Journey, 2020
This collection was to touch on the recurrent dream of transcendence and โholy questโ in my work. Using own and alchemical symbolism, I explored many ideas on the theme. Some of the imagery and visual vocab would keep returning to my work for a time later.
You can hear me talk about the collection here in this video, from which the still on the left is taken
Catasterism
(private collection)
This vitreous enamel focal is called ๐๐ข๐ต๐ข๐ด๐ต๐ฆ๐ณ๐ช๐ด๐ฎ and was my word of the year last year. The word refers to the changing of a mortal into a constellation after their death, by a god who loved them especially. That there was a word for this one strange and specific act enchants me. I've been working on a version of this image for literal years - and it finally finds a spot in a themed collection. A transmutation, a gesture of alchemy
Channel
(private collection)
In the ten pieces that I created for ๐๐ฐ๐ถ๐ณ๐ฏ๐ฆ๐บ, this piece ๐๐ฉ๐ข๐ฏ๐ฏ๐ฆ๐ญ speaks most dearly. It is a self portrait - not just of me, but of other artists too who approach their work the way I do. My work is not a collection of techniques pastiched together, each at different stages of perfection according to my garnered skills - of course, it is that too at its most base - but that is not what it ๐๐. With each piece that I create, my only intent is to turn an idea that comes from the very ether, into a visual metaphor, closer to poetry for me than it is to the act of craft. The idea is first, pouring in or sometimes, trickling in - then comes the design, crafted in service to the idea, fruit of my humanness and being a human for 37 years, a product of my era and upbringing. And last comes the craft part, in service to the previous too. It is an alchemy, it is Rumpelstiltzkin at the spinning wheel, twisting chaff into gold. Call it a space-walk or a deep-dive, either way it is a hooking into the other realm, and making something of the formless clay. Or in less egoic terms - letting the gods make it through your body and mind.
There Is No Other, Shower From a Flower, The Tree that Burns Forever (private collections)
The Only Path
(private collection)
The golden road twists and winds before you but it is impossible to leave it - it forms under your feet no matter where you step.
It is your very own road, there are none others like it. Some may run beside you, some may cross it briefly, but in the end it is only your road. Leading you forward towards that mystery through which all must go. Like sulphur in the alchemist's alembic, this road will cook you into something else entirely. Are you already feeling, the newness of a new becoming? Are you ready to change state?
The Crack
(private collection)
๐๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ธ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ฏ๐ฅ ๐ช๐ด ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ฑ๐ญ๐ข๐ค๐ฆ ๐ง๐ณ๐ฐ๐ฎ ๐ธ๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ฆ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ญ๐ช๐จ๐ฉ๐ต ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ต๐ฆ๐ณ๐ด ๐บ๐ฐ๐ถ - Rumiโฃ
It was these words from the mystic sufist poet that triggered this imagery when one night a few weeks ago - without conscious thought, I drew the planet inside the overflowing mouth of an opened clamshell. Unknowing then - or maybe knowing, but only in a 'collective unconscious' kind of way - that the clamshell is an age-old symbol of pilgrimage. โฃ
.
At the journey's end, the clamshell flings open wide its haws - and from it's flowing core where the waters of creativity are loosed, a planet-pearl begins to crack. Light prisms out into its components - a leap into a new dimension, the cracking of an egg and birthing of a new era, the phoenix reborn. โฃ
No Rose Without A Thorn, You Are Known By What You Seek, Channel II
(private collections)