torn down only because we have a hard time letting go. Instead, new belief systems get built and a room gets closed off, forgotten, unused, but still taking up  space. Maybe house cleaning isn’t all that is in order. Every house could use a little remodeling.

So we stand at the doorway because inevitably we go out into the world – we discuss ourselves, what we do, from whence we hail and to where we are going, and we tell a story that treats us well as we attempt to elicit something from the viewer: a sense of pardon, a chain reaction of empathy to endearment to love. Because really, in the end, we only want ever to be loved, accepted for who we are and we wonder: am I the living room as much as the basement? Will this person understand?

‘Welcome,’ says the doorman. ‘Welcome to the mansions of my father’s house.’

His statement is a layer cake of meaning, a fine paella of statements mixed with nuanced spices.

Take heed, fair guest: my rooms are wide open. Let us explore together. You never know what you might find and, to be fair, neither do I. Together we explore and, in this house of mind and in the mansions of it’s rooms, let us hope we don’t lose ourselves and, if we do, let us hope that which we find is a greater treasure than that which we’ve lost.

In the exploratory stories, half way between the top floor and the deepest basement, in a storage closet that opens to forever, I’ve got a pile of sketchbooks that go back to the drawings I made as a lonely scared child. I keep them to remind myself of where I’ve been, where I’ve come from and where it’s all gone to. I did my best to dispose of the drivel. What’s left is enough of a cross section that it can let future historians have a sampling of where I’m from.

Here, in this attic, is a bottle, the first bottle and only bottle. It’s never been emptied. It’s always been half-full. I’ve done my best to finish it. I am in love with new beginnings.

This right here, this balloon, half-deflated, is quite significant, or rather, it was, at one time. Good thing the things of the mind are biodegradable!

How about this door? What might we find inside it’s corners….

Oops!

Where are we now? What, you say, you know this place?

O this is your old kitchen, from as a child, as a seven year old, scared from the bee outside and your mother was nowhere to be found and you felt it best to find her and when you did she was a disinterested mess? You know this place. This is your house. This is your mansion. It’s true, I’ve been to places like this myself. I think my own place like this was nothing like this. But you’re not the first, so let us navigate it together.

We arise, we fall. It’s like that. We traipse in and out of each other’s mental spaces. It’s just like that when two people open up to one another.

And in the nuances of our speech, in the subtleties of our movements, are written the understandings of our lifetimes. At times, there is nothing but joy and if you find me on the right day, I will have naught but love, dripping and dancing off of every note of my being. Find me on another day and it might be different. I might be a bit more like coal, for real. No one is to blame for that but me and the only reason I have is that I’m still turning that chunk of coal into a diamond. With enough concentration and patience, enough focus and mindfulness, it all turns into diamonds.

And one way or another, the dancing love, it remains. Why am I so convinced of that?

A little birdie told me.
And I listened.

The antithesis of “The Art Basel Art World” was the Moksha Art Fair, put on by a family of local lovers of “visionary” art and alternative lifestyles. Part art show, part warehouse party, part performance, and, for better or worse, a lot of craziness, it spanned Thursday through Sunday, with an all-night party planned for Saturday night.

Thursday evening, featured two panels of artists discussing their work – the process, intentions, etc. The first panel featured some of the “emerging” artists featured in the show: Amanda Sage, Andrew Jones, Nemo, Adam Scott Miller, and Shrine. The latter panel was older more established artists like Martina Hoffman, Robert Venosa, Alex and Allison Grey, Mark Henson, and some others I wasn’t familiar with.

The “emerging artists” panel seemed to have an interesting and positive take on what they felt their art was for, where they were going with it, etc. It was an interesting talk that nicely glossed over the world of psychedelia because, at this point, that kind of talk just seems redundant.

The latter “established artists” panel left me feeling somewhat disappointed. Asked about considering ones audience when creating their work, one answer was:

“Well, if they’ve taken psychedelics then they get it and if not… they usually don’t.” The artists didn’t seem to care much about the ones who don’t and felt that those who do get it required a key of some sort to understand. So much for helping the world to grow! But then, perhaps that was not the mission of said artist.

The truth is, and here is where my disappointment arose is that the entire panel seemed to devolve into a flag-raising, banner-wielding conundrum of ENTHEOGENS AND ART! LSD AND ART! to the sounds of a whoop or a cheer every now and again and, well, for me – that gets old.

Yes, yes, psychedelics are a doorway and a gateway and they can open one up to all sorts of interesting vistas and understandings. We know they are powerful, we know they are helpful but: tell us something different, please. The truth is: great art is not made by taking some drugs and grabbing some paint. Great art is made through patience, dedication, imagination, and vision. And all of that takes work.

I have always felt, and I may be wrong, that the work created by the “visionary” artists has some deep intentions around healing, spreading enlightenment, raising consciousness, etc. So I thought that the comment about work that almost requires the viewer to have had a psychedelic experience seemed selfish and self-indulgent. I considered my own artwork: should it require some kind of magic decoder ring in order to be understood? Sometimes the people who get it the most or who seem to be affected by it the most are the ones who’ve never seen anything like it before and now, in front of them, is this vision. And some little old lady reacts as if she’s waited her whole life to see it. It’s beautiful and affirming and rewarding. Some kid, fresh out of high school sees it and recognizes an element, an archetypal experience within it’s lines and colors.

True art, something truly beautiful, should require nothing more than the senses needed to experience it – and that is really just two eyes and some mode of transportation to be able to arrive in front of the piece. If it is good, then it will be received as such and will be able to stand on it’s own. Otherwise, we are merely (and rather self-indulgently) painting pictures along the walls of our own castles, letting in only those whom we see fit and are no better or worse than the rest of the “Art World”.

We can’t change the world by living in our own bubble and waiting for others to make it through a door or a veil we have constructed. If that is the case then we have fallen prey to the same sort of selfish elitism the plagues much of the art world. If I sound cynical, well, in some respects I really may be, but I am also hopeful. Incredibly so.

In conversations with the so called “younger” artists (a category that I certainly fall into as well) I found, through subsequent conversations, a similar feeling that the old cry of “Entheogens and Art” or drugs-will-change-the-way-you-think-just-look-at-me should be taken out back and given a proper burial and a new and broader understanding must be integrated.

This art, these visions, doesn’t just come from some psychedelic experience. It comes from an integrated and holistic approach to life. It comes from personal exploration and deep inner work. It comes from yoga and eating well. It comes from deep inner work, a consciously aware mind, and a desire to push ones edge a little further every day. It comes from living a well-lived life. Some people, with a good imagination, might just hit on something along the course of that path. With an adequate amount of talent, they might just create something beautiful. If they have the passion for it and the drive, they might just continue onwards, exploring, broadening, unveiling profound understandings of how the world works and, along the way, create more artwork that reflects that, bringing visions into this world that speak of that well-lived life.

This is not psychedelic art. It is not “visionary” art. However, It is certainly art with a vision, and it is certainly based on many types of experiences – from the sacred to the profane, from the profound to the mundane. And it is art based on a long long tradition of exploration and discovery. It continues the narrative begun by those unknown artists who created the paintings and hieroglyphs we find along the walls of caves and canyons. It grew and changed: through the hands of ancient sculptors, painters and writers. It was Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Bosch, el Greco, Blake, Monet, Picasso, Boccioni, Kandinsky, Dali, Magritte, Fuchs, Klarwein, and many others, on and on, into today.

What is this art we create? I am waiting for a cohesive name that doesn’t make me cringe each time I hear it. Visionary. As if we are the ones with vision and everyone else was just doodling.  I’ll tell you one thing, this art is as substantive as anything that came before it. Another thing: It is as relevant as anything in the pages of Janson’s History of Art.

And, for the most part, it is highly nutritious. Eat up!

Detail: Unmasking: The Deeper We Go, The Higher We Soar

Effulgent bubbling up love comes up and over like a pot come to a boil or a fire bent on over flowing or even just a long slow simmering of flavors and meditations. Mind wide open and alive and sparks from fires and flames all lapping and licking at my feet, my heart, and my hands pushing me inwards, upwards, and onwards.

The deeper we dig, the higher we rise. Digging and finding, searching and wondering, wandering outwards and into the investigation. Find a mask and unmask the mystery til we reach the next layer of interwoven illusions to uncover. Every time a mask is discarded our load gets a bit lighter and, through the course of some lesson, we find a touch more love, an ounce more compassion, a modicum of wisdom to add to the puzzle that continues to spell out what we always find we already knew – that mind loves a riddle to unravel.

There is a vast unfolding all around us… inside my heart and mind there is a… inside every thing, atom and sun, there is a…

a continual reaction.

But all things come to pass, to be used as the fodder for the next sun’s fire. Metaphorical understandings create day dreams that become new inventions inspiring another persons imaginings… and on and on.

I only pray for the grace to get it all done!

To what or whom do I pray? Maybe nothing, maybe everything, maybe whatever it is that ignited this reaction inside of me that, once sparked, seems hell bent on pushing ahead, forging onwards. It jumps and dives and crawls around inside ferreting out the uncomfortable places where ego tries to hide.

Whoa! hey! It throws it’s hands up in the air. Wasn’t me! Wasn’t here!

But we pull it out, get on up the stairs, and get back to the discussion at hand, a little more ease to the dance.

Where were you the night of…
Who were you with on the afternoon of…
What were you distracting yourself with when you should have been…

And on and on and on.

What is the best song to sing?
One that just doesn’t let up. One that just doesn’t let down. It is best to boggle the mind. The mind needs a good boggling every now and again just to put it in it’s place. Just to set the record straight. I’m just a scribe here, I’m just a channel.

It is in those moments that we can ask: who acts? Who is the “doer”, who is the “watcher”. Can the universe, and by universe I mean everything else that is outside of this shell of a body, can it play a guitar? Can the universe hold a paint brush? A pen? A sewing needle? If it could, what would it say? What would it paint? What would it play?

Love. Just love. In all of it’s multifold forms. It would be love in green and love in plaid and love in jeans and love in slacks. It’d be love in the woods and love in the streams and love in the alleys with their stinky smelly steam. It’d paint love in the canyons and in the cracked window panes, love on the fire escapes of the well-boggled brains of all those human beings, running and scurrying and planning and doing in that worlds they’re creating. It’d play love in the songs of the birds in the morning and the crickets who chirp towards the last light of evening. It’d be the entire world without words and it would be the words as well. It would say love in a way that you’d never considered. It’d place itself in ways that you’d always overlooked. It’d whisper in your ear, softly against your neck, touching you, just so, aside the curve of your cheek – listen, don’t give up, I am everything and I too shall pass.

Most of all, though, it’d be well outside the bounds of any form you may have believed to be the object of itself. It’d clothe itself as a breeze, a whimper, a laugh.

It is a very beautiful thing, this existence dance, the loving path.

Today is the birthday of a friend, someone I’ve not seen in quite a long time but a friend none the less – someone who is very close to my heart. I have that little reminder that pops up on the side of my Facebook page to thank for that notification and I have her to thank for lifting a veil, for calling me out, for changing my life.

It was maybe six or seven years ago (how time flies!) when we first met and there was some chemistry there. So we had a thing and I had a thing for her. We spent a bunch of time together all of a sudden, just like that. I was in my usual (at that time) space-surfing-no-home-to-speak-of mode, painting, partying, traveling a bit here, traveling a bit there. She was a painter and pretty focused on a Tibetan Buddhist path. At that time, I think she was in school, I don’t remember exactly. Anyhow, this is all just auxiliary information. The point is: there was a spark, a fire, a reflection, and I respected her.

A conversation one evening went something like this:

“Michael, you smoke a lot of pot. You’re stoned quite a bit.”

This was certainly a fair, inarguable observation. In truth, I would hazard to guess that I’d been stoned for 300 days a year, at the very least, for the previous eight years. Illuminating when you add it up like that. I had, in any case, gotten high at least once a day for those three hundred days. Some of those days – in the midst of the painting binges for instance – were spent in such a haze that there was no in or out, high or low – it was just one long sustain and all I could do, or think of doing, was keep myself there. While I may have felt I was productive in my painting, in retrospect, I wasn’t productive in much else. While I may have been experiencing great highs, I certainly wasn’t integrating much.

“Yes, well… I may smoke a bit in the morning, take a hit or two…” But I knew it was a tough one to argue.

“Well, to be honest, it’s tough to hang out with you because there’s always this veil – this sort of space between you and I. In fact, it’s between you and the world. Really, it seems sort of selfish. You end up forcing everyone to get through this veil and you’re in there but it takes some work to find you. You’re not straight forward with life. You’ve got this veil to hide behind.”

Well, she said that in so many words.

“So, really, I like you a lot but I can’t really deal with the constant stoniness. So it’s either me or the pot. If you want to be with me, you’ve got to give that up.”

So I chose her. I’d like to imagine it was an easy choice but truthfully I don’t remember. I’m generally aware enough, even in the most egocentric times, at weighing choices like that – door number one is a path you know, a habit, a pattern. Door number two holds something new, different – an opportunity for growth, maybe new adventures, some light.

I chose door number two.

The short end of that story is:
Ultimately, it didn’t ‘work out’ between us. But we are where we are when we need to be there. And we came together for the lessons we had to share with each other. Giving up smoking pot broke through all kinds of things – suddenly life was REAL. In fact, it was so very real that I started drinking heavily because all kinds of emotions came up – sadness, depression, loneliness, attachment, wanting, craving, everything! – and they were quite hard to deal with because I’d never actually dealt with anything. I’d lived in my head and my daydreams for so long that screwing my head back onto my body was, in fact, rather disconcerting. I didn’t know how to handle it and I freaked out for a little while. It was sort of a heart wrenching/heart opening time. The drawing above, at the start of this post, was drawn during that time. It is called “The Heart Dance”.

For people who say there is no addiction in marijuana and no withdrawals… Sure maybe for the recreational smoker, this is absolutely true. But, as with object of addiction – whether it be alcohol, drugs, television or hamburgers – if a person finds that it helps to squelch the real emotions that they don’t want to deal with and it works, and it makes them feel good, they’ll keep going back for more. That’s addiction. Take the object of attachment away and everything it was being used to block rears it’s head. That’s when it turns out there are a lot of demons down there. Granted, marijuana likely helped me in many ways – it was a tool that I had at my disposal; a teacher in plant form. But, as with any teacher, as with the parable of using the boat to cross the river: once you’ve made it across the river, it’s best to abandon the boat. For all I know, I’d been lingering on that shoreline for far too long, hanging out with my boat.

So for a little while, all I seemed to be able to do was calm the demons while I learned how to deal with myself, knowing I’d get back to the darkness. So I worked with the tools I had, picking up new tools along the way. I worked on finding a center (and dealing with the urges and cravings that sought to pull me away from that) and figured, however consciously, that I’d get to the darkness. All good things in their own time!

Ultimately, when I got back to painting – by that time it was in Costa Rica – my work was so much more present. I was more efficient and my lines and approach crisper than it’d ever been. To top it all off, I was having these experiences that actually felt like they could be integrated into my being and I began to understand what “Being on the Path” really meant. I’d never realized what I was missing. I’d thought, for a long time had convinced myself, that I ought to be high in order to paint. I’m sure I’m not the first artist to fall prey to this belief. Now I found a deep reservoir of creativity, an endless and boundless spirit, and I found I had the skills to illuminate it. As I passed through these things, so did the emotions rise and fall, rise and fall.

Through that process, as demons have come and gone and challenges have been met, I’ve discovered more than I’ve ever dreamt. I’ve pushed myself and allowed myself to be pushed in ways I’d not imagined possible. And I’ve found something inside, something nameless, shapeless, wordless, some truth, that allows me to participate in this world, through my work and my interactions with others, in a way that is truly enlightening.

This friend helped lay some groundwork for all that came after. She is someone who helped me to step onto my path and be who I am – and admit to myself who I am – without just living a daydream of what I might be. So I say happy birthday to you, my friend. And thank you. May you live long. And prosper.

This one is dedicated to you.
May all beings experience bliss.

I had a conversation with a friend today about separating business from, well, business. She was working on redesigning her design portfolio (as a designer, for websites or otherwise, one is often considering and reconsidering the design of one’s own website). Be that as it may, her website was in need of a facelift and she was doing a fine job at it. She sent me a link to her new design site however and it was vastly different than her art site (she’s a painter as well). It didn’t add up for me and I mentioned that I liked the art site much more – it had such a nicer feel to it. And the design site, well, felt like it was a different person all together. Really, it felt forced.

She said she was felt that maybe the art site was too “psychedelic” for her general design clientele.

But that’s why people go to you, I said, because you’re an artist with a good eye. As long as your site has a clean, well-organized presentation, who cares what your life is like? I mean you’re an artist! A person may be looking for a graphic designer or a website designer and come upon your site and realize that your art is great and want a piece of that on their project. Not your art maybe, but your touch, your vision.

Well, I said that in so many words, anyhow.

The point is though: there is a voice in our heads that holds us back from fully stepping into who we ARE, from allowing us to OWN it. Instead, it compartmentalizes identities and then hides those identities from each other, lest they be like Voltron and unite to be this all powerful being. There is the business face. Maybe there’s the artist face. The mother face. The father face. The buddy-at-the-bar face. It’s tough, it seems, to just embrace all of these different aspects as one whole person and go out into the world like that. This is who I AM.

When I was 21 or so, I’d painted The Three Jewels and it was hanging in a cafe. I thought to myself: Oh, God, now everyone is going to know everything about me. After all, onto that canvas, I’d poured out all my insides in so much fractalized layered madness and exuberance. It was, admittedly, a pretty psychedelic painting. I figured that now everyone was going to know that I’d taken some psychedelics at some point in my life. Including my parents. Including the government. Including, well, everyone. Whoever “everyone” is.

Well, it turn out that my parents were content to turn a blind eye and, when it finally came up at some point or another, I didn’t care so much what they thought. As for the government, well, they could give a shit. As for everyone else: well, the people who think that’s a bad thing aren’t going to get it anyhow and both the people who think it’s a good thing and the people who don’t care – it’s obvious from the get go.

So life went on. I learned to own that piece of me. In doing so, I was able to hold my head a bit higher, walk a bit taller, straighter and not be afraid of standing out when I might stand out.

Later, I started to work with clients. I had clients. This was a new thing at one time. For the self-taught, self-educated computer geek it was pretty novel.

Anyhow, as time went by and I started to work on lots of different projects – websites, flyers, logos, commissioned art – I realized that I should show this stuff somewhere as a portfolio. So I created a website for it, separate from TenThousandVisions.com, my painting website. It was a nice website but nowhere near as nice as my personal site. I realized that I felt fractured like that. There was this one person over here who was busy being a “graphic designer” and this other person over there being a “painter”. And yet, both had a similar task before them: presenting information in an aesthetically pleasing and intuitive manner. Ultimately, the “resumé” of my paintings was, I felt, stronger than anything else I might show. The other stuff is there because I can. The paintings are there because I want to. In my humble opinion, hiring a graphic designer who has an endless creative urge to just create is going to bode better for your project than hiring someone who just creates because they get paid to do so. My two cents, anyhow.

I did realize however that sending my site to someone I’ve never met might throw them off. They might be like – whoa, look at this guys art… and then they might make a judgement. And decide they weren’t interested in hiring me.

And I realized that the person who makes that judgement isn’t someone I’m likely to want to work with. The person who says: this is cool, I want a touch of that on my project – that’s the person I want to work with. We already get each other from the beginning.

Mind you, I have all sorts of clients. Some are very professional to the point of being pretty straight. Others are, well, puppeteers or channelers or what have you. All of them end up feeling the same way: one person who is being who they are in life who is working with another person who is being who they are in life.

So it’s a leap of faith: stepping into who you are because it suits you best. And yet, it’s a leap that you know – if you don’t take it you might as well step aside. I don’t want to present a “business face” only to make a buck. I might as well put on a button up shirt and go sit in a cubicle somewhere if that’s the case. At that point, I’d just be fooling myself.

Listen, it’s best for everyone if you just step into that person who you want to be, who you are and own it. I mean really 100% fully and completely OWN it.