INSERTS

 

Can a two dimensional object have three dimensional properties? The triptych TREE has three constructed inserts... one at the heart of the tree & one in each of the desert wings. The initial concept was to have an eraser in the centre & two objects in the eyes of the desert. First thought: a set of car keys in one & a miniature Easter Island head in the other. The solution arrived at is better. Shiva dancing presents the ineradicable process of creation & destruction that crystalizes the super nova of our universe. You have to love the green oxidized surface  of the statuette. The only red in the entire painting is the red of the BIC lighters... plastic fantastic destruction... cheap, modern & disposable like the world we inhabit. The map behind the lighters are the streets of Saskatoon... one small city in the termite heap we call home. I have strung the bowstring tight to the point of snapping. Can you dig it? Sproing.

THE FACE OF THE CREATOR

When you imagine the Face what do you see? I admire the cultures who out of humility decline to put the Name down or have no pictures or statues. The history of my civilization is a history of images. Most of the images are at core an image of the Divine. What is the face of the Divine? Like all poetry we create a version... a template... & some versions are closer than other the image we are made in. Shiva dancing in the flames...the Nataraj... the cosmic dancer who performs his divine dance to destroy a weary universe to make way for the new. That is an image I return to  over & over. The solstice is here. The world did not end once again. The sun returns to dark Saskatchewan. The son of man is born anew. Engulfed by destruction the creation continues. Shiva still dancin’ in them flames.

EVE OF DESTRUCTION 20/12/2012

20/12/2012. The dreadful has already happened. It is always the eve of destruction. Being is always seduced by non-being. Pull the curtains on the floor of the glass bottom boat. Peer into the deep blue of the deep blue. The dreadful has already happened. We are living late in the era of Leonard Cohen, our great prophet... our Rabbi... our teacher. “There is a crack in everything... that’s how the light gets in”. I heard Leonard singing the other night. He knows he is already dead. He sings from a place beyond this temporal world... beyond the eve of destruction. The dreadful has already happened. If you live your life like you are already beyond the eve of destruction... like you are already dead, the living is easy. Remember the Phoenix. Remember the crucifixion. The dreadful has already happened. The bird of paradise rises from the ashes.

TEXTURE

Art works in the perception of the texture from which the art is constructed. Music is rhythm... melody...harmony... one sound following the next. Poetry is words... images... one sound following the next. Sculpture is bronze.. marble ... wood.... “Oh, Please let me touch that cold stainless steel!”   Painting is... painting is the glory of colour upon colour. As a painter I look to what colours... what surfaces I can place on the surface... the tabla rasa of my canvas to delight the eye... my eye... your eye.  The Divinity of the Universe created Nature... its 63 laws. Then the volcano of possibilty erupted.... textures upon textures. Surfaces upon surfaces. No human meaning... just the beauty... the simplicity of textures to be perceived. Fall in love with the textures of this Universe.... they are God’s skin.

VERTICAL 1

If the daily world we live in lies on the horizontal, then the world we seek, the world of the spirit lies above and below us. Come in from the far reaches of your despair the desert of your destruction to the third eye of Shiva. Once you have arrived at that centre explode upwards... soar up the majestic trunk of the tree of life into the eye of the sun. Imagine a TREE a thousand feet high. The bounds of a life time is horizontal... flat.  Eternity is on the other axis. The epiphany launches us upward out of ourselves. Movement comes in from the edge of the circle to the centre and from the centre it must go Up and Up and Up. In and Up. In and Up. In and Up. The details of the daily... the details of the destruction are just that. A very thin skin of the onion of God’s Creation. When you stand at the heart of the tree of eternity and look up into the eye of the Sun you know that the creation is and always be.... Perfect.

VERTICAL 2

HORIZONTAL

We live on the horizontal. This mortal existence with all its sunrises and sunsets. We look at the asphalt at our feet. We kick the empty pop can into the gutter. We flatten the rain forest to make pasture for the cows that Micky D uses to make our Big Macs. We scallop out the coal seams. We scrape the mountains down to bedrock for the tar we use to make our action figure toys. Look at the surface of Mars or Venus. That is the flatness the horizontal we are creating for ourselves in the next generation. Do you love those big heads on Easter Island... they look grand against the flat backdrop don’t they? When you cut down all the trees you are left with desert. There is a beauty in the starkness. It is a beauty that does not include you or me. Look at my painting. In the centre is the power of the tree of life. Move to the horizons. There is nothing but desert, dark clouds, and death.

TREE

LAST TREE ON EASTER ISLAND 

               for Sandra Epp Dec 1, 2012

The last tree on Easter Island

The last tree on Clayquot Sound

Who cut, who cut it, who cut it down?

I cut, I cut it , I cut it down.

The Limber Pine, a seedling when Columbus headed west.

It’s I that weeps not Willow, She bends to caress.

A Joshua in the desert & my tongue so parched.

We kids we swung on a rope from the Golden Larch 

& Maple scarlet, we put my father in the home for the lost.

A Chickadee dee dee in the Cottonwood frost.

It’s Crab Apple wine & the new bride blushes rose.

& Sumac tea is red as desire if you’re all alone.

I’m choking from the Choke Cherry on your crazy dare.

The Spruce caked thick, & breath, my bridal veil.

I kissed you first, so shy, when Magnolia bloomed.

The viewing done, the Poplar bark so smooth and cool.

The last tree on Easter Island

The last tree on Clayquot Sound

Who cut, who cut it, who cut it down?

You  cut,you cut it , you cut it down.

I climbed the Chestnut for conkers’ spike ball seeds.

The Mangrove swamp after diving off Amber Gris key.

In love with another so I planted Tentpole shoots.
& Whirly Gigs crunched beneath my army boots.

A Tamarack, rain-tipsy after the Home-coming Ball.

The fallen Redwood rotten... a giant lifts up tall.

Cedar Wax-wing in the Mountain Ash, December Morn.

The Paper Birch glowed green the day my son was born.

The Baobob & the Bodhi  & Buddha below.

A platform high in the Elm with Edgar my crow.

The cops cuffed Pa in a Cherry blizzard in May.

The alders shivered silver & I knew I was okay.

The last tree on Easter Island

The last tree on Clayquot Sound

Who cut, who cut it, who cut it down?

We cut, We cut it , We cut it down.

BIG BANG

JUST WHEN

Just when you thought all your kisses were spent

Just when you sat so lonesome in your lonesome tower

That’s when the Whisper-King offered his single flower

That’s when the stranger’s lips brush gentle as a wren

Just when you gave up seeding your joy

Just when you crossed the names from your precious book

That’s when the letter came, a coat upon the hook

& you awoke from dreams & saw the slender boy

I’ve been alive a long, long time

& all I learned, I learned before

The sky, the sea... the door, the key

I never left, I just arrived

Just when you thought all’s left but the grave

Just when the tarry sands cover the greenest ground

That’s when the dragon turns & begs to beg your pardon

That’s when the water light comes wave upon the wave

You’ve been alive a long, long time

& all you learned, you learned before

The sky, the sea... the door, the key

You never left, you just arrived

BLACK & WHITE

If you do not embrace the shadow the shadow embraces you. A man has one major goal to master the two sides of his soul. It is not good & evil. It is the time of night & the time of day. I ask you to tell me which do you value more? Your sunshine life or your dream life. Think carefully before you answer. When you dream you are with God directly and completely in eternity. When you awaken you forget. When you are completely open you realize there is no difference between now & eternity. Between the divinity of God & the divinity of your soul. They are one. They have always been one. The shadow self wears the symbol of the ankh, the crucifix... the sign of redemption. The saint wears a pentacle... a sign of the interior dream life. It is in splitting that we lose our connection with the divinity. We split but we are one. The dreamer... the awakened one. The self & the shadow. The shadow & the luminous self. The Yin & the Yang. Me, I am a follower of the teachings of Lao Tzu. I do Tai Chi in my sleep... do the fire dance at noon.

FIRE & DIAMONDS

Seeking purity... the great desire. What purifies you. Is it the great fertility of the earth with its deep seams of gemstones & crystals? Is it the deep cleansing of the flame... the sun burning away the superficial layers to reveal the white? Is it the wind coming off the range tossing aside the clouds... caressing the blue? Or is it the clear brook stream fingering through the moss, polishing the brown eggstones of the valley. The fish are everywhere for me... the rainbow trout, the black galaxy fish of the starry night, the darting minnow flames; the great black whale shark of the deep coal beds. I seek purity. Then I close my eyes. I see the creation is perfect, cannot be added to or subtracted from... even the anxieties of this mortal life.

FRACTALS

 "Fractals are infinitely self-similar, iterated & detailed mathematical constructs having fractal dimensions”. Begin to understand this you finally begin to become human... a human becoming. Follow me... you see we are just about to arrive. The watershed moment approaches. Before the big bang. After the midgard snake swallows its tail. The human mind gives birth to itself... the thoughts of the human mind... the infinite... infinitesimal thoughts of the human mind. Mathematics is the code of the void theorem unzipping its DNA. I urge you to look into images of fractals... the theory hurts my poor, soft, little brain. The bomb is set. Understand the fractals of being & we sidestep the annihilation we plan for ourselves. Understand... it is now in our generation that the great arrival is occurring. Too big a bite for your midnight snack... enjoy the fractals I so valiantly attempted in my little painting.... I AM IT IS I AM. 

MIRROR, MIRROR

Goal 1: Paint within the confines of the golden ratio

1/1.618033988749895...................

The dimensions of the Parthenon, the face of Notre Dame, the sides of my mastercard. The ratio of true beauty. Ask Pythagoras or his buddy Euclid. Or ask the two Leonardos. 










GOAL2: PAINT FIRE & DIAMONDS. 

Goal 3: Paint the mirror. 


Lewis Carroll knew about mirrors. So did, Kurt Vonnegut. The mirror, like the frame is in the same golden ratio. Do you see through the looking glass to the alternate universe or universes? Is it a leak to from another dimension? Mirrors are mysterious. Alzheimer patients see themselves in a mirror & believe someone has stolen their body. We observe the changes... the flaws.. the sadness in a face we forget is our own.

Mirrors are cold. So is the truth.

GOAL 2

Goal 2: Paint fire & diamonds.

I AM THAT I AM

YESHUA

How did you know to come to me?

How did you come to know me?

I was lost in my losing streak

Breezing through the evening breeze

Throwing snake eyes to the curb

Hugging  shoulders on a curve

I thought I knew a thing or two

I thought I knew a thing or two

All I had were piles of leaves  

& pages filled with words 

No this, no that, no here, no there

It’s all from nothing & everywhere

So said the flame in the midnight dark

So said the rooster in the sunny park

Amazing grace to save the wretch

The sun shade driver of the stretch

Back seat in the electric easy chair

A shooting star with thunder in my heart

How did you know to come to me?

How did you come to know me?

Jesus in the Garden, the Beatles on the roof

Brothers in the brotherhood... Sisters too

Surfing, soaring, piercing; the flowers drink the sun

 & petals falling from the lotus, falling one by one 

Touchstones in a flower bed of jewels

& so it’s key holes in a darkened school

A City in the Mountains... Katmandu

& then the salmon starts its run

How did you know to come to me?

How did you come to know me?

TROMPE L'OIEL... TRICK OF THE EYE

Tell me about reality. Oh, you human of the five senses. Take them away one by one. Where do you find yourself? I have discovered the gift of illusion. Smoke and mirrors. Turn the plane into space, add the element of time.... the Matrix, the continuum.. next add the briefest of moments, turn on the sparkling scintillation of cortex, the temporal lobe. Ah, here we are. Some of my favourites.. Please Google: Mantegna of the powerful toes... his inner domes. Check out the skull in The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein....blows your mind don’t it? And all of Dali... almost too much like a bad dream trip, but necessary. My cubism contains little tricks of time & space. I desire red paint that opens the door to Andalusia. Castanets please! Takataka Takatak TakaTaka TAK! & now friends, behold the RED GUITAR.....

THE GLUE THAT HOLDS IT ALL TOGETHER

The act of poetry is the act of gluing. Take two different items. Apply a thin layer of adhesive. The mind makes the leap. I have taken up the ancient art of Collage. Invented by the cubists... developed by the DaDaists.... perfected by Pop. 

In RED GUITAR I have used two pages of music, a ticket to a dying Gordon Lightfoot concert, a map of a river in Quebec, a Belgian stamp & two photocopies.

In the end all art is about texture. How to create a surface that draws the eye in... that pleases the retina causes the occipital cortex to scintillate.

  Cutting and pasting. Very satisfying. Layers upon layers. That is how the file cabinet of my brain works. Now I am stuck.