Archive for the ‘Events’ Category
Moontribe
The recent full moon found me out in the desert with a family of friends I’ve been dancing with for the past 10 years. Years ago, in my early 20′s, I was out in California for the second time ever. I met a girl on the Venice Beach who suggested I come check out a weekly event at a club in Santa Monica: $2 Tuesdays (it’s still 2 bucks but held elsewhere). So I went and, from there, found myself on my way out to the desert for a Full Moon Gathering. Years later, through ups and downs, travels and life, people and places and things, I still find myself having as much fun as ever (if not more because I’m older, wiser, smarter, lighter….) under the same moon at the same time of the year with many of the same friends dancing to the crazy funky tribal techno everything all at once. Through it all this tight knit family has become such a lovely mirror of friends who dance and live and cry and love with one another. There are potlucks and baby showers and weddings and wakes and dinner parties and dance parties and cake parties. Honesty and heartache and laughter and ecstatic oneness. The earth keeps revolving around the sun and the moon keeps revolving around the earth and we keep showing up to do that sacred funky holy crazy lovely wild dance thing that we do, celebrating life.
That said and as an introduction to Moontribe for those of you who might not have heard of it, this past full moon found us once again… out in it. Surrounded by sloping mountains capped with snow, a winding river, a vastness, an epic sunrise. For this community of friends, loved ones, and people I’ve not met yet, I designed a dj booth/altar and built it with the help of some smart and gung-ho friends. Here are some pictures…
(By the way: this was Moontribe’s 18-year anniversary. That’s 18 year of not for profit non-promoted electronic music gatherings in Southern California. “not for profit” means that no one gets paid and we are all in it for the love. The DJs, the artists, the organizers… It really is all about the love.)
Live in Love.
High Sierra Music Festival 2011
If you were at High Sierra Music Festival last year, you might have seen my giant lightboxes in the Jam House – one of the late night venues. Well, this year we went bigger. I’ll have some large banners of Birth of a Star on either side of the main stage and I’ve helped House & Garden design and decorate (with some nice mesh banners) the smaller acoustic stage they they’re sponsoring where Nathan Moore will be headlining. They, along with Summit Art Licensing of South Lake Tahoe, are also responsible for bringing my artwork there in front of so many people. Thanks guys! (I’ll also still have work in the Jam House and will be working with Jonathan Singer creating some lovely visuals for the late night events).
Here’s a (daytime) picture of one of the lightboxes from last year. It’s backlit, is about 18′ tall all together, and weighs a ton. And, yes, it hangs.
Michael Divine @ Harmony Fest, Santa Rosa, CA
I’ll be a featured artist at Harmony Festival in Santa Rosa on June 10 – 12. I’ll have a number of works featured in the gallery and I’ll be live painting during the late night event from 10 – 2am during Krishna Das. I hope to make something pretty 
Live Painting – “Shiva Playing the Song of the Buddha’s Knee”
Yes, so, on a theme… I’ve been doing more live painting lately. I’ve called myself “The Reluctant Live Painter” although perhaps a more apropos title would be “The Distracted Live Painter”. What can I say: I like parties and sometimes I’d rather be dancing and playing than painting. I spend a lot of time listening to music and painting – completely absorbed by the nuances and colors. Admittedly, parties and events can be a tad noisy for the live painting thing. In any case – I decided on a new flow a while back for painting at events. I wanted to create larger pieces that focused more on rhythm, gesture, and style rather than detail. So much of my work is very detail oriented. It’s very precise and structured, even in it’s looseness. I enjoy flowing and spontaneous brushstrokes and the quick no-thought painting process. I have found that, if i set the space right on the canvas and have a general plan, then it goes really well. In a sense, it’s like jazz music: there is a general form in the beginning but then it’s riffing and exploring and tangentializing on different ideas and melodies. I just want it to end up in the seat of the Divine in the end.
So here is a painting I’ve worked on at a few different events in the past few months. I started it at a Greensector/Moontribe party in February at Area 33 in LA, worked on it at a couple of Artwalks in Downtown LA at Temple of Visions Gallery, and then last worked on it at a party up in Malibu. The painting is based on a drawing I made in 2003 @ my first Burning Man. The theme that year was Beyond Belief and, after I’d spent the night roaming and exploring, I sat down in Center Camp at sunrise to the beautiful sitar music of my friend Rik Shiraj, a master sitar player. I spent the morning drawing to his beautiful music. He passed onwards this past winter and I decided that it was time to finally paint this sketch…
Lightning in a Bottle
Had a blast this past weekend at Lightning in a Bottle – a big art and music festival here in SoCal – in the mountains and valleys east of Orange County no less! It’s truly a special event that goes above and beyond the ordinary consumption and party fest that many festivals are. Not to say there isn’t a party. I think that the best dancing moment was with John Kelley, a good friend and old-school Moontriber, at the Woogie stage at midnight on Sunday.
I participated in Lightning in a Paintcan and created a painting over the weekend that was sold to a lucky person. It was a lot of fun to make and I think I’ll be making something similar for the upcoming show at Temple of Visions Gallery (Opening on June 25). It’ll be a nice accompaniment to the other piece I’ll be showing – The Glass Onion.
Here is a detail of the 5′ x 4′ painting (thanks Mario!):
House of Hamsa Party/Day out of Time Event – July 25, 2010
I know it’s a ways off but I recently created a commissioned painting for this flyer and event, held in San Francisco on July 25th, 2010. Featuring the music of a collective of musicians from Hamsa Lila, Beats Antique and others, some great DJs and my artwork and some live painting, it’ll be a fun time. O yeah, it’s in honor of the (semi-controversially important) Mayan Day out of Time. One way or another, it’s a fun time… Come check it out. 800 tickets available…
For more information and tickets go HERE.
STS9/Conscious Alliance Posters
I’ve been working with Conscious Alliance for quite a while now producing a poster or two per year for them. Conscious Alliance gives the posters away for donations of food or money at various events and shows they attend. The donations go towards needy families across the country. They do some really great work.
Here is the poster that will be printed for the Sound Tribe Sector Nine shows this coming August in Chicago. The image is a detail of the painting entitled “Gratitude” which can be seen here.
While we’re at it, here is a poster I made for them for an event just about a year previous… at least, according to the dates on both posters. This one was made for the August 2009 STS9 shows in Georgia. This one used the painting “Standing on the Shoulders of Giants” from the Evolution Series
MAPS Psychedelic Science Conference
I recently had the good fortune of attending and displaying artwork at the MAPS Psychedelic Science in the 21 Century Conference, held in San Jose, CA. MAPS (Multidiciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies) is “a membership-based, IRS-approved 501 (c) (3) non-profit research and educational organization. [They] assist scientists to design, fund, obtain approval for and report on studies into the risks and benefits of MDMA, psychedelic drugs and marijuana. MAPS’ mission is to sponsor scientific research designed to develop psychedelics and marijuana into FDA-approved prescription medicines, and to educate the public honestly about the risks and benefits of these drugs.”
The conference was a meeting of many brilliant minds including Sasha Shulgin, discoverer of MDMA, Dr. Stanislav Grof, founder of transpersonal psychology and an early pioneer in LSD psychotherapy, Dr. Ralph Metzner, artists Alex and Allyson Grey, Dr. Andrew Weil and many others. I met some really wonderful and inspiring people and listened to some rather insightful talks regarding the conscious use of psychedelics for the purpose of healing and growth.
For more on the conference and to see some of the truly positive things that the media has had to say on this, check out some of the links below.
http://www.nationalpost.com/life/health/story.html?id=6c2cdc9c-2654-4061-8b4f-aede99ad4534
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life/health-fitness/health/Ecstasy-could-help-ease-trauma-long-term/articleshow/5824715.cms
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=123823§ionid=3510208
http://news.santacruz.com/2010/04/19/psychedelic_conference_a_hit
http://www.metroactive.com/features/psychedelics.html
http://muslims.net/news/newsfull.php?newid=358897
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36645291/from/ET
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=mdma-drug-ptsd-trauma-psychedelic
http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/health/2010/0/21/cb.psychedelic.drugs.for.health.cnn?iref=allsearch
http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2010/04/20/simon.psychedlic.drugs.cnn?iref=allsearch
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100416/full/news.2010.188.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100419/hl_nm/us_ecstasy_ptsd
An Open Apology
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.
Art, Stories, and Galleries – Recent Happenings
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):
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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…
