Gratitude

 

“Don’t be afraid. There are exquisite things in store for you. This is merely the beginning.”
—Oscar Wilde

 

Tomorrow is another Thanksgiving Day in the United States. I am ambivalent to say the least about the origins of the holiday yet for me it invokes memories of family and good food, closeness and feelings of gratitude. Tho my ideas of who I am grateful to and what I am grateful for have evolved throughout the years, there is much satisfaction in looking at the positives in my life and being appreciative.
In the west we tend to become fairly jaded. Most of us feel quite put-upon when the ratio of positive to negative in our lives shifts even slightly towards the negative. I feel pretty certain in saying that at least as far as life’s comforts go, that anyone who can read this definitely has a life that is weighted towards the positive. Perhaps a day is needed to remind us of that every now and then. For me it helps.
Blessings, G

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

The Eye LandThe Eye Land by G A Rosenberg

 

UnfoldmentUnfoldment by G A Rosenberg

 

Let’s Talk About…

 

“Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power.”
― Oscar Wilde

 

Last night I talked in general about religion so tonight let’s talk about sex. Almost everyone does it or has it in almost every conceivable way yet talking about it except among one’s closest friends tends to make for awkward conversations at best. Especially when it comes to talking about varieties of sexual experience and desire. Many get not only defensive but go on the offensive when exposed to desires that are different than their own. There are those who will go out of their way to attack those they consider ‘perverts’ or ‘deviants’. Again the reason seems to revolve around fear of the different. Probably the most pervasive pernicious fear that attacks us humans. This seems to be slowly changing with each generation and I hope it continues to do so.
Blessings, G

 

Tonight was a bit of a break art wise so here are two of my older pieces:

 

ManifestationManifestation by G A Rosenberg

 

Nature SpiritsNature Spirits by G A Rosenberg

 

Tempered Steel

 

“The only people I would care to be with now are artists and people who have suffered: those who know what beauty is, and those who know what sorrow is: nobody else interests me.”
— Oscar Wilde

 

Yes the only people who interest me are artists and and people who have suffered. Considering that I consider everyone to be an artist and have never met anyone who’s life has been suffering free, that does not narrow the field very much. Still tho people who have come through fire tend to fascinate me especially those who have come through it and have learned without fearing future fires when they come in turn. Fire can temper as well as burn and I would rather know people who bear their scars proudly rather than those who pass unaffected by it. Not that there is anything particularly wrong with going through life unaffected by it. Susan Sarandon’s character in Bull Durham says the world is made for people who aren’t cursed with self awareness. Perhaps that’s true. Yet I believe we make our worlds and having met many with little awareness beyond themselves. I prefer otherwise.
Blessings, G

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

NaberiusNaberius by G A Rosenberg

 

Bathing in the Currents 2Bathing in the Currents by G A Rosenberg

 

Afraid of Nothing?

 

“Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you! Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing.”
— Oscar Wilde

 

Be afraid of nothing? Here I thought nothingness, the zero point was something to be courted. After all isn’t that point of equilibrium something that is good to court? Tho in courting it as a home point a steady point from which we can swing in all directions experiencing everything that we can. I spent far too many years running from things and fell into many adventures doing so. What a change it has been to know that I can go anywhere, do anything and still return to my centre. Overcoming fear especially that of death and that of nothingness believing one to be a myth and the other to be home, I can let myself experience all.
Blessings, G

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

Contemplative BlessingContemplative Blessing by G A Rosenberg

 

ChasmChasm by G A Rosenberg

What is my Process?

 

“All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.”
― Oscar Wilde

 

At least once a month I get asked by someone how I create my pictures and what process I use. I usually explain that it is all done digitally in Photoshop with a combination of stock photos and some really great filters and some brushwork. I wonder if explaining even close to a step by step would be interesting but still people ask.
Tonight I’ll pull back the curtain a bit and do a kind of step by step of how the picture below was made.
I enjoy playing with fractals. At the very least a fractal can be played with and maneuvered into an eye pleasing mandala and occasionally I get some inspiration.
Tonight I started with the fractal creation program Chaotica HD and started playing with colour and pattern…When I ended up with something I liked, I pulled it into Photoshop and doubled it upon itself (Took one half and reversed it so that the result was symmetrical). I then played with colour a bit more.
At that point I knew this was not going to be a mandala but had no idea what it wanted to be. I copied the layer, took the layer and made it into a 3D ring and then angled it blending it with a screen. I then copied that layer several times, angling the rings in different ways and blending them together until I had the shadows of two rings each including the whole background.
What next?
I brought in a cat head and started blending it in before I stopped because that wasnt what it was… A face within the fractal, a woman?
I started looking through my collection of photos and found one of a woman on a cross. This seemed to fit somehow with the stormy nature of the fractal… I removed her from the background and played around with the colours a bit… Doubling the layer than inversing the colour then playing with different blend modes until she shone with that red blue combination and was just veiled enough that people may question whether it was a woman or a man.
I played around with the blending… and then wanted some more texture in the background. I have this great add-in Postworkshop 64 that adds all kinds of paint effects and I found one that worked, adding the texture and giving it much more of a windswept effect.
After that it was just a matter of listening to what needed to be in. The butterfly, the figure watching both needed to be there. At this point i was pretty open and engaging in dialogue with the picture… I knew a child needed to be in. The picture was about ongoing life not death and resurrection even the figure on the cross (and why it had to be a woman) was about sacrificing the self to the self akin to the Hanged Man in the tarot. I needed something to represent the child. Thinking in terms of Thelemic themes, it had to be Horus…and somewhat akin to the Aeon card in the Thoth tarot, i wanted him to convey the idea of silence (the finger held up). So I found an appropriate picture of a child and blended in the Hawk’s head…and added a slight corona. I then stylized in the symbol for the scarlet woman, Babylon on the woman.
I then liked the picture overall so added an oil painting filter over it… and blended that in with the bottom layer and the picture was finished.
Hmmm I don’t know that I’ll be asked this question again soon. Thanks for your patience in reading it.
Blessings, G

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

At Play With PassionAt Play With Passion by G A Rosenberg

 

Somehow it BreathesSomehow it Breathes by G A Rosenberg

Our Life as a Spectator Sport.

 

“To become a spectator of one’s own life is to escape the suffering of life.”
— Oscar Wilde

 

As many of us were growing up, we were told the importance of being participants in life and not spectators. Many of us indeed feel the need to act, to achieve to press ever onward and this is a good thing for the most part. There is equally a time to be still, to meditate and to watch. It is so easy to get caught up in the drama of day to day life and to even actively promote the drama. We treat as important situations that will be relatively meaningless a day later never mind in any kind of long run. We get angry when someone cuts us off in traffic. Do we actively promote this anger and either give the other driver the finger or start an altercation or do we just watch from our center and not let it affect us. When a family member is in a bad mood, do we take it on, get into a nice rousing argument where years of buried resentments emerge or do we just see it as what it is. Watching what goes on around us and knowing when to act and when to be still has to be one of the most important life and spiritual skills that there is. This has been a hard won lesson to me and one that needs refreshing often.
Blessings, G

 

Click on images to see full-sized:

 

Egg ChamberEgg Chamber by G A Rosenberg

 

Steampunk LizarmanSteampunk Lizardman by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – March 8 2013

“You don’t love someone for their looks, or their clothes, or for their fancy car, but because they sing a song only you can hear.”
― Oscar Wilde

 

I love listening to people’s melodies. Either alone, one voice quietly singing then getting stronger as their confidence grows until they are belting it out. Sometimes in groups in a brilliant symphony and cacophony , dramatic counterpoints , like a mad opera, each voice unique and each voice loveworthy. We all can learn to hear each person’s song. We just have to listen with our hearts..
Sometimes the melody jars with our own but then the best music sometimes comes from melodic tension. I would love to jam with the world.
Blessings, G

 

Click on images to see full-sized

 

Lilith in the TreeDimensional Incursion by G A Rosenberg

 

Magick Carpet MandalaMagic Carpet Mandala by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – November 7 2012

“I won’t tell you that the world matters nothing, or the world’s voice, or the voice of society. They matter a good deal. They matter far too much. But there are moments when one has to choose between living one’s own life, fully, entirely, completely—or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands. You have that moment now. Choose!”
― Oscar Wilde

Sometimes fortune smiles upon us. Here, because of the electoral nonsense happening down below in the land of my birth, I found the temptation to find a quote that talked about choice to be compelling. Luckily I found one that allows me to bypass discussing something that anyone sane has grown tired of long before this point. Of course as Oscar says, the things in the world matter or matter as much as we are willing to let them and of late, tho I render onto the world what is due and even feign interest, its amazing how few things I give matter to in my head. The kindness that one person shows another matters. Every instance of love and caring.. Every person going beyond their own heads, transcending who they were before in order to either help others, become something new or both, that matters.
Which sucker crazy enough to want to run a nation wins or what’s on television or what so and so is doing to such and such, not so much….
Blessings, G

Click on images to see full-size
Opalescent Goddess by G A Rosenberg

 

Exploding Purple Mandala by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – September 11 2011

“There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathise with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life’s sores the better.

                    –Oscar Wilde

Ten years ago, a tragedy happened in which many people were killed. I honour their passing and despise the fear-mongering, hatred and exploitation that has come from it.

“Still I persist in wondering must folly always be our nemesis”

               –Edgar Pangborn

Today even more than usual, I intend to let as many people as possible know how much they mean to me and spread joy, laughter and yes colour.

Click on Images to see full-size

Colour Space Dance Joy by G A Rosenberg

Dancing Colours by G A Rosenberg

Mandala1 by G A Rosenberg