6/20/2013
Skip Wagner was an old friend from Vegas who we had lost contact with about a dozen years ago. Sharon Bergstrom saw him in Santa Cruz, letting me know he was still around, and I found him by using his old address on Pioneer Way, just north of Vegas. We've exchanged a couple of emails since. I'm afraid he wasn't in a very good mood in regard his life as an artist. Even though he is getting between a thousand and four thousand for his work he said he felt like quitting because the art world was so phony and corrupt. He was one of the founders on the Burning Man event in the desert, but he put that down too, because it has gotten too commercial. One of the twins lives in Belgium, so he is back and forth quite a bit. All of his girls are doing well, aside from the fact one twin may lose a breast to cancer. He calls himself an "environmental sculptor." Seems an accurate designation.
Birth and Death in the Family...
On Feb. 19 Nasima gave birth to baby girl that she named Cora Elizabeth. Cora was Sue's grandmother's name on her mother's side. Nasima's change of diet and overall improvement of her health made this birth easy and better than Liam's birth 11 years ago. When hard labor began she popped the kid out in 5 minutes. Everyone present at the birth was amazed at how good Cora looked on arrival, and that included Sue and Kai who flew there for the birth.(At the same time I was home battling the worst phase of my illness. Cathy and Bill were my nurses.) I have seen Cora twice since the birth and we got along well. She is not a fussy baby and happily gets passed from one person to the next with no problems. Both Sue and I are goony about her, and behave like two delirious grandparents who are so happy Nasima had a girl. Nasima is proud she did such a good job and she should be. She is already talking about having another child. I think she is serious. She will be 39 in July.
Mary Ellen lost her battle with cancer, succumbing to the disease about six weeks ago. She was in great pain at the end so it was a good thing her suffering has stopped. There was no way I could make it to the funeral. Her brother Paul gave a great speech about his sister. He had everyone either laughing or crying. Mary Ellen was important to us, especially for Sue, because she was the one who finally found out what happened to her father. Took her about six weeks. She had the requisite skills on the computer and that made the difference. She did make a trip to Arizona in January so we had a chance to see her and hug her and express our gratitude close up the help she gave us. She was a little bit in love with me and I was certainly very fond of her. In many ways I regret I did not get closer to the Stetka family growing up. It was my uncle Joe's family and my dad was never that fond of Joe who was a drunk and a Republican. (There were two tragic deaths yesterday. In the morning Ace reporter Michael Hastings was killed in a car crash and later in the day we learned that James Goldolfini died while vacationing in Rome. Chris Hayes discussed Hastings last night on his program and today a lot of media were talking about Tony Soprano.)
Another death was that of Sue's Uncle Jim Conn, whose heart gave out at 95. He was the apple of his mother's eyes but made excuses for not seeing her very often. He'd tell her he'd see her on this or that Holiday and then change his mind. Suzie's mom, who was considered the runt of the litter, was Cora's most reliable child and saw to it that she was well taken care of in her declining years. She died at 92. Sue and Nasima saw Jim three years ago and were shocked how he lived. The house Suzie raved about 40 years was now a total mess. Outside plants were encroaching on the inside of the house and there was water under the rugs, making a squish noise when you walked over them. Jim was losing it and didn't seemed to care. Three years ago he told Sue he would leave her $5,000 to go to Cookville, TN., to bury his ashes next to his mother. That was pure bullshit, typical of Jim. When Sue talked to his lawyer after his death he said he had never heard of that plan; he wanted to be buried with other world war two vets in a memorial park in Detroit where he had lived since the 1950s. His claim to fame and what got him a lot of work as an architect was he had something to do with the Golden Arch in St. Louis. All things considered, the dude was self-absorbed and very selfish, thinking only about himself.
By the way there was surprise when I contacted Sharon. Her son "Broiler" Pitt was in possession of one of my late paintings which I had originally given to Skip Wagner. Broiler sent me a photo of the painting. I am glad to have and I think it is a damn good painting.
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
More r
More Return to the Mountain...6/19/2013
A few months ago my daughter Kaia, while I was deep in the throes of the arthritis attack, suggested I might consider selling my Ford Ranger to Anthony, Aaron's young nephew who would soon turn 16. I was offended and angry at the mere suggestion I give it up. A couple of months later Moses called wanting to know if I wanted to sell the vehicle. I turned him down too. As my affliction continued and Sue continued to drive me around, I began to soften up on the idea of selling the truck, as Sue didn't seem to mind driving me to appointments, etc. Another problem was my driver's license had expired while I was out of commission, so I just couldn't jump in the truck and take off when I was ready. This past week I was told the lad was seriously considering buying another Ford Ranger that had 180,000 miles on it. My truck has only 70,000 miles on it. That was the tipping point for me. He is a good kid and I thought back to the days when Sue's family gave us three cars and didn't charge us a penny. That was most generous of them to help us when we could not afford to buy a car. At first I thought I'd sell the truck to the kid, but after Sue and I talked it over we decided to charge him only $600 for the repairs we made this past week to bring the vehicle back up to speed. I bought the truck in 1999 and I have extremely good luck with it, putting very little money into it over the years. Hopefully it'll be good for Anthony also.
Facebook has been good to me lately. I used to wonder why so few people from Vegas had severed their ties to me when that was the place where I knew the most people. I seemed more connected with folks from California, Oregon, Racine, and a small handful on the east coast. Well, that has changed. In the last 6 weeks I have heard from Sharon Bergstrom (Murphy), Gary Gutierrez, Skip Wagner, Mike Pitt JR, and James Stanford. Craig Pyes was the only person connected previously.
Sharon looks as good as she ever looked, even though she is 69 years old. She still lives in Santa Cruz but is retired from HS teaching. Her two kids, Heather and Mike JR , still live there as well. Heather teaches biology in HS. She sent me a book on Lee Miller the photographer who was involved with the surrealist movement in Europe in the twenties and thirties. The lady was extremely beautiful when young and was very promiscuous through out her life. Her father was fond of photographing her in the nude and a number of people think they had an incestuous relationship. No one knows for sure. Sharon knew the author of the book who lives in the area. I learned more from the book than I did from the Doc that I saw several months ago sponsored by her son. I don't know how to rate her as a surrealist, as I have seen too few of her pictures. She seems to be more notorious than truly famous. Sharon it turns out is as much a Herman Melville fan as I am.
Gary Gutierrez was a student I had to butt heads with, he was so full of ego and false certainty.He left UNLV after two years to go to SFAI. He has been married twice, with his second wife ,Kari, quite good looking. I thought I had a lot of women in my life, but I don't compare to his, for he had one daughter in his first marriage and 5 granddaughters after that. He has a 15 year old son, Mason, from his second marriage. As for his career, he is the special effects man for Francis Ford Coppola, and his office is at Zoetropic in SF. He's work with THE GRATEFUL DEAD and has done some commercials. He told me I was one of three mentors that he has had, the other two being FFC and Philip Kaufman, another director. That's astute company. I was humbled and honored. I sent him copies of my two books. He loved the drawings.
I got much the same treatment from James Stanford; in fact, he blew me away with praise, which I did not expect. He told me a story about an incident in a design class that I frankly don't remember. He said he brought something to class he thought was hot shit, but apparently I didn't agree. So I picked up the work, which was matted, and brought it down over his head, saying, "So here, wear it." He was so embarrassed he ran out of class. He added in his email: "But, I knew you were right and I grew to appreciate your honesty and respected you for caring. You taught me not to cheat myself. Thanks." That almost brought tears to my eyes. Forty plus years later I learned what impact I had. It's nice to know my instincts were good. Some people might say, no wonder you didn't get tenure, but I got results, as James has been involved with art in LasVegas for all these years. He's also a dedicated Buddhist and is responsible for a Zen Center near where we used to live on Wilbur Drive. He has also written me some amusing emails about Dave Hickey who quit UNLV after 20 years. He and his wife moved to New Mexico, where his wife is teaching art history while he is writing a book on Christianity. I was surprised to find out James, after getting his Masters at UW in Seattle, came back to UNLV where he taught for 18 years, the same amount of years I spent at St. Andrew's.
Interestingly, we stole from each other. When I left Vegas James gave me a drawing that featured a lion-man whose chunky body looked somewhat like mine. One day in Tucson I decided to do a drawing using James' figure. It turned out very well, so much so it is the first drawing in EROS & PSYCHE, one of the books I published in 2012. The figure has a fish in one hand and has wings, so the image or icon suggests both depth and flying, some familiarity with the unconscious and some experience of elevation or spiritual insight. Accompanying the lion-man on a kind of raft are a few other symbols; a representation of the persona, a mask tied to a fat candle, the flame still lit but wavering in the wind. The candle sits on the edge of an opening that shows flames emerging from inside a darkened space below. A crown lies on the floor of the platform, along side a broken mirror, which is rectangular, like the opening in the floor. The top half of the drawing shows desert forms, what I call a midnight sky, that has an intricate mandala that has two snakes in the outer circle and then a cross with heart in the center of the fiery mandala. Finally, there is a small almost unnoticed bridge connecting the lower region to the upper world. End of story. It is one of the strongest and clearest symbolic narratives I've come up with. It packs a lot in one image.
A few months ago my daughter Kaia, while I was deep in the throes of the arthritis attack, suggested I might consider selling my Ford Ranger to Anthony, Aaron's young nephew who would soon turn 16. I was offended and angry at the mere suggestion I give it up. A couple of months later Moses called wanting to know if I wanted to sell the vehicle. I turned him down too. As my affliction continued and Sue continued to drive me around, I began to soften up on the idea of selling the truck, as Sue didn't seem to mind driving me to appointments, etc. Another problem was my driver's license had expired while I was out of commission, so I just couldn't jump in the truck and take off when I was ready. This past week I was told the lad was seriously considering buying another Ford Ranger that had 180,000 miles on it. My truck has only 70,000 miles on it. That was the tipping point for me. He is a good kid and I thought back to the days when Sue's family gave us three cars and didn't charge us a penny. That was most generous of them to help us when we could not afford to buy a car. At first I thought I'd sell the truck to the kid, but after Sue and I talked it over we decided to charge him only $600 for the repairs we made this past week to bring the vehicle back up to speed. I bought the truck in 1999 and I have extremely good luck with it, putting very little money into it over the years. Hopefully it'll be good for Anthony also.
Facebook has been good to me lately. I used to wonder why so few people from Vegas had severed their ties to me when that was the place where I knew the most people. I seemed more connected with folks from California, Oregon, Racine, and a small handful on the east coast. Well, that has changed. In the last 6 weeks I have heard from Sharon Bergstrom (Murphy), Gary Gutierrez, Skip Wagner, Mike Pitt JR, and James Stanford. Craig Pyes was the only person connected previously.
Sharon looks as good as she ever looked, even though she is 69 years old. She still lives in Santa Cruz but is retired from HS teaching. Her two kids, Heather and Mike JR , still live there as well. Heather teaches biology in HS. She sent me a book on Lee Miller the photographer who was involved with the surrealist movement in Europe in the twenties and thirties. The lady was extremely beautiful when young and was very promiscuous through out her life. Her father was fond of photographing her in the nude and a number of people think they had an incestuous relationship. No one knows for sure. Sharon knew the author of the book who lives in the area. I learned more from the book than I did from the Doc that I saw several months ago sponsored by her son. I don't know how to rate her as a surrealist, as I have seen too few of her pictures. She seems to be more notorious than truly famous. Sharon it turns out is as much a Herman Melville fan as I am.
Gary Gutierrez was a student I had to butt heads with, he was so full of ego and false certainty.He left UNLV after two years to go to SFAI. He has been married twice, with his second wife ,Kari, quite good looking. I thought I had a lot of women in my life, but I don't compare to his, for he had one daughter in his first marriage and 5 granddaughters after that. He has a 15 year old son, Mason, from his second marriage. As for his career, he is the special effects man for Francis Ford Coppola, and his office is at Zoetropic in SF. He's work with THE GRATEFUL DEAD and has done some commercials. He told me I was one of three mentors that he has had, the other two being FFC and Philip Kaufman, another director. That's astute company. I was humbled and honored. I sent him copies of my two books. He loved the drawings.
I got much the same treatment from James Stanford; in fact, he blew me away with praise, which I did not expect. He told me a story about an incident in a design class that I frankly don't remember. He said he brought something to class he thought was hot shit, but apparently I didn't agree. So I picked up the work, which was matted, and brought it down over his head, saying, "So here, wear it." He was so embarrassed he ran out of class. He added in his email: "But, I knew you were right and I grew to appreciate your honesty and respected you for caring. You taught me not to cheat myself. Thanks." That almost brought tears to my eyes. Forty plus years later I learned what impact I had. It's nice to know my instincts were good. Some people might say, no wonder you didn't get tenure, but I got results, as James has been involved with art in LasVegas for all these years. He's also a dedicated Buddhist and is responsible for a Zen Center near where we used to live on Wilbur Drive. He has also written me some amusing emails about Dave Hickey who quit UNLV after 20 years. He and his wife moved to New Mexico, where his wife is teaching art history while he is writing a book on Christianity. I was surprised to find out James, after getting his Masters at UW in Seattle, came back to UNLV where he taught for 18 years, the same amount of years I spent at St. Andrew's.
Interestingly, we stole from each other. When I left Vegas James gave me a drawing that featured a lion-man whose chunky body looked somewhat like mine. One day in Tucson I decided to do a drawing using James' figure. It turned out very well, so much so it is the first drawing in EROS & PSYCHE, one of the books I published in 2012. The figure has a fish in one hand and has wings, so the image or icon suggests both depth and flying, some familiarity with the unconscious and some experience of elevation or spiritual insight. Accompanying the lion-man on a kind of raft are a few other symbols; a representation of the persona, a mask tied to a fat candle, the flame still lit but wavering in the wind. The candle sits on the edge of an opening that shows flames emerging from inside a darkened space below. A crown lies on the floor of the platform, along side a broken mirror, which is rectangular, like the opening in the floor. The top half of the drawing shows desert forms, what I call a midnight sky, that has an intricate mandala that has two snakes in the outer circle and then a cross with heart in the center of the fiery mandala. Finally, there is a small almost unnoticed bridge connecting the lower region to the upper world. End of story. It is one of the strongest and clearest symbolic narratives I've come up with. It packs a lot in one image.
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
The Return to the Mountain
More Return to the Mountain...6/19/2013
A few months ago my daughter Kaia, while I was deep in the throes of the arthritis attack, suggested I might consider selling my Ford Ranger to Anthony, Aaron's young nephew who would soon turn 16. I was offended and angry at the mere suggestion I give it up. A couple of months later Moses called wanting to know if I wanted to sell the vehicle. I turned him down too. As my affliction continued and Sue continued to drive me around, I began to soften up on the idea of selling the truck, as Sue didn't seem to mind driving me to appointments, etc. Another problem was my driver's license had expired while I was out of commission, so I just couldn't jump in the truck and take off when I was ready. This past week I was told the lad was seriously considering buying another Ford Ranger that had 180,000 miles on it. My truck has only 70,000 miles on it. That was the tipping point for me. He is a good kid and I thought back to the days when Sue's family gave us three cars and didn't charge us a penny. That was most generous of them to help us when we could not afford to buy a car. At first I thought I'd sell the truck to the kid, but after Sue and I talked it over we decided to charge him only $600 for the repairs we made this past week to bring the vehicle back up to speed. I bought the truck in 1999 and I have extremely good luck with it, putting very little money into it over the years. Hopefully it'll be good for Anthony also.
Facebook has been good to me lately. I used to wonder why so few people from Vegas had severed their ties to me when that was the place where I knew the most people. I seemed more connected with folks from California, Oregon, Racine, and a small handful on the east coast. Well, that has changed. In the last 6 weeks I have heard from Sharon Bergstrom (Murphy), Gary Gutierrez, Skip Wagner, Mike Pitt JR, and James Stanford. Craig Pyes was the only person connected previously.
Sharon looks as good as she ever looked, even though she is 69 years old. She still lives in Santa Cruz but is retired from HS teaching. Her two kids, Heather and Mike JR , still live there as well. Heather teaches biology in HS. Sharon sent me a book on Lee Miller the photographer who was involved with the surrealist movement in Europe in the twenties and thirties. The lady was extremely beautiful when young and was very promiscuous through out her life. Her father was fond of photographing her in the nude and a number of people think they had an incestuous relationship. No one knows for sure. Sharon knew the author of the book who lives in the area. I learned more from the book than I did from the Doc that I saw several months ago sponsored by her son. I don't know how to rate her as a surrealist, as I have seen too few of her pictures. She seems to be more notorious than truly famous. Sharon it turns out is as much a Herman Melville fan as I am.
Gary Gutierrez was a student I had to butt heads with, he was so full of ego and false certainty. He left UNLV after two years to go to SFAI. He has been married twice, with his second wife ,Kari, quite good looking. I thought I had a lot of women in my life, but I don't compare to his, for he had one daughter in his first marriage and 5 granddaughters after that. He has a 15 year old son, Mason, from his second marriage. As for his career, he is the special effects man for Francis Ford Coppola, and his office is at Zoetropic in SF. He's work with THE GRATEFUL DEAD and has done some commercials. He told me I was one of three mentors that he has had, the other two being FFC and Philip Kaufman, another director. That's astute company. I was humbled and honored. I sent him copies of my two books. He loved the drawings.
I got much the same treatment from James Stanford; in fact, he blew me away with praise, which I did not expect. He told me a story about an incident in a design class that I frankly don't remember. He said he brought something to class he thought was hot shit, but apparently I didn't agree. So I picked up the work, which was matted, and brought it down over his head, saying, "So here, wear it." He was so embarrassed he ran out of class. He added in his email: "But, I knew you were right and I grew to appreciate your honesty and respected you for caring. You taught me not to cheat myself. Thanks." That almost brought tears to my eyes. Forty plus years later I learned what impact I had. It's nice to know my instincts were good. Some people might say, no wonder you didn't get tenure, but I got results, as James has been involved with art in LasVegas for all these years. He's also a dedicated Buddhist and is responsible for a Zen Center near where we used to live on Wilbur Drive. He has also written me some amusing emails about Dave Hickey who quit UNLV after 20 years. He and his wife moved to New Mexico, where his wife is teaching art history while he is writing a book on Christianity. I was surprised to find out James, after getting his Masters at UW in Seattle, came back to UNLV where he taught for 18 years, the same amount of years I spent at St. Andrew's.
Interestingly, we stole from each other. When I left Vegas James gave me a drawing that featured a lion-man whose chunky body looked somewhat like mine. One day in Tucson I decided to do a drawing using James' figure. It turned out very well, so much so it is the first drawing in EROS & PSYCHE, one of the books I published in 2012. The figure has a fish in one hand and has wings, so the image or icon suggests both depth and height, some familiarity with the unconscious and some experience of elevation or spiritual insight. Accompanying the lion-man on a kind of raft are a few other symbols; a representation of the persona, a mask tied to a fat candle, the flame still lit but wavering in the wind. The candle sits on the edge of an opening that shows flames emerging from inside a darkened space below. A crown lies on the floor of the platform, along side a broken mirror, which is rectangular, like the opening in the floor. The top half of the drawing shows desert forms, what I call a midnight sky, that has an intricate mandala which has two snakes in the outer circle and then a cross with heart in the center of the fiery mandala. Finally, there is a small almost unnoticed bridge connecting the lower region to the upper world. End of story. It is one of the strongest and clearest symbolic narratives I've come up with. It packs a lot in one image.
James stole from me in the sense he did a painting that, first of all, shows his love for the Flemish painters, while in the center is a flaming black orb whose flames are elaborately painted in rainbow colors. He said he was flattered I stole from him and I feel likewise about his use of the black orb.
To be continued...
A few months ago my daughter Kaia, while I was deep in the throes of the arthritis attack, suggested I might consider selling my Ford Ranger to Anthony, Aaron's young nephew who would soon turn 16. I was offended and angry at the mere suggestion I give it up. A couple of months later Moses called wanting to know if I wanted to sell the vehicle. I turned him down too. As my affliction continued and Sue continued to drive me around, I began to soften up on the idea of selling the truck, as Sue didn't seem to mind driving me to appointments, etc. Another problem was my driver's license had expired while I was out of commission, so I just couldn't jump in the truck and take off when I was ready. This past week I was told the lad was seriously considering buying another Ford Ranger that had 180,000 miles on it. My truck has only 70,000 miles on it. That was the tipping point for me. He is a good kid and I thought back to the days when Sue's family gave us three cars and didn't charge us a penny. That was most generous of them to help us when we could not afford to buy a car. At first I thought I'd sell the truck to the kid, but after Sue and I talked it over we decided to charge him only $600 for the repairs we made this past week to bring the vehicle back up to speed. I bought the truck in 1999 and I have extremely good luck with it, putting very little money into it over the years. Hopefully it'll be good for Anthony also.
Facebook has been good to me lately. I used to wonder why so few people from Vegas had severed their ties to me when that was the place where I knew the most people. I seemed more connected with folks from California, Oregon, Racine, and a small handful on the east coast. Well, that has changed. In the last 6 weeks I have heard from Sharon Bergstrom (Murphy), Gary Gutierrez, Skip Wagner, Mike Pitt JR, and James Stanford. Craig Pyes was the only person connected previously.
Sharon looks as good as she ever looked, even though she is 69 years old. She still lives in Santa Cruz but is retired from HS teaching. Her two kids, Heather and Mike JR , still live there as well. Heather teaches biology in HS. Sharon sent me a book on Lee Miller the photographer who was involved with the surrealist movement in Europe in the twenties and thirties. The lady was extremely beautiful when young and was very promiscuous through out her life. Her father was fond of photographing her in the nude and a number of people think they had an incestuous relationship. No one knows for sure. Sharon knew the author of the book who lives in the area. I learned more from the book than I did from the Doc that I saw several months ago sponsored by her son. I don't know how to rate her as a surrealist, as I have seen too few of her pictures. She seems to be more notorious than truly famous. Sharon it turns out is as much a Herman Melville fan as I am.
Gary Gutierrez was a student I had to butt heads with, he was so full of ego and false certainty. He left UNLV after two years to go to SFAI. He has been married twice, with his second wife ,Kari, quite good looking. I thought I had a lot of women in my life, but I don't compare to his, for he had one daughter in his first marriage and 5 granddaughters after that. He has a 15 year old son, Mason, from his second marriage. As for his career, he is the special effects man for Francis Ford Coppola, and his office is at Zoetropic in SF. He's work with THE GRATEFUL DEAD and has done some commercials. He told me I was one of three mentors that he has had, the other two being FFC and Philip Kaufman, another director. That's astute company. I was humbled and honored. I sent him copies of my two books. He loved the drawings.
I got much the same treatment from James Stanford; in fact, he blew me away with praise, which I did not expect. He told me a story about an incident in a design class that I frankly don't remember. He said he brought something to class he thought was hot shit, but apparently I didn't agree. So I picked up the work, which was matted, and brought it down over his head, saying, "So here, wear it." He was so embarrassed he ran out of class. He added in his email: "But, I knew you were right and I grew to appreciate your honesty and respected you for caring. You taught me not to cheat myself. Thanks." That almost brought tears to my eyes. Forty plus years later I learned what impact I had. It's nice to know my instincts were good. Some people might say, no wonder you didn't get tenure, but I got results, as James has been involved with art in LasVegas for all these years. He's also a dedicated Buddhist and is responsible for a Zen Center near where we used to live on Wilbur Drive. He has also written me some amusing emails about Dave Hickey who quit UNLV after 20 years. He and his wife moved to New Mexico, where his wife is teaching art history while he is writing a book on Christianity. I was surprised to find out James, after getting his Masters at UW in Seattle, came back to UNLV where he taught for 18 years, the same amount of years I spent at St. Andrew's.
Interestingly, we stole from each other. When I left Vegas James gave me a drawing that featured a lion-man whose chunky body looked somewhat like mine. One day in Tucson I decided to do a drawing using James' figure. It turned out very well, so much so it is the first drawing in EROS & PSYCHE, one of the books I published in 2012. The figure has a fish in one hand and has wings, so the image or icon suggests both depth and height, some familiarity with the unconscious and some experience of elevation or spiritual insight. Accompanying the lion-man on a kind of raft are a few other symbols; a representation of the persona, a mask tied to a fat candle, the flame still lit but wavering in the wind. The candle sits on the edge of an opening that shows flames emerging from inside a darkened space below. A crown lies on the floor of the platform, along side a broken mirror, which is rectangular, like the opening in the floor. The top half of the drawing shows desert forms, what I call a midnight sky, that has an intricate mandala which has two snakes in the outer circle and then a cross with heart in the center of the fiery mandala. Finally, there is a small almost unnoticed bridge connecting the lower region to the upper world. End of story. It is one of the strongest and clearest symbolic narratives I've come up with. It packs a lot in one image.
James stole from me in the sense he did a painting that, first of all, shows his love for the Flemish painters, while in the center is a flaming black orb whose flames are elaborately painted in rainbow colors. He said he was flattered I stole from him and I feel likewise about his use of the black orb.
To be continued...
Monday, April 9, 2012
Friends Galore
2012 Friends Galore
Mike Keenan flew home yesterday morning. However, he was still here to go out to dinner at Miss Saigon with Stan Derilian and his entourage, Ann, his wife, and their friends Stan and Marie, who are traveling with them. Kai wanted to see Stan so she brought her family along too, which put 11 people around the table. The boys came with game tablets so they hardly participated at all, although Ryder traveled under the table to see his Grandma Sue. I caught of a snatch of a conversation between Sue and Ann about Ryder’s syndrome. Ann is a nurse with 40 years experience; she recently decided to retire after she tore a ligament in her ankle. We congregated around that same long table we had the last time we ate there. Stan sat across from me so we could talk. I told him some things about my hospitalization and ongoing health concerns and he told me he was slowing down, no longer taking on new customers, just old ones, and he was spending more time on other interest, like making brandy and betting on horses. It had been decades since I last saw Ann. She looked about the same, only now she is the wrinkled version of what I remembered. The last time I saw her we still lived on the Prichard property. She and Marie are bosom pals and have been ever since they met. Marie is Stan’s second wife who bore none of his six children by another woman now dead. Stan looks like a Mennonite minister, like the salt of the earth, foursquare and knowledgeable about things. He had worked for years for the Canadian Forest service, I think in British Columbia. This is the third driving tour they have made with Derilians. Mike Keenan was at the end of the table with Stan the Mennonite and they chatted amiably. Marie responded enthusiastically to my Mandala Designs, which were on my desk when they stopped at the house. I think she was a painter but I am not sure. Sue paid for the dinner ($234), which upset the Canadian couple that wanted to pay their way. Stan told them they could chip in when they return to Tucson on Friday. That was a change of plan but I thought a good idea. They thought it was incredible that she would pay for perfect strangers.
We still have not seen anything of Bill P while Paul and Stan and Mike have been here, which is unusual for Bill. He no doubt has his hands full with Sue and the two boys, plus he anticipates a visit from Aaron, his son, and his wife and toddler, who we’d like to meet. Yesterday I tried to catch up on some sleep. Guests are welcome but they do wear me out.
Mike Keenan flew home yesterday morning. However, he was still here to go out to dinner at Miss Saigon with Stan Derilian and his entourage, Ann, his wife, and their friends Stan and Marie, who are traveling with them. Kai wanted to see Stan so she brought her family along too, which put 11 people around the table. The boys came with game tablets so they hardly participated at all, although Ryder traveled under the table to see his Grandma Sue. I caught of a snatch of a conversation between Sue and Ann about Ryder’s syndrome. Ann is a nurse with 40 years experience; she recently decided to retire after she tore a ligament in her ankle. We congregated around that same long table we had the last time we ate there. Stan sat across from me so we could talk. I told him some things about my hospitalization and ongoing health concerns and he told me he was slowing down, no longer taking on new customers, just old ones, and he was spending more time on other interest, like making brandy and betting on horses. It had been decades since I last saw Ann. She looked about the same, only now she is the wrinkled version of what I remembered. The last time I saw her we still lived on the Prichard property. She and Marie are bosom pals and have been ever since they met. Marie is Stan’s second wife who bore none of his six children by another woman now dead. Stan looks like a Mennonite minister, like the salt of the earth, foursquare and knowledgeable about things. He had worked for years for the Canadian Forest service, I think in British Columbia. This is the third driving tour they have made with Derilians. Mike Keenan was at the end of the table with Stan the Mennonite and they chatted amiably. Marie responded enthusiastically to my Mandala Designs, which were on my desk when they stopped at the house. I think she was a painter but I am not sure. Sue paid for the dinner ($234), which upset the Canadian couple that wanted to pay their way. Stan told them they could chip in when they return to Tucson on Friday. That was a change of plan but I thought a good idea. They thought it was incredible that she would pay for perfect strangers.
We still have not seen anything of Bill P while Paul and Stan and Mike have been here, which is unusual for Bill. He no doubt has his hands full with Sue and the two boys, plus he anticipates a visit from Aaron, his son, and his wife and toddler, who we’d like to meet. Yesterday I tried to catch up on some sleep. Guests are welcome but they do wear me out.
Back Cover of BRIDGE
Through my twenties and into my thirties, the era of my professional life as an artist, I was basically a rationalist and a secular humanist, pretty much the ‘religion’ of my main mentors in higher education. I was beyond church-going religion, regarding it as old hat and without merit. I was an abstract expressionist and proud of it and an idealist concerned with justice and human dignity for all. But under this high-sounding cover some pathologizing was going on, that is, there were multiple rivulets sneaking out of me, like secret clues to the sickness and chaos that was roiling deep inside me. They poured out through the chinks in my armour, especially in regard sexuality, masculine identity, personal fears and anxiety, and eventually became part of my creative expression. My marriage was also rocked by these new powers in my consciousness. Beneath my cool and confident exterior self was an inner self set upon by demons and a chaos that I soon realized I had to address or be permanently crippled psychologically. It was like Persephone being dragged down into darkness by Hades. I began to see things as if through a glass darkly and this dark vision deepen when I went to UNLV to teach. By my fifth year in Las Vegas I saw academe as snake pit of vicious scholars; art was a profession and practice that had no meaning beyond its own definition; creativity was a desacralized thing that was turning into a secular exercise in the marketplace. The Vietnam War had painted my horizon’s black, so I quit painting and started drawing in pen and ink—forgetting Pollock and embracing George Grosz and Max Beckmann as my new role models. Bridge in the Fog deals with my transition from a soul lost to one found
Trip to San Diego
We just got home after seeing my primary, Dr. Irene Duarte. The appointment run close to 45 minutes because Sue was with and we had a lot questions related to the recent hospital stay, the new drug cocktail the doctors gave me, when is it proper to call 911, and what to use when the pain in my feet becomes severe. Irene is a 45-year-old Mexican American woman married to a doctor, also Mexican American, who she met in Med school at the U of AZ. She has two kids that must be close to finishing high school. She’s been my primary for at least 15 years. Sue mentioned afterward that the two of us had a nice rhythm together. I usually lead and she responds with information. When we described my condition on 2/23/2012 she said definitely we should have called 911, because in no way could Sue handle my body; she needed help as I was close to completely immobile. If there is a next time we won’t hesitate and call for help. We went through the drug list. The new A-Fib drug, Maltaq, she had never heard of and would check on it. I questioned the double dose of potassium every day. She said that was due to the heavy use of diuretics. But we did a blood test to see where my system is at in regard potassium. She sent in four prescriptions on the list where there was only one more on the bottle. She said all the drugs for neuropathy had, as side effects, a tendency to cause edema, which is no help for me. (I had already told her Dr. Capaccio had removed Exforge from my drug list because it also causes edema.) I told her when the pain got to be around eight on a scale of ten I dropped some oxycodone a dentist had given me a couple years ago, and it handle the pain nicely; in fact, from then on my feet started to improve. She said I should use it again if it gets really bad but no more than twice a week. She’ll see me again in a month and revisit the problem and see how I am doing. She checked my lungs, saying they sounded good with no fluid in them. Last but not least she gave me a home nebulizer, but she forgot to give me the chemical that goes with it. Maybe she’ll call that in to Walgreen’s.
Just before we left home we got a call from Kaia. She and Aaron were in San Diego for a three day celebration for their ten wedding anniversary. They were supposed to drive home this morning with time enough to pick the kids up form school this afternoon, but they have run afoul bad weather in southern California and are having a hard time getting out of the area because rain or snow have closed access to the roads east. Their wedding was marred by cold, windy weather and now on their ten anniversary they had to stay inside their hotel accommodations rather than lying on the beach due to cold and rain and snow, which is also blocking their way home. They called us this afternoon. It took them six hours to get as far as Palm Springs. They were resting in another hotel and were planning to head home early tomorrow morning. Talk about the best-laid plans of mice and men?
The weather here is about the same as southern California. We have had heavy rain, snow in various locations, especially in the mountains, and it hailed when Sue went to the store on Oracle Road. And it is very cold. The weather lady is predicting it will be freezing tonight.
Sue went to visit Larry Masters in UMC hospital this afternoon. He called yesterday to inform her he had a stroke and would she please come see him. She did go and came home depressed because he is in such a complete fog about what happened and they wouldn’t leave him go outside for a smoke, so he kept mumbling I should die—“there is no end to my misery.” On and on the story rolls. I worry about Sue in this mess. What can she possibly owe this guy to put up with his foggy bottom?
Just before we left home we got a call from Kaia. She and Aaron were in San Diego for a three day celebration for their ten wedding anniversary. They were supposed to drive home this morning with time enough to pick the kids up form school this afternoon, but they have run afoul bad weather in southern California and are having a hard time getting out of the area because rain or snow have closed access to the roads east. Their wedding was marred by cold, windy weather and now on their ten anniversary they had to stay inside their hotel accommodations rather than lying on the beach due to cold and rain and snow, which is also blocking their way home. They called us this afternoon. It took them six hours to get as far as Palm Springs. They were resting in another hotel and were planning to head home early tomorrow morning. Talk about the best-laid plans of mice and men?
The weather here is about the same as southern California. We have had heavy rain, snow in various locations, especially in the mountains, and it hailed when Sue went to the store on Oracle Road. And it is very cold. The weather lady is predicting it will be freezing tonight.
Sue went to visit Larry Masters in UMC hospital this afternoon. He called yesterday to inform her he had a stroke and would she please come see him. She did go and came home depressed because he is in such a complete fog about what happened and they wouldn’t leave him go outside for a smoke, so he kept mumbling I should die—“there is no end to my misery.” On and on the story rolls. I worry about Sue in this mess. What can she possibly owe this guy to put up with his foggy bottom?
Origin of an idea
2012_3_23 Origins of an Idea: Rewrite from 6/16/1991
The Hieroglyphic Theater began to germinate in my imagination 22 years ago this month. I remember it like it was yesterday. Suzie and I arrived in Eugene the first week of June, 1969, and once we got settled, first in a small apartment for six weeks, and then in the house on 34th Street, which just happened to have a room that was more than adequate as a studio. While Sue went to summer school I got busy on my drawing board. Through that summer I did a batch of pen-and-ink drawings using the image of the black ball/pearl, which went back to the vision I had had in July 1968, in Las Vegas. I am referring to the experience I call THE INFERNO, the main transformative experience of my life. Most of that early series of drawings were exploratory in nature; indeed, when we went back to Las Vegas the following August I left a pile of drawings I regard as rejects, learning experience at best but not worth keeping. (In 1976 I received quite a shock when we went back to Eugene to visit friends and I discovered that Mike Keenan had salvaged 15 drawings and they were all on his walls at home, and they looked better than I thought they should.)
I remember how excited I was to be exploring a new and personal symbol. When we left Las Vegas I had hoped the move would accelerate my desire to find a fresh approach to my drawing, to get beyond the social narrative and satirical bent I had leaned on for the past five years. I was in search of a more metaphoric approach to imagery, with a different narrative, something that took account of the spiritualization I had experienced through THE INFERNO and Kundalini. I was after something original and I thought the best ticket to achieve that was using the black sphere of vision.
Altogether I probably did some 40 or 50 drawings before that show I had at Oregon State in late November. Probably the most successful drawing of that period was “The Alchemist,” which is owned by Stan Nishimura, an ex-student of mine. Although an enigmatic image, it had a clarity of form and expressive strengthen I found encouraging, which was lacking in many other drawings that I saw as hybrid images of uncertain identity. In fact, the years 1969 to 1973 were a time of working through many ideas that were interesting but lacked focus and cohesion. But by 1974 I had hit my stride and felt I was the master of a personal style and an original narrative. That time frame can be looked upon as my ‘axial period’ as artist and a man.
I drew my first true triple-decker hieroglyph in February 1970. It resulted from a moment of pure inspiration. The idea came to me while I was reading Oration on the Dignity of Man by Renaissance writer-scholar Pico della Mirandola, one of the foremost humanists of his day. I knew about Pico from a Renaissance class I had taught my first year at UNLV, 1965-1966. It was his commentary about the nature on man and his place in the universe according to the ancient wisdom and Pico deeply admired it. Man was seen as “the daemonic intermediate creature” that God placed between the angels above and the beasts below, hence a three level arrangement. Man’s estate was to be “the interpreter of nature” and “to elevate himself above the dung-heap of the inferior world.” Those few words provided me with a moment of illumination: I saw immense possibilities in the triple-decker ontology. An angel in that first hieroglyph represented the ABOVE, and in many future ones a Mandala would represent the highest spirituality, as I understood it. The beasts BELOW were Man’s animal nature and I represent it with a large tapir in that first hieroglyph; but also it represented “hyle,” the material world as such. (Hyle was Greek for “matter.”) Man and his mental abilities existed and flourished in the middle zone, which was elevate from the material zone and in the first hieroglyph I represented it with a self-portrait. I later referred to that level as PSYCHE; it represented a step up, so the speak, but was still short of the full cognizance of the third and highest level, SPIRITUS MUNDI, a world I had glimpsed and tasted and held as the highest attainment possible.
“The Eternal Return” is the name I gave to that first official hieroglyph. The black sphere in it became a black sun; it is near the angel who is dropping his seed on an egg. From this point on I called the series THE HIEROGLYPHIC THEATER that idea coming from Frances Yates book Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, a book I ran into by accident in a Eugene bookstore. One of the great interests to the Humanists was emblem poetry, and as a result they eagerly studied Egyptian hieroglyphs, as symbols with religious meaning. Hieroglyphs were seen as a deep way of stating hidden truths related to a sacred universe. I view them the same way.
My kind of cartoon-like images, or “magic realism” as one reviewer put it, has been misunderstood at times as ‘mere’ cartoons, a low art that doesn’t belong in a gallery or museum. In contrast, Robert Hughes has called Robert Crumb “the Breughel of the 20th century.” There are many other examples: Roy Lichtenstein, Richard Lindner, Mel Ramos, Red Grooms, and Wayne Thiebaud. There is also a whole tribe of illustrators for Graphic Novels that are doing great work, although still on the margins of “fine art.” One could also say the William Blake and Max Beckmann also used cartoon-like figures, and both certainly are in plenty of museums. As Jack Burnham has said of Marcel Duchamp: “The aim of every skilled Hermitic artist is not to lie, but to veil his message in themes so obscure or universal that the possibility of a true identity is never apparent to the public.” I am a mythmaker who operates behind a mask. I am a cartoon striving to be a hieroglyph.
One of the drawings I considered for the cover of Bridge in the Fog more or less sums up my current usage of the hieroglyphic idea. The inspiration for the idea came from a picture of a clown that I found in John Towsen’s wonderful study of the clown tradition through history that represented the Grimaldi Tradition of the 18th century. Towsen’s writes, “Grimaldi was to pantomime comedy what Keaton and Chaplin were to silent film comedy, the genius of whose hands ‘low’ comedy became art.” In other words, the Grimaldi clown was more comic trickster than romantic or magical Harlequin. The figure I worked around was a typical clown with white face, puffy sleeves and pantaloons pants, with a mandala of sorts on his chest. In his hands he has a pig in his raised right hand and fish in his lower left hand. In my version the figure is strutting across a runway with a more absurd and fanciful get-up and make-up, and in his right hand rather than a pig he holds a thunder bolt, like Zeus or Thor might, and in his lowered left hand he holds a fish. Rather than a God figure I offer a lowly clown in praise of folly of man’s earthly estate, as a more fitting image of who and what we are. Still, he has resources. The thunderbolt in his raised right hand indicates some heaven-sent powers are at his deposal, if he but uses them. A current of creativity is always available if we but plug into it. Conversely, he holds a fish in the lowered left hand, for the fish lives in the depths and they must be visited every bit as much as a piece of heaven must be grabbed. So despite his inherent absurdity, the clown’s reach is high, low and deep. The comic trickster is no fool. And of course the black sphere sits near the clown, drawing him like a magnet, high, deep, and low.
In my own case the fish spit out a black pearl during my dark night of the soul. There is a gnostic poem that comes to mind with the mention of a pearl. In The Hymn of the Pearl a seeker goes down into Egypt (the unconscious) to bring back the ‘One Pearl’ (the unifying power) that lies in the middle of the sea, which is encircled by a snorting serpent (Kundalini), thus letting the seeker put on “the robe of glory,” which had been lost (rebirth or redemption.) In Hans Jonas’ fine book The Gnostic Religion writes that in the glossary of gnostic symbolism, ‘pearl’ is one of the standing metaphor for the ‘soul.’ To whit, pearls are hidden with the shell of an animal, which no doubt adds to the lore and lure of the pearl.
The final note to this short essay about the evolution of the black sphere and the three-decker universe is what I discovered in an Egyptian art history course I sat in on with Professor Stein the second semester 1972. He showed a slide one day of the Serekh Motif, a cartouche with an emblem that blew me away when I saw it. It was a cartouche that was common on much of the sacred architecture of the early dynasties, a kind of symbolic cornerstone of Egyptian religious identity. There were three levels with a vertical format. The bottom level was a pillared hall that spatially went deep inside, so there was a three-dimensional feel to the image. In the middle level there was a snake, a cobra, and at the top was a large falcon, a representation of the God Horus. I saw the thing as sheer poetry expressing the essential spirituality of the Egyptian metaphysical understanding of the world. The hall of pillars represented the world of space and time; the snake reveals the Egyptian awareness of “Serpent Power” (kundalini) or world of psyche; and the Falcon/Horus, the high God of the Egyptian pantheon. And of course there are other traditional arrangements of three levels or parts, like, for example, body-soul-spirit; hyle-psyche-pnuema; heaven-earth-underworld or hell. The triple division of spaces provided me with a framework to play in and to give value to each register and to the harmony and reciprocity between them.
The Hieroglyphic Theater began to germinate in my imagination 22 years ago this month. I remember it like it was yesterday. Suzie and I arrived in Eugene the first week of June, 1969, and once we got settled, first in a small apartment for six weeks, and then in the house on 34th Street, which just happened to have a room that was more than adequate as a studio. While Sue went to summer school I got busy on my drawing board. Through that summer I did a batch of pen-and-ink drawings using the image of the black ball/pearl, which went back to the vision I had had in July 1968, in Las Vegas. I am referring to the experience I call THE INFERNO, the main transformative experience of my life. Most of that early series of drawings were exploratory in nature; indeed, when we went back to Las Vegas the following August I left a pile of drawings I regard as rejects, learning experience at best but not worth keeping. (In 1976 I received quite a shock when we went back to Eugene to visit friends and I discovered that Mike Keenan had salvaged 15 drawings and they were all on his walls at home, and they looked better than I thought they should.)
I remember how excited I was to be exploring a new and personal symbol. When we left Las Vegas I had hoped the move would accelerate my desire to find a fresh approach to my drawing, to get beyond the social narrative and satirical bent I had leaned on for the past five years. I was in search of a more metaphoric approach to imagery, with a different narrative, something that took account of the spiritualization I had experienced through THE INFERNO and Kundalini. I was after something original and I thought the best ticket to achieve that was using the black sphere of vision.
Altogether I probably did some 40 or 50 drawings before that show I had at Oregon State in late November. Probably the most successful drawing of that period was “The Alchemist,” which is owned by Stan Nishimura, an ex-student of mine. Although an enigmatic image, it had a clarity of form and expressive strengthen I found encouraging, which was lacking in many other drawings that I saw as hybrid images of uncertain identity. In fact, the years 1969 to 1973 were a time of working through many ideas that were interesting but lacked focus and cohesion. But by 1974 I had hit my stride and felt I was the master of a personal style and an original narrative. That time frame can be looked upon as my ‘axial period’ as artist and a man.
I drew my first true triple-decker hieroglyph in February 1970. It resulted from a moment of pure inspiration. The idea came to me while I was reading Oration on the Dignity of Man by Renaissance writer-scholar Pico della Mirandola, one of the foremost humanists of his day. I knew about Pico from a Renaissance class I had taught my first year at UNLV, 1965-1966. It was his commentary about the nature on man and his place in the universe according to the ancient wisdom and Pico deeply admired it. Man was seen as “the daemonic intermediate creature” that God placed between the angels above and the beasts below, hence a three level arrangement. Man’s estate was to be “the interpreter of nature” and “to elevate himself above the dung-heap of the inferior world.” Those few words provided me with a moment of illumination: I saw immense possibilities in the triple-decker ontology. An angel in that first hieroglyph represented the ABOVE, and in many future ones a Mandala would represent the highest spirituality, as I understood it. The beasts BELOW were Man’s animal nature and I represent it with a large tapir in that first hieroglyph; but also it represented “hyle,” the material world as such. (Hyle was Greek for “matter.”) Man and his mental abilities existed and flourished in the middle zone, which was elevate from the material zone and in the first hieroglyph I represented it with a self-portrait. I later referred to that level as PSYCHE; it represented a step up, so the speak, but was still short of the full cognizance of the third and highest level, SPIRITUS MUNDI, a world I had glimpsed and tasted and held as the highest attainment possible.
“The Eternal Return” is the name I gave to that first official hieroglyph. The black sphere in it became a black sun; it is near the angel who is dropping his seed on an egg. From this point on I called the series THE HIEROGLYPHIC THEATER that idea coming from Frances Yates book Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, a book I ran into by accident in a Eugene bookstore. One of the great interests to the Humanists was emblem poetry, and as a result they eagerly studied Egyptian hieroglyphs, as symbols with religious meaning. Hieroglyphs were seen as a deep way of stating hidden truths related to a sacred universe. I view them the same way.
My kind of cartoon-like images, or “magic realism” as one reviewer put it, has been misunderstood at times as ‘mere’ cartoons, a low art that doesn’t belong in a gallery or museum. In contrast, Robert Hughes has called Robert Crumb “the Breughel of the 20th century.” There are many other examples: Roy Lichtenstein, Richard Lindner, Mel Ramos, Red Grooms, and Wayne Thiebaud. There is also a whole tribe of illustrators for Graphic Novels that are doing great work, although still on the margins of “fine art.” One could also say the William Blake and Max Beckmann also used cartoon-like figures, and both certainly are in plenty of museums. As Jack Burnham has said of Marcel Duchamp: “The aim of every skilled Hermitic artist is not to lie, but to veil his message in themes so obscure or universal that the possibility of a true identity is never apparent to the public.” I am a mythmaker who operates behind a mask. I am a cartoon striving to be a hieroglyph.
One of the drawings I considered for the cover of Bridge in the Fog more or less sums up my current usage of the hieroglyphic idea. The inspiration for the idea came from a picture of a clown that I found in John Towsen’s wonderful study of the clown tradition through history that represented the Grimaldi Tradition of the 18th century. Towsen’s writes, “Grimaldi was to pantomime comedy what Keaton and Chaplin were to silent film comedy, the genius of whose hands ‘low’ comedy became art.” In other words, the Grimaldi clown was more comic trickster than romantic or magical Harlequin. The figure I worked around was a typical clown with white face, puffy sleeves and pantaloons pants, with a mandala of sorts on his chest. In his hands he has a pig in his raised right hand and fish in his lower left hand. In my version the figure is strutting across a runway with a more absurd and fanciful get-up and make-up, and in his right hand rather than a pig he holds a thunder bolt, like Zeus or Thor might, and in his lowered left hand he holds a fish. Rather than a God figure I offer a lowly clown in praise of folly of man’s earthly estate, as a more fitting image of who and what we are. Still, he has resources. The thunderbolt in his raised right hand indicates some heaven-sent powers are at his deposal, if he but uses them. A current of creativity is always available if we but plug into it. Conversely, he holds a fish in the lowered left hand, for the fish lives in the depths and they must be visited every bit as much as a piece of heaven must be grabbed. So despite his inherent absurdity, the clown’s reach is high, low and deep. The comic trickster is no fool. And of course the black sphere sits near the clown, drawing him like a magnet, high, deep, and low.
In my own case the fish spit out a black pearl during my dark night of the soul. There is a gnostic poem that comes to mind with the mention of a pearl. In The Hymn of the Pearl a seeker goes down into Egypt (the unconscious) to bring back the ‘One Pearl’ (the unifying power) that lies in the middle of the sea, which is encircled by a snorting serpent (Kundalini), thus letting the seeker put on “the robe of glory,” which had been lost (rebirth or redemption.) In Hans Jonas’ fine book The Gnostic Religion writes that in the glossary of gnostic symbolism, ‘pearl’ is one of the standing metaphor for the ‘soul.’ To whit, pearls are hidden with the shell of an animal, which no doubt adds to the lore and lure of the pearl.
The final note to this short essay about the evolution of the black sphere and the three-decker universe is what I discovered in an Egyptian art history course I sat in on with Professor Stein the second semester 1972. He showed a slide one day of the Serekh Motif, a cartouche with an emblem that blew me away when I saw it. It was a cartouche that was common on much of the sacred architecture of the early dynasties, a kind of symbolic cornerstone of Egyptian religious identity. There were three levels with a vertical format. The bottom level was a pillared hall that spatially went deep inside, so there was a three-dimensional feel to the image. In the middle level there was a snake, a cobra, and at the top was a large falcon, a representation of the God Horus. I saw the thing as sheer poetry expressing the essential spirituality of the Egyptian metaphysical understanding of the world. The hall of pillars represented the world of space and time; the snake reveals the Egyptian awareness of “Serpent Power” (kundalini) or world of psyche; and the Falcon/Horus, the high God of the Egyptian pantheon. And of course there are other traditional arrangements of three levels or parts, like, for example, body-soul-spirit; hyle-psyche-pnuema; heaven-earth-underworld or hell. The triple division of spaces provided me with a framework to play in and to give value to each register and to the harmony and reciprocity between them.
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