By a thread: string as medium in contemorary art

Visually interesting and cool history of string as an art medium
from the past to contemporary times at Modern Edition.com


http://www.modernedition.com/art-articles/string/string-art-history.html

Henry Moore

 

Eva Hess

Gabrial Dawe

http://www.modernedition.com/art-articles/string/string-art-history.html

Collage recent artwork

Four  5 New Collage

working on some more stuff  trying to figure out when thier done..are they ever done

Collages in Progress

Busy on these collages, works in progress. Im using some of my photographs in a few of the collages and combined with images from other sources. Painting the backgrounds black and adding soft pencils and colored pencils for a hint of color.

Christian Death

A couple of photos I took of the band Christian Death in 1982 at Godzillas with the original lineup
Rozz Williams, Rick Agnew, James McGearty, George Belanger
The vinyl, Hell Comes to Your House which had Christian Deaths's song Dogs  and Christian Deaths first LP Only Theatre of Pain were always on the turntable.
I thought they were great band live, at the begining of a show at the Whiskey that we saw Christian Death performing at there was dramatic lighting, I believe candles and they brought rozz out in a shroud while the band was playing slowly, as the music got louder and faster they ripped open the fabric and out spilled roses or flowers and roz... he grabbed the mic and launched into song..pretty dramatic and cool to see live.
kinda like Bauhaus when they played the Roxy in 82' loud, dramatic and atmospheric..

COLLAGES

 

 

Some more collages ive been working on lately

10. Balance and Composure - "Echo"

http://youtu.be/Ey9KR89K828

new collages

These are some new collages im working on, continuing on with appropriating images and incorporating some of my own imagery into them. Im creating these images the old fashioned way with a pair of small scissors, a glue stick and a ton of books, magazines, my own images, advertising brocures, old letters written years ago to loved ones that I buy at the swap meet, sometimes these old letters inspire an image. I think they are a great creative tool. Prior to these examples of collages I was working on cabinet photos, bought at the swap meet, painting on them and adding a few small additions to twist the original. Now im having fun incorporating the images, bought at the swap meet, into collages that are generally about 8"x10" allowing me more freedom to combine a variety of images from different sources and tweek them to make something different.  Im going through tons of old books and magazines to get snippets of images and bring them together.  I was inspired by a friend Rob Slater who uses digital media to create his collages. Here is his site http://drift2540.com/

 

 

Vanishing Twin

 

Surf was created on day 8

False prophets

The Lark Ascending - Ralph Vaughan Williams

New Stuff

 

45t - ORCHESTRE POLY-RYTHMO DE COTONOU - General Gowon

Our unfinished gate

Our gate is unfinished but i've painted two Tikis, a male and female to guard our house and a lotus flower representing purity of the body, speech and mind. A daily reminder of something to try and strive for everyday. I used acrylics and sprayed a clear varnish over the dried paint to protect it from the elements. took about 8 hours to get this far, lotta fun to draw and paint it up.

I got this from symbolism .org

Gates, Thresholds and Doors

Gates, thresholds and doors are all symbolic entrances into new worlds. These entrances can be into a new life or they might represent communication between one world and another world, between the living and the dead. The symbolism between gate and threshold is very similar. The symbolism of a gate, though, suggests more of a protecting and guarding aspect while that of threshold suggests simply a passage from one realm to another realm.

In the book An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Traditional Symbols, J.C. Cooper notes this guarding and protecting nature of gates. They are the "protective, sheltering aspect of the Great Mother." Usually they "are guarded by symbolic animals such as lions, dragons, bulls, dogs or fabulous beasts." Symbolism of gates is wide throughout history and mythology. Some of the symbols of gates Cooper observes are:
"The Gates of the East and West are the doors of the World Temple through which the sun passes morning and night. The 'strait gate' is the central point of communication between the lower and higher; the passage, in 'spiritual poverty' for initiates or at death, leading to new life. Like the eye of the needle, it symbolizes the spacelessness of the soul in passing through. The gate is associated with wisdom (Proverbs 8,3); kings sat in judgment at gates, probably as sacred places of divine power."
Certainly a well-known use of the word "gate" is as the threshold into heaven and the passage through the "pearly gates".Thresholds symbolize unguarded or protected passages between the profane and the sacred. As J.C. Cooper points out, they symbolize a passage "from an outer profane space to an inner sacred space." A certain boundary line is represented by a threshold and often this boundary is the boundary between the natural world and the supernatural world. Some of the better known threshold symbols noted by Cooper are the symbol of sinking in water, entering a dark forest or a going through a door in a wall. They all represent a passage from the known into the unknown.
Doors are feminine symbols. In Psychology and Alchemy, Jung noted that doors contain all the implications of the symbolic hole. The significance of the door, therefore, is the antithesis of the wall. In A Dictionary of Symbols, J.E. Cirlot makes an interesting observation about doors in discussing temple doors and altars:
"There is the same relationship between the temple-door and the altar as between the circumference and the centre; even though in each case the two component elements are the farthest apart, they are nonetheless, in a way, the closest since the one determines and reflects the other."
Cirlot notes that this is well illustrated in the architectural ornamentation of cathedrals where the facade is nearly always treated as an altar-piece. An interesting symbolism of doors is associated with Zodiacal signs. The summer solstice in Cancer is the "door of men" and symbolizes the dying power and descent of the sun, the Janua inferni. On the other hand, the winter solstice, in Capricorn, the "door of the gods", symbolizes the ascent and rising power of the sun, the Janua coeli.
The appearance of gates, thresholds and doors is a commonality to all story genres. Usually the hero passes through them to symbolically mark the beginning of his journey. In this sense they are places of departure symbolically similar to coastal ports next to great oceans from which voyages have ventured from throughout history. But these symbolic gateways seldom have the physical characteristics of objective doors or gates.
One important example of the symbolism of passageways is contained in Joseph Conrad's famous story Heart of Darkness and Marlow's trip to the trading company to receive his appointment. It is worth taking some time to examine this symbolism for it serves as one of the best examples of threshold symbolism in all of literature.
The beginning of his voyage up the Congo is the obvious place to look on as the beginning of his voyage to the symbolic "heart of darkness." However, Marlow's real voyage actually begins with the trading company for it is the trading company which possess the authority to send Marlow on this voyage in the first place. It is the true "gate" or "doorway" into the "heart of darkness."

Symbolic gates, thresholds and doors in stories are more often than not hidden within a subtle unobtrusive context as if the author is reminding us that although they are always part of our world it is not everyone who can see them. This is the position that Conrad takes for Marlow's voyage which really departs when Marlow walks down a hidden street on his way for his appointment with the trading company which runs the outpost up the Congo River. As Marlow relates to us in Heart of Darkness:
"A narrow and deserted street in deep shadow, high houses, innumerable windows with venetian blinds, a dead silence, grass sprouting between the stones, imposing carriage archways right and left, immense double doors standing ponderously ajar, I slipped through one of these cracks, went up a swept and ungarnished staircase, as arid as a desert, and opened the first door I came to."
Within this context there appear two symbolic "gatekeepers" or guards to the world Marlow is about to enter. Like the subtleness of the gate itself which is hidden down a "deserted street" the guardians are not one's idea of the traditional guards as large, strong and masculine. Rather these guardians are two women:
"Two women, one fat and the other slim, sat on straw-bottomed chairs, knitting black wool. The slim one got up and walked straight at me - still knitting with down-cast eyes - and only just as I begin to think of getting out of her way, as you would for a somnambulist, stood still, and looked up. Her dress was as plain as an umbrella-cover, and she turned around without a word and preceded me into a waiting room. I gave my name, and looked about."
It is significant that the two women are preoccupied with knitting a common activity with great symbolic associations through its relationship to the creating of knots.
As Cirlot observes in A Dictionary of Symbols, the knot is a complex symbol embracing several important meanings all related to the idea of a tightly closed link. This link might represent a continuity, a connection, a covenant. It might also represent Fate or that which binds man to his destiny. J.C. Cooper in An Illustrated Encyclopaedia reminds us that a knot is an ambivalent symbol since the powers of binding also imply those of loosening, of restraining but also of uniting. Paradoxically, the harder a knot is pulled the firmer it becomes and the greater the binding or the union.

Many knots may also create a net or a web. In fact the two women may be seen as symbolically creating a net, or like spiders, weaving a web to catch prey. Marlow might be viewed as this prey who is about to get caught in their web.

Three Portraits

Going through my images and messing around with them in Picassa 3

Kinda fun trying out all the different options available to the user

Murder of Crows

http://video.pbs.org/video/1621910826/

Corduroy 1885 Hampton Beach N.H.

I picked this stereo view card up at the swap meet. How killer is this image! Lines stacked to the horizon and not a surfer in sight! A closer look at the horizon appears to me to be whitewater perhaps an outer bar? The photographers name is A.P. Munger…Titled – Instantaneous Surf View Hampton Village .New Hampshire, here is a similar image created by him.   http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Instantaneous_Surf_view,_Hampton_Beach,_N.H,_by_A._P._Munger.png

check out this great blog from New Hampshire, the Granite State. http://thegranitestoke.blogspot.com/

And a great view of the same coast in the 21st century, 127 years after A.P. Munger recognized that corduroy stacked to the horizon. Simply utilizing what nature provides.

Germs @ The Starwood

A photo from my piles of files…. I snapped this photo on Dec. 3 1980 their last show before Darby Crash ended his life. My friend todd and I snuck into the show,it was kinda chaotic at the front door and we just slipped in.. I was sporting a cast on my leg from a broken ankle and I stayed away from the pit… The (GI) album is still one of my favorite albums of all time.
http://youtu.be/jarumqRldDI

When We Win the lotto

I want to go and wear a 6/4/3, a hood, gloves and booties again,  check out the waves in the rain or snow, change into my wetsuit in the cold, clamber over rocks to get into the surf,  feel the offshores sting my face, ride waves of great length down the point, be exhausted from paddling for days, day....after day..after day,, smell the peat fire of someones home from the lineup, ride more waves, enjoy the company of a few, clamber over rock to get out of the surf, feel the cold wind on my skin,  eat PB& marmalade and drink hot tea watching waves at the point, sit by a fire in a warm pub with my wife and kids...when we win the lotto

Joe Coleman painter

One of my favorite artists..crazy details and colorful characters

http://www.joecoleman.com/paintings/paintings-main

Salton Sea

We visited jennifers mom who lives in Imperial County, the Salton Sea to be exact, right up against the Chocolate Mountains. Beautiful, isolated and quiet. The mornings so quiet you can hear the train cruise by a couple of miles away.
I took a bunch of photographs of the area and of Salvation Mountain a registered Folk Art site.

Got this information off the Ca. parks and game website
The natural springs and One of the world's largest inland seas, Salton Sea was created by accident in 1905 when increased flooding on the Colorado River allowed water to crash through canal barriers and for the next 18 months the entire flow of the Colorado River rushed downhill into the Salton Trough. By the time engineers were finally able to stop the breaching water in 1907, the Salton Sea had been born - 45 miles long and 20 miles wide - equalling 110 miles of shoreline. 226 feet below sea level.
         
Brittlebush everywhere.


Tatum enjoying the evening hiking out back of nanas place.



Salvation Mountain in Niland about 15 miles from jen’s moms place.

Jennifer and Tatum


From winkipedia
Salvation Mountain is an art installation covering a hill north of Calipatria, California, near Slab City and just several miles from the Salton Sea. It is made from adobe, straw, and thousands of gallons of paint. It was created by local resident Leonard Knight, and encompasses numerous murals and areas painted with Christian sayings and bible verses.
                         
Tatum on top of the mountain


Looking back towards Niland from the top of the mountain


Tatum in the O

Leonards  RV





Inside one of the rooms of leonards mountain, people leave all kinds of offerings and writings to leonard and god.


                      
some of the structure that is still a work in progress


Just waiting on a friend

Coming home through Cabezon wind farm