Occasionally for one reason or another, I do more than one version of a picture Sometimes the scene in my head just spins out differently and something new emerges. Usually I’ll keep one and put the other aside or post them each in different places. I figured here it might be fun to show both. Let the viewer decide which they like better. Consider it a bonus.
Click on images to see full-sized
Smashing Through the Visage to Find My Shadow by GAR
I deal with shadows and masques and like to see what goes on behind our faces. After all, who we show ourselves to be even when it is honest is but the tip of the iceberg. We contain so much more than we ever show ourselves and as we recreate ourselves and allow new influences and inspirations in, there is so much more to learn.
One of the things that has been noticed about my art almost since I began is my use of colour. Typically, I have used bright and varied hues and one of my favourite things is to use pictures of various gems, particularly opals and agates for their deep colours and textures. This past year tho, I have learned how to tone it down a bit and give a more subtle approach including playing around with monochrome. It seems that even when dealing with hues, there are times when less is more
There is a difference between intentional art and inspired art tho some pieces I create are both. I meditate and seek inspiration turning on my consciousness and then doing my best to block it out to see what may come through. Then sometimes, I just play around with patterns and colours hopefully pleasing to the eye.
“I am a forest, and a night of dark trees: but he who is not afraid of my darkness, will find banks full of roses under my cypresses.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche
Social Media can be a wonderful place for the exchange of ideas and learning about any common area of expression that one may have an interest in. I have found it useful to meet people who challenge my ideas of the universe and may cause me to rethink on occasion some of my own views. All too often tho of late, I have noticed that it has become more akin to a WWE cage match where everyone attacks everyone else and it is not the reasoned or most enlightened voices that stand out but who can insult or threaten in the most entertaining fashion.
People state their opinions on something or someone and then hit repeat ad nausea, putting down anyone who disagrees either loudly or cuttingly, not attacking the ideas espoused but the people expressing them. This is not only true, it seems, in political arenas and groups but spiritual ones as well. I have in the past weekend seen people’s names and addresses exposed (doxing), people insulted not even because of their ideas but because of their friends, their body-weight and their appearance. I have seen people threatened. I have seen people tell others whom to friend or unfriend based on opinions with the conclusion that there would be some onus of guilt by association imposed on those who did not comply.
I would like to believe that these incidences are in the minority and that most people want something better in their daily interaction than a 24/7 caged match yet find myself instead becoming more and more cynical. Can we do better? There is an almost drug-like high that comes from participating in the drama of the moment. Become part of any unruly mob and you can feel it. I can’t alter what anyone else does but I can forego this high for myself. I can do my best to avoid dramas (even if it means in any given moment that I don’t stick up for friends more than capable of defending themselves, something that has dragged me in more than once) and I will. I can use the media for the benefits it gives and hopefully avoid the drawbacks.
“A thousand Dreams within me softly burn:
From time to time my heart is like some oak
Whose blood runs golden where a branch is torn.” — Arthur Rimbaud
“If you are ‘walking in darkness’,
do not try to make the sun
rise by self-sacrifice,
but wait in confidence for the dawn
and enjoy the pleasures of the night meanwhile” -Aleister Crowley
Shadows gather as I work my art
Beings appear in landscapes unspoken
some clear and some remain in darkness
Do I give them voice and appearance
or can I but capture the shade?
I ask for gnosis and seek greater understanding
Smashing Through the Visage to Find My Shadow by GAR
In Snow and Fire by GAR
Totemic Thought by GAR
Vengeful Totems by GAR
