I was going to post a long blog post about the US election, the two candidates, and the whole deal of the way we do things. It might have been nice add my two cents to the discussion but there was something that I felt was distracting or perhaps more profound more draining. The political can be an animal that becomes a harsh and dominating beast. It can take over ones imagination, energy and time. Picasso's time and energy in creating Guernica, a masterpiece to be sure, could also be seen as having taken his vitality and creativity. So, what I am trying to say is that I wanted to post something about Trump and Hillary, but felt that all I would be doing is posting comments about that and nothing else. 

What am I posting now? I have been reading a great deal of religious and mythic material. Carl Jung's work on the matter. The figure of St. Teresa of Avila, a Catholic mystic of great importance in the 16th Century is someone I find interesting. There is the great sculpture and chapel by Bernini that is a supreme creation. I had know very little of her and any idea what Catholicism is in general. Being at best an agnostic and one who is finding the ideas of Eastern religions and philosophies attractive I wanted to know more. I am reading her writings and what the Catholic Church is. I have been reading a few books by Catholic scholars. I had to do the obvious layman's act and went to the library and checked out "Catholicism for Dummies" book. 

I have the compulsion to make an image that combines, plays with and mixes St. Teresa's mysticism, Christian mystical ideas, Catholic ideas with Buddhist and Eastern views. A scholar of either areas could say that there is not connection or a vague one at best. To be sure, but I am not writing a scholarly book on the differences nor the similarities. I am looking at the way that I respond and reflect on them and were my mind, my imagination and my impulses take me. The wonderful Catholic churches with the myriad of images, the voluptuous interiors that bathe the viewer in sensory stimuli. The catholic imagination is conservative, constrictive, austere and at the same time sexual, the depictions of the martyr's death (how their bodies were tortured, brutalized), the body of Christ as his tortured, his suffering on the crucifix, the naked bodies, the cherubs, Mary forever young, the great saints as old men, half clothed, starving, isolated, testing the limits of their physical endurance to suffering. So much of the body and its desires, its cravings, its limitations as mortal material. The Buddha in his wanderings, leaving a life of physical luxury and princely pleasures into  years of physical denials of food, warmth, pleasure. Finding the middle path between the two. All about the body, our physical and mental cravings, desires, attitudes and behaviors. 

What will this work look like? I have done a few sketches and studies. Its a beginning and I have no idea where it will go. This is the first post about this.

A small drawing that was made upon request from a person whom I got to know though Instagram. She wanted a three eyed Tesla. I think it turned out well. This will be a short post. It goes back to drawing, with graphite. I need to really pay attention to drawing more. The paintings take so much time. Enjoy.

The one thing that is important to me is drawing and sketching. I do not really devote my time to drawing from life. There are times when I do. But I like the notion of sketching what ever comes into my head, doodling something that turns into something, and just doing something that is weird, strange, surreal using references to help. The last several months I have been in a bit of a stalled zone when it comes to this. The heat of Phoenix during the summer is tough, triple digits, and I find that its not a condition that I work well under. Also other things have been sapping my energy and concentration too. I miss the careful doodles, the tightly drawn figure or weird creature and the big, epic figure drawings that do take effort and time. Painting is sort of like writing a novel. E.L. Doctorow said that writing a novel is like driving across the country at night, and you can only see what the head lights illuminate in front of you. Drawing is something different. For another artist drawing has primacy. For me it is complimentary to the paintings but also its where things begin, Where I get ideas, where I develop ideas, or where I put them down on paper. The simplicity of it, a surface to make marks and something that is the mark maker, seems so eloquent. My great medium is graphite. This attachment is due to me using pencils at many times sketching in classes, alone at home, where ever. The ease of use. You can carry a pencil and a sketchbook anywhere. If I see painting (at least the larger works) as novel writing what do I consider drawing? Good question. Short story writing? improvisations? I am not sure of what sort of analogy to give it. In the last several months have been doing sketching and drawing but feeling too tired or sort of frustrated. The results are generally bland or just me'h with a shoulder shrug. I want to get back into drawing again with some energy. This may be in due course with the ever slowly declining heat in Phoenix, when I say slow I mean as this writing it will take another six weeks for the feverish heat to break. Back to business. Drawing. 

There is another Star Wars movie that is coming out. This one is set before A New Hope. What I can gather from the trailer its the events of stealing the plans of the Death Star. It looks like its a action packed movie, impressive CGI, and adventure. Something missing from the prequels (sorry, gotta dig a bit on those.) But what I am getting at is that the need for narratives, for stories about hope and adventure, good vs. evil. Characters that people hold close to there hearts. It is very interesting that people will get so angry and passionate about the movies. You cannot really find that in the Art World, Art Museums. Generally Art Speak and the environment is didactic, lecturing, wanting to inform about relevance to historical developments and a little boring. When will you ever see people lining up outside a museum for hours to see something? Van Gogh, Da Vinci, yes, but few and far between. I predict that this new film, Rogue One will be successful and make serious money. Which leads me to this painting. Again, like the earlier Darth Babe pic its my twisting the iconic image into something strange or new. This time mixing a Disneyesque Snow White dress with the head mask of Vader. Disney owns the Star Wars world. The movies will be rolling out like clock work. Back stories of Boba Fett, Hans Solo, you name it. All sorts of stories will be coming out. Is this good or bad. I would say both. What made the first three movies so special was the reality that there were only those three films. They were like the standard text of that universe. To everyone it was those three points that directed debate, cultural references, and discussions. It was also limited to only that. Now with multiple stories, new characters, expanded plots of the same events, it allows for greater details and information for the fan. The expansive approach to the narratives opens it up to more people who may have not had much interest in the world of Star Wars. It also opens up narratives that were limited in the originals (meaning mainly white males, a few white females), now you can have different cultural and ethnic characters both male and female. Its opening up to the larger world we live in. Strange how something that could be called a big dumb movie with space wizards is more of a touch stone to deep psychological needs. Indeed, Jung's observation that under our supposed rational and mechanized (computerized) world there is the need for the mystical, magical, non-mechanistic. Why do people wait in line for hours to see a movie? Why do people do the same for music concerts? It touches on something that is vital. I hope that I can make art work that can share a little of that power.

TAKING A SECOND LOOK!!!

I recently discovered a blog by Arthur Trombatta. He was a student at the college in Great Britain where I gave a lecture in 2014. He wrote about my presentation and my work. He said that my work had no reflection in it, that he had no emotional connection with it. Fair enough. I was not angry, well a little bit. This set me thinking about my work. What I wished he would have wrote that my work is superficial. This is not to be taken as a bitter attitude on my part. There was a teacher in grad school who said that my work was superficial. During grad school a visiting artist, who I will not name, said that my work was nothing, I would be nothing like Henry Darger. After reading Arthur's blog about my work it got me to thinking about my work.  I took a longer look at what I was doing. So, is my work superficial? I have no idea. Is it devoid of emotional content? Maybe. Is it too much of mental self-indulgence? Perhaps. I am thankful for Arthur's comments. The work I do is what it is. If its deemed surface and no depth by some, I accept that and embrace it. I will find an audience who will like and love my work, I will find people who will want to own my work. It may change over time, and who knows what the future will look like.

I was watching the documentary "The People vs. George Lucas". An interesting film, sort of a sociological document or even an anthropological one. I am not sure. But I would say that it illuminates something that I find about the those that are deeply engaged with the whole series. The thing that I saw first was that most, if not all the people being interviewed were white men. This is not a bad thing, only that I have to say that the original three movies appealed to a predominately white, suburban, and young male audience. I could be wrong about that but I was one of those who liked it very much in my youth. Second it came about in a time when there was an "Evil Empire", borrowing from Ronald Reagans' observation of the former Soviet Union. This is past, and what is past is prologue. There was this sense for a hopeful and purer notion of morality. This movie had never been seen before. A simple morality tale with space wizards and space ships. The American public, in particular, the white American public seemed to need a story with a clearly defined idea of morality, who is good and who is bad. If you think about it, in 1977, there had been gas shortages, the disaster of the Vietnam war, Watergate and Nixon resigning, and the collapse of the South Vietnamese government in 1975. The nation had changed, had lost face, had seemed to be stagnant, and in with drawl. Then this movie made an impact that had changed the way movies were made. I will not get into what happened from then to know. I will jump to now. Year after year are movies, TV shows, video games, you name it that come out that grab attention, that do something that has not been done before. Or shall I say that the way movies are made stem from that movie from 1977. The big grab at the box office, subject matter that once was either not possible or deemed childish. Marvel and DC superhero movies, Sci-fi stories, Lord of the Rings (Game of Thrones), Pixar, Dreamworks, horror movies even became more sophisticated. Okay, got it, changed it all. But what I felt rather sad was that people were talking about films, "the movie going experience" as if this was a really meaningful event in ones life. I can see that in 1977, 1979, 1980 when movies were busting out in stories and characters and worlds that were never before seen on the big screen. Today its part of big business, corporate profit models and merchandising marketing. Looking back at the late 70's and early 80's those times seem quaint, a kind of simpler time, charming you could say. But now its all entertainment, all the time. Its about watching TV, its about Netflix, its about toys, games, playing, consuming. There is nothing wrong with any of this. Yet, and yet, the passions of people for the movies seemed a little pathetic. I am sorry to use that word but I think I want to try to make a point. Passionate debate about how Lucas changed the original movies, how the prequels are not so great. HAN SHOT FIRST!!  Yet, you are buying corporate products, mass produced, think of the carbon footprint of all this plastic crap that will be left behind. The idea of the Force, the notion of the inner choices dealing with actions, behaviors, thoughts in their direct relationship with an unseen power (the light side or dark) sounds great. That has a reflection of Eastern religious and philosophical ideas, Buddhism and Taoism in particular. It has a sense of play about it, and entertaining adventures, characters you root for to do right, to deal with conflict and all the stuff that stories do. This is all being sold to you. Buddhism is a way of life, doing and thinking that I have been engaged in for last few years. Its hard, I often times feel like saying F**K it. Yet, I find that it has changed my view of my life and the nation I live in. What am I getting at? I am getting at the notion that its still a bill of goods being sold to you, Jedi's protecting good and justice, the Evil Empire doing what it does, it is a series of stories of feel good numbo jumbo in a land of continuous, mindless, empty consumption, if you need this to have meaning in your life. By all means please do. The question is that I fault about this is all of this is a friggin global corporation getting you to spend money on this. And the fact that these people can quote me chapter and verse of Star Wars this and Star Wars that is basically useless nerd knowledge. Oh, god did I just say that!? Yes, there is more to the world than this, I can quote from the movies, but I have also moved on to other things, painting, literature, poetry, theater and science. The world moved from one set of ideas to another after 9/11. The world changed from set of realities that we embrace to another after the economic crash of 2008. I have to say that I have not had a television for many years. I hardly see movies anymore. This decoupling myself from the infotainment complex, 24 hours a day "news" cycle, the "Celebrity Culture" magazine rags, the whole lot. A person may say that they needed something to have hope, to believe in, they felt that they were alone in this world. I can understand that being a loner when I was young. In the late 70's it was new and original, we needed it perhaps. BUT now everything is for sale, even your dreams. Feeling lonely, here we have something for you (for a price), feeling like you don't fit in, here you go (the cashier will be waiting at the door), need hope for the future, well you have come to the right place (step right up and get your ticket). I may be too harsh. I will pull back a say that its all in good fun. What is wrong with just having a good time? Being silly? Dressing up and being someone else for a short time? Nothing. I think that its great to do that. People should do more of doing something that takes them out of what they know, what they are comfortable in doing. I will say that if your need for expression is to dress up like a storm trooper, Darth Vader, etc. and play out scenes of adventure and drama then what is the harm. None, and that is a good thing. We all need a fantasy life, to act out fictions, playing out scenes of in which good and evil are battling for control. That is something that must be expressed. I am thinking that one thing that might let this be a greater cathartic experience is that a day is made into a holiday, Star Wars day (Yes, May the Forth). People spend the day being there favorite character from the movies. People abandon for a day their daily lives and act out battles between Jedi and Sith, Rebels versus Empire, use the language and dress of the films. A festival of breaking out of the routine of daily life with its responsibilities and obligations to the practical matters of living. That actually might make people less tense, less angry, less isolated. Role playing, really playing the parts, make the day a time of letting loose. Being Jedi fighting for justice and the Republic or being a Sith and playing with the darker aspects of human thought and behavior. It is happening everywhere, people are in clubs or groups where they dress up and do battle. playing out scenarios of adventure. The "Nerd" culture is opening up to more people than just suburban white boys. It has more women getting into comic books and cosplay, African-American, Latino, Asian. Its getting broader in scope and more inclusive. I can see why the new Star Wars film, and those to follow, have touched more people. The older movies were, lets face it, a lot of wonderbread on screen. The new films will have a mixture of various people of background and ethnicity. That is what I think is hopeful about it. That even if this is a corporate vacuum to suck your money from you pocket, there is a greater group of people all enjoying the stories and characters who reflect more of the world we live in. Woman who do cosplay are playing out their fantasies of being strong women. They can play a role of the superhero who saves the day, who can go on adventures, do what is right, wrestle with moral questions, and be the part of something larger. It lets women act out in ways that would be deemed inappropriate or not supported by parents, or society. I went to the Comic Con in Phoenix this year. there were many young women dressed as Harley Quinn. I do not know anything about this character but I can assume from the dress that they all were feeling empowered, taking a chance at playing a crazy character, letting themselves think differently than they would otherwise do. I got bored with the products being sold there, it just became the same thing over and over again, But the people, manly young people were having fun. They were playing around, comparing, it was a grand scene of meeting and seeing. Fearless and showing off what they could do (if they made the costumes) or showing off how well they pulled off a character. That was what I enjoyed being there. That does take a great deal of courage to do something like that. As you can tell I have first complained then turned to try and see the best qualities of all of this. Its important to work out what ever thoughts you have about anything. It is not for me to simply dismiss all of this, it is important to many. And for that I must respect their passions and their interests. If they go to comic cons or the opening of the next Star Wars movie, its both about courage and fun. Its a full fantasy life to contrast this mundane that is important. I am an artist, different than those who make films or those who make their own costumes based on characters in films, TV or comic books, but an artist just of a different type. I guess the documentary touched on something that I have not really thought about for a long time. I too was moved and embraced Star Wars, a young boy who dreamed of adventures, battling the bad guys, saving the galaxy. What young boy could deny such fantasies. I have since moved on to other things, as is what happens in life. I dismissed all of it too quickly, then came to realize that who am I to just simply say its nothing. What is needed and what people do is play, but it is serious play. Important to have a sense of wonder, and to act out something. This blog entry seems to have been rather cathartic. All art is about seeing things in a different way, even movies made by a giant corporation like Disney. May the force be with you. Party on Wayne, party on Garth.

"The Portrait of Forrest Solis or the Mystery of the Feminine" The person who posed for it was Forrest Solis, my professor in graduate school. If you want the reasoning behind it; What is going on? What is this about? Working on it, from a small sketch of a figure with tongues sticking out with another head on that to the completed image, I cannot really give you a reason or reasons as to what is this! Let us take a trip in this image from rear to near. The landscape has a look of a surface of the human brain. Why did I paint it like that? It just happened that way. But as we get into the action, the forms that you can see, it shows my interest in numerology or the symbolism of numbers. Odd numbers. That happened when I painted the rainbow tree forms, there had to be seven of them. It was then that I was interested in symbolism of numbers. Three heads, one flower, then seven trees, and then in that was the use of five butterflies, and seven donuts. Why donuts? I cannot say exactly. Sexual? Yes. Empty calories? Yes. But also the circle is about both completeness and the number of them is nine. Nine has a interesting reality. The square root of 9 is 3. This reflects the three heads. The number 3, beginning, middle and end. That leads to the flower. The flower is the first number, 1. The singularity. What is this getting at? I have not idea really, I can talk about the Dhammapada, a collection of Buddhas saying. I could include Jungian ideas. Its an image that seemed to happen, and the real work was building it that made sense, that the elements worked together, and in the end the question I ask about anything that I do as an artwork, "Is this worth me doing?". I can try to write more about the internal workings of this work. The work is less about me thinking, reasoning, and illustrating some philosophical idea, and about letting something happen. I read a great deal. I have interests in Jungian ideas, mythology, etc. This is to let sink into the mind and let it arise out of making images. This is a good example. It works as an painting.

I have been doing smaller paintings as of late. This is both to make more work and to have a greater opportunity to make money with more sales. No artist can really be oblivious to the nature of what they do. We make things that have no direct function to the world, or we are not bakers, carpenters or city planners. Enough of that. What is this? Its a series of small works in which I am using humor with an iconic character of popular culture, Darth Vader. One can make the case that there are no real original stories or characters just the constant flux, flow and transformation of previous ideas that stretch back to the beginning of civilization. All well and good. Right now I am using a Vader head mask and combining it, juxtaposing, contrasting, or using incongruous arrangements. This character is very well known to most people in the United States. I cannot say for the rest of the world. Its a figure of the Fallen Knight, or warrior, or soldier. A character that you can find in practically all cultures in the world. Samurai, Medieval knights, Cowboys culture, you name it. The basis is not the fall but the redemption of the person that matters. Vader shares that history. But today the character is also a property, a character that has been used to sell breakfast cereal, action figures, cookie jars, T-shirts, you name it. What I wanted to do is take this well known character, or to use the corporate entertainment industry description, this property, and spin it into another direction. The basis is that I like painting shiny surfaces and clothes. Its a great challenge and looks cool. The second part is that by putting this masculine figures head on a woman's body the character becomes something else. it becomes less about the reality of it symbolic meaning and more about its universal appeal AND the silly nature of our narratives, mythos. This character has embraced the darker aspects of the human heart and mind. Yet in the movies he really is not that brutal of a character. One can not really compare Vader to say the brutality of the Nazi's and the SS. (Yes, the Death Star destroyed a planet and killed billions but that was not Vader's order). Taking the head of Vader and placing it on a female figure pokes fun at the icon, saying that this is just a fiction created by a group of people for entertainment value in a space movie. It stretches the character into absurd, surreal or bizarre arrangements. Changing the arrangement makes one think differently of the symbolism of the character or with that new arrangement one can reaffirm the symbolic significance behind the artifice of Vader.

"The Cosmic Dharma Bears". This image comes from my interest in eastern religion and belief. Specifically Buddhism. Although Buddhism today is not one singular form it has a few characteristics that are of interest to me. This is not an image based upon any kind of vast knowledge of Buddhism. I was reading Thich Nhat Hanh, a very interesting man and insightful writer. He was talking about the "basics" of Buddhism. He was talking about the three great dharma seals. There is not ego or self, all of life is transitory (in flux and flow) and nirvana. This set my mind off into many directions. The idea of the ego, the self being an illusion, life being a constant state of movement and change, and the realizing of one understanding the world and themselves within that achieves nirvana, or enlightenment. This is a painting of course and not a dissertation of the nature of Buddhism. This lead me to make a few small oil sketches. There was a previous idea of bears in the woods, a family walking outside there house. The three bears of the Goldie Locks story. But as I let the idea develop it became this. The strange warm, orange/red world, the word seals became bears. And the bears have two eyes. One in the head and one in the stomach. The way one sees with the mind and the way one sees through the body. The ground under them seems to be atomizing, being reduced to the base elements, swirling and changing, the platform is like a volcanic strata, mineral hot springs. Both stable but seeming to be melting, turning soft, loosing its material cohesion. The reds, oranges, yellows correspond to the Buddha's understanding that all of life, we humans, and all living things are a house on fire. We are burning. In that fire we can achieve an understanding, a deep acceptance of the passing of time, our own changes that will be us and the nature of the world. And its a very cool painting in the bargain.

I sent four boxes of small paintings to the Haight Gallery in San Francisco. We will see what will happen. Sarah, the director of the gallery, really likes the work. She is positive that there is an audience on the west coast for art work, and in particular art work that is a little on the edge or weird. I sent a group of scratchboards, some birthday girl paintings, darth babe paintings, and three nun paintings (part of the nun series). She liked the drawings that I sent pics to her. Those will have to wait for the moment. The issue is framing, which is one of the biggest cost in dealing with drawings. I think this will work out and that people on the west coast are interested in cool, strange, weird, what have you work. 

A belated homage to the late H.R. Giger.

Giger was a brilliant artist. Giger was an original artist. Giger was a badass. he will be missed and thank goodness he made singular work that visually grabs you by the neck and the groin. His work is take or leave it, like it or don't. He was tapping into something primal, something deep in the mind and heart. I am in awe of his vision and his scope. I look at his work and remind myself that I can dig deeper, pull from more of myself. I look at his work and it reminds me that I have just only touched a small part of what the mind and heart can do. I look at his art and know that I must do more, risk more. Thank you Giger.

THE TOWER OF CREATION

Its the idea of the feminine. The woman is The creative force in society. Is this about sex? Yes, and about reproduction and about what in important to human beings. Lets work backward to forward. The mountains. There are nine mountains, the number 9 is an interesting number. The square root of 9 is three. The number is feminine, intuitive, unfolding and completion. The plain behind the figures and platform is a series of steps, where to cross this one must walk carefully, with intention and assurance. The far off figures, yes phallic, but the number of them is five. 5 is the symbol for man, for the five senses and the marriage of the male (3) and the female (2). The platform path is a rainbow color that reflects mirror like with the power. This is were life changes from one order to another. But you must confront two gateway guardians. There one deals with two aspects, the feeling of selfish desire and the feeling of fear. Once you pass through the tower has an egg above the entrance, the gift of life, of creative potential. Each figure has one of the primary colors, red, blue and yellow. The basic blocs of visual color in painting. The figure with the blue around her head looks at the viewer, the one with red slightly off and the main figure, the sunshine feminine looks far in the distance. Your eye bounces from one to the other. There is more to be written but this is good for this one right now.

Since this is going to be the most talked about presidential election in many years I will add my two cents. This is a strange time, but all times are strange. Today in this country there is division, one could say that it has always been divided, white and black, men and women, you name it. But I have a sense that there is more here. The conflicts of the past, for centuries nations battled for control over land, resources, etc. The twentieth century had its battles of how societies would be organized, how people were to be governed and in what way things were governed. There is a sense now that there is a longing for the past, its ways that seemed to make sense, and an uncertain future where people feel that they are locked out of a governing system that rules them but does not help or support them. Many feel that its a rigged system for people born into wealth, marry into wealth, are ruthless enough to get it, or lucky. That those who are connected, linked in, the protected class, are given all the advantages while the rest are to fend for yourselves, hope it all works out, and see their aspiring notions of living diminished or dimming. I am not sure that the American Dream can be fulfilled, can be had, can be possible. Why? Jimmy Carter in 1979 made a speech to the american public that called into question the notions of what it means to be a citizen, What the meaning of living in the US meant. He basically said we are valuing what we own, how much money we make, and how this will lead us to isolation. Thinking of advantages over others rather than valuing what we do, how we live meaningful lives and meaningful relationships. Ronald Reagan basically said, will all honesty, thinking truthfully, that we can have the American Dream, that being rich was a meaningful end, that the market solution is the most beneficial solution, that competition and materialism leads to greater prosperity. In a sense "We Can Have More", and that there is no bill to pay, no debt due, no piper to have to compensate. This attitude, the market solution, shared many of the mythos of the other systems in one respect. The Communist, the Fascists, and the Free Market/supply side all thought that the world was without limits, unlimited resources, and that the material gains for what humans want can forever be managed and satisfied. Can we keep growing, more "economic growth", more people, more consumerism, MORE. The sad fact is that as Americans, were lucky in that the mid-20th century the stars aligned, Europe had been flattened by war, Japan was gutted and the rest of the world would be considered "Third World". But that advantage, of political and economic strength, where roughly 5% of the worlds population consumed more than a quarter of the world resources has faded. What Jimmy Carter asked of the US population in 1979, we must change, we must find more value in what we do in out lives and how we live. What he did not say but implied it, was that we have to use less, use less energy, buy less things, own less stuff, and have less stimulation (corporate entertainment, advertising, etc.) and find more meaningful and fulfilling lives. That was rejected for Reagan's Morning in America, that we can have it all, that the bill will never come due. So right now, the system is rigged because it was about having it all. But now, it serves a few and not the many, it serves the blindness of more than the wisdom of moderation. Hillary Clinton has a hard road to go. Can she really get anything done with this vast imperial system that is larger than what any one person can change, can she? But is it still the idea, the mythos of Progress, upwards and onward? Middle class jobs, middle class consumption? Can this continue with seven billion people on this planet hungry for things, and two billion more in the next thirty years? Is it still the mythos of more, and can this planet support it? No, of course not. Look at the melting glaciers of Greenland and the crumbling ice sheets of the Antarctica  as one indication that Nature will now call the tune. And nature does not care, listen to the whispers of the bones of the dinosaurs. Trump may be a narcissist, sociopathic, indifferent to anything but a transactional relationship, but he is offering something that is both seductive, compelling and at the same time under it will have a price to be paid by the american people. The legend of Faust, Christopher Marlow's play, Goethe's play, begs the question, given simple answers to complex problems, you accept the easy and in the end you must pay with something not so simple. In the case of Faust his soul. Trump I think offers some kind of change, or rather the continuation of something that was and that we (or the ones voting for him) will get the bounties of the earth, of production, money and comfort. Make American Great Again, what standards is being used? The past? Can we return to the world of the fifties and sixties? No. But he compelling idea of busting up the room, smashing down the road blocks, kicking ass and taking names may have an appeal. The appeal of action always has a comfort of pro-action, moving is better than standing still, But Trump appeals are based on what one will get, "I will get this, I will get this job back, I will get the pride of nation back, etc." The idea of Americans, this land of the eternal frontier, the eternal dream of progress, is now facing limits. Limits governed by the laws of physics, chemistry and biology. And since reading history or anything else for that matter has never mattered in the US, As Henry Ford said, "History in bunk". The tales of civilizations past is told in the ruins of their palaces and forums, the dirt covered monuments to gods log forgotten. All things must face their decline, decay and the end, death. Am I saying the United States is in decline, yes, am I saying the US is on its way to death, yes. We cannot go home again and the reality is we are slow to change. The 21st century is going to be the century not of growth but of entropy, austerity, and Nature will brush away Adam Smiths invisible hand of the market and break the backbone of our supposed power. We can go slow and steady, with Clinton, A tweak here and a tweak there still wanting it all without having to do with less, or we go fast with Trump, quick, fast, simple, its yours if you say so, but the bill will come due. Clinton will keep the machine going somehow yet the machine is breaking down. Trump could be a disaster. We live by myth, the myth of Clinton (like many of the left) is inclusion into a system that still sees the world as resources, markets, and that we all can live the "Middle Class Life" with no carbon foot print to boot, Trump sustains the myth of progress of lower taxes, deals, economic interests will lead all to the "Middle Class Life" with a tribalist and sectarian ideology. Knowing that politics is a practical business as the character Gracchus (Charles Laughton) says in the 1960 movie Spartacus, I am for Hillary Clinton. I would say that what the great non-starter of everyone in the 1st world is that we must do less, use less energy, have less stuff, own less things, have less empty stimulation. Quality over quantity. This election will be brutal, and nasty. The sides are formed, there is no wiggle room any more. I just hope that we change, for the better, knowing that the future is always uncertain. 

"Crying out for the Dream". I was working on this painting for the last few months. I listen to the radio, often NPR. Hearing all the various news, mainly of the election cycle and the various police shootings and police being shot at. There might be a great deal of tension that is in the air or may be this is just my impression of hearing all of this. I am not saying for sure that this is my impressions, reactions, or idea about what is going on in the US right now. It may but also may not. Is there real anger in and around the US, yes. Will this be a quiet year, no. Will the election campaign between Clinton and Trump be anything but nasty, dirty, brutal, full of accusations and insults? I would say yes. Is this painting about that, or anything else going on in the country and the world? Yes, but don't quote me on that. Okay, that being said, lets take a closer look into this work. What the hell is going on!? Looking at it now after completing it there are several things that spring to my mind. The figures are walking heads, much like most of modern humans. We are generally about our ego, our careers, our lifestyle choices, our this and our that. This is not to say aspiring is bad only that there is a preoccupation with material possessions. What many are finding is that either that getting things and money leads sometimes to unhappiness or that many are finding that the cost of living is a position that is not available to more and more people. Expectations, desires that are disappearing, the idea of progress seems to melt under out feet. The platform seems like both the melting ice sheets of Greenland and the Antarctic and the basic element of the universe, hydrogen. The hydrogen atom is one electron and one proton. All elements derive from this one element.The things we assume are basic and natural to us appear to be dissolving under out feet. The heads have pyramids on their heads. Dunce caps? Perhaps, but it is more than that. We live by narratives, mythos. We see a world in which the structure is seen as unchanging and/or the natural way things are. We all carry this on us in our lives. Our beliefs, our narratives, are abstract concepts about understanding the world and our place in it. This is both a way of finding an understandable pattern to our existence and our place in such a pattern. This is both a way giving meaning to our lives. It also is a burden that prevents one from changing or challenging their convictions. The denial of death, crying out for the dream that things will always be what they are, but death is always at work. The windmill skulls, the constant movement of everything, building up and breaking down. The eyes going from looking down a path into darkness and then up into the sky. Wisdom of understanding that all things change, all things die, and what life if about is flux, flow, change? Or the hopeful expectation that there is an afterlife or that some miracle of the divine or technology will save us? Or both? The egg comforted on its bed of golden hay soon to plummet into an abyss, and in the center of it all only our mind, brain, body. The figures all walk in step with each other, the unchanging habits of people through time. All heat turns to cold, all systems break down, things must face entropy.

The Ally Painting to those who know the inside story. What can I say about this? I think one of the better images I have done. A mixture of Alice in Wonderland, mutant creatures, a Disney tree (good or evil? Who can tell). It could be dismissed as just a superficial work, and maybe true. In Grad school this was sort of called out as superficial by one professor. Or because I didn't make work that fit into the assumed idea of figurative work, too much like the past and/or too much like illustration. It has the problem that Tom Wolf talked about in his book 'The Painted Word", without a theory how can anyone see this? This gets into the problem with academia, and the idea of art making in general. The idea that you must continue in the accepted idea of linear progress of art from the impressionist to the conceptual art of every kind, or rather, you must make art that is 'radical', breaking from something in the past. Fair enough, only that I think in terms of visual impact not something that can only embraced because it illustrates a concept. I may be letting my experience in grad school get to me about this work. There is symbolic inferences and motifs in this work that I see after I completed it. The tree, like nature can be benevolent or malevolent, or both. The woman can be the animus of the male, the feminine aspect of the male sex, that guides the strange rabbit creature, the jackaraffe. The giraffe is a very strange creature, otherworldly, it is no wonder Dali was intrigued by them. The rabbit heads (rather jack rabbit heads) are symbolic of the sexual aspect of the male. The saying of a rabbit, breading like rabbits, since they have lots of reproductive sex, can also be analogous to the male sex drive, but in its more adolescent or immature form. The woman is guiding the creature, as it is heading down the lower path she holds it at bay effortlessly it seems. Directing it to the upper path. At the same time she can enjoy a corn dog. Yes, it is obviously a penis! But also that the feminine is about both control and emotive expression. The Jungian aspect of the feminine is one of guiding, the divine feminine leading the more aggressive aspect of the male nature to greater understanding. The plants about the tree and path are also sexual in nature. Let us be honest, flowers, fruit, etc. are organs of reproduction. Fruit is used to lure animals to eat it and then spread the seeds. The flower is the sexual organ to attract insects to pollinate other flowers. I would say that within being alive, being not just human, but living organism, we are constantly in play about life. This is not just the act of sex, that is one way, but within us we imagine, dream, desire, hope, etc. that is about moving forward, growing or if I can bring in Carl Jung, transforming and individuating. The title is The Walker, and in life we are moving forward in time, we age but we also change, we are living and in that we search. Search for friendship, for love, for sexual pleasure, for meaning, for accomplishments. Men may in youth be hungry for lots of sex but then may change and desire something more than an erection, something less transitory. Money, love, children, education. Perhaps I am reading too much into this?

This is a painting that came from my interest in mythology, and in particular with native american mythology. For some time now I have found the notions of mythology and religion to be very interesting. Myths and religions are stories or narratives that people embrace in common about the way the world works, how things happen, etc. The title for this work is Psychopomp Manabohzo. Psychopomp is a word that Carl Jung had used to describe a spirit guide, a being that guides the souls of the living from life to death. Every belief system has some kind of symbolic figure. In this instance I was reading about certain native american ideas of the rabbit, the Manabohzo. This rabbit figure is a creator god, creating life, creating the deer, master of knowledge and a guide to the souls of the living. Its not a literal translation. I was not illustrating anything. It seemed to perk something in my mind, an image like this came to me. How I got from reading a book on the subject to the final image is one that I cannot explain. The idea of death, life, how all this came to be I find striking. In this supposed age of rational thought, where superstitious ideas are thought to be in the past. I feel that we treat death as something to be avoided, not dealt with, not to be mentioned. But for all our supposed wisdom there is something cold about the way we live and the way we die. The blanket assumption of those inclined to the dualism of everything, that we die and poof! in the afterlife of either heaven or hell. It is perhaps why i find the accent mythologies, belief systems so interesting, There was such a complex idea of what happens, how things happen. Granted, of course there was a great deal that we would find very unappealing about the past. That being said, I find that we live by narratives, not by facts, we live by values with an underlying mythos at the base of those values.