January 26th, 2012
The Mind of the Raven is a photograph I made using some of the symbols gathered from alchemical texts. The raven is often symbolic of the nigredo stage in alchemy. The nigredo, or black stage, is the beginning when the old and vulgar material in which the Prima Materia lies hidden must die and rot away to make way for the next stages. The two fish in the head of the raven have a few meanings. First it is symbolic of the view that all this magick and myth come from the machinations of the mind. Consciousness is vast and teeming with all imaginable things. The fish are swimming in a circle or a spiral, a symbol of infinity. In Jungian analysis water and the ocean are symbolic of the unconscious mind and its unknowable depths.
The Book of Lambspring, another alchemical text, has a passage mentioning fish.
The Sea is the Body, the two Fishes are Soul and Spirit.
The Sages will tell you
That two fishes are in our sea
Without any flesh or bones.
Let them be cooked in their own water;
Then they also will become a vast sea,
The vastness of which no man can describe.
Moreover, the Sages say
That the two fishes are only one, not two;
They are two, and nevertheless they are one,
Body, Spirit, and Soul.
Now, I tell you most truly,
Cook these three together,
That there may be a very large sea.
Cook the sulphur well with the sulphur,
And hold your tongue about it:
Conceal your knowledge to your own advantage,
And you shall be free from poverty.
Only let your discovery remain a close secret.
The copy I’ve seen on the Alchemy Website has an illustration associated with it of two fish swimming in opposite directions in a river or inlet. The two fish are the soul and the spirit, that is consciousness, the connection to the divine, and the spark of animating life.
The raven as the beginning of the alchemical process of transformation already has in it the infinitude of the universe.
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January 5th, 2012
According to the Denver Post, on Thursday, December 29th 2011 a woman, Carmen Tisch, at the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver, Colorado leaned against, punched, and slid along a Clyfford Still painting valued at $30,000,000.00. At some point her pants came down and she urinated, however, the District Attorney claims that no urine got on the painting. Damages are estimated at $10,000. 
I find these attacks incredible. I want to attribute them to the Sterndhal Syndrome in which a person is so moved by the beauty of a piece of art that they become faint or ill, hallucinate, or engage in strange behaviors like punching a painting and urinating. Did she know what she was doing? Was she so filled with love or hate that she had to take her pants down and flail her arms like some berserker filled with bloodlust, temporarily blind and moving without thought?
I love the idea that a person can lose control of their mind and body when confronted with works of art. It speaks to the powerful spirituality inherent in works of creativity. It means that the presence of God can be felt reflecting from a piece like the heat from a piece of metal pulled from a fire. It means that critical and intellectual discussions about art are secondary and border on being superfluous next to the sheer magic of beauty.
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July 18th, 2011
Asenath
Originally uploaded by unconsciouseye
Asenath was a figure from an apocryphal biblical story, Joseph and Asenath. The story goes that Pharaoh gave Asenath to Joseph to be his wife but Joseph refused her saying that he could not marry a pagan. Asenath, in order to make herself worthy, secluded herself and prayed to God to purify her. In response to her prayers an angel appeared before her and touched Asenath’s lips with a honeycomb. Bees immediately issued from the honeycomb, swirling around Asenath, stinging her lips. The honeycomb and the beestings removed the prayers to pagan gods from her lips. She was thereby purified and worthy to be wed to Joseph. Afterward they ruled Egypt together.I love this story. It has the flavor of one that is adapted from much older stories or traditions. Honey has been a powerful symbol since ancient times. It has been used as a food, a balm, and a preservative. All these thing are nourishing and empowering just in the way a blessing from God would be. For my photo here I’ve used a figure that is reminiscent of a saint in ecstasy, head thrown back, eyes closed, filled with the blessings of God. I’ve cut very small hexagons from the area of her mouth which both symbolize the honeycomb with which she is purified and act, visually, as a gag silencing her. From the edge of the honeycomb is a drip of honey running down her chin. This also has more than one connotation. First honey is the ‘food of the gods’ and represents gifts of the divine as well as nourishment on a fundamental level. It also has a vague sexual connotation as many examples of fluids dripping from the mouth can be found in the world of pornography. At her throat is a silhouette of a bee cut out and surrounded by a roughened, scratched area. This reinforces the bee as an active force in the story as well as becomes a sort of heraldic emblem for Asenath. Because it is at her throat it also references her voice and prayers to either the pagan or the Judean Gods. It also represents the act of swallowing whereby she is taking in and ingesting the honey, the spirit of the bee, and the blessings of God.
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July 10th, 2011
Actaeon
Originally uploaded by unconsciouseye
In Greek myth Actaeon was a hunter who happened upon a stream in which the goddess Athena was bathing. In retaliation for spying her while she was vulnerable she transforms Actaeon into a deer and he is subsequently pursued and killed by his own hunting dogs. Alchemists took Actaeon as a symbol of one who has seen through the veil of nature to gnostic truth. In alchemical prints and emblems he is depicted as a figure with antlers or a deer head. For the Riddle of the Echo project he is a symbol of transformation eternally in that magical place between animal and human, intellect and instinct, conscious and unconscious. The figure is from a book of 19th century paintings, the age of neoclassicism. His rack of antlers is large denoting maturity and power. His mouth is covered with the word ‘watching’ indicating his silence, his unending gaze, and the act which gives him his power. Beside him lies a dead fly symbolic of the casting off of the physical and transcending toward higher, spiritual realms.
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July 7th, 2011
My attention for the year has been mostly consumed by the Volunteer Department of the Portland Art Museum. And while I am still making new work it has been slowed down considerably and exhibiting work has been nonexistent. I rather dislike apologies, giving them and hearing them, and so will not apologize now for my blog silence. This post is an admonishment to myself- get to work. I am a big believer in the Hand of Providence and that things happen as they are supposed to in their proper time and I know that this bit of a break as an artist is for a reason, whether I know what that is or not.
Like I said, I’ve been making new work and I’ve also been doing a lot of research. Lately my research has been in the realm of alchemy. I was first intrigued by the subject after reading Jung’s ‘Alchemy and Psychology’ and have become enamored with the poetry and rich imagery associated with the practice. The concept of transformation in the mind and the soul that permeates much of the writings on the subject fit in perfectly with the Riddle of the Echo project and the idea that artwork and imagery can act as a catalyst for change within the viewer. Currently I’m reading the ‘Splendor Solis‘ written in 1582 by Solomon Trismosin. The writing is not as poetic as some of the other alchemical texts but there are images associated with it that are pretty spectacular.
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March 31st, 2010
One of my photos was published in The Willamette Week’s visual arts listings in this weeks edition. There is also a review which while not glowing, is still pretty positive. I’ll definitely take it. It is a big bonus from what I was hoping would be a mention on the web site.
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March 23rd, 2010
I just got a notice in the post today that my photograph “Beauty” has been accepted to be included in their “Photowork ‘10″ exhibition. If you happen to be in Poughkeepsie on April 17th, 2010 check out the opening.
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March 20th, 2010
I am very excited to have a show of my new project “The Riddle of The Echo” coming up in April. The show opens April 2nd, 2010 at the Press Club 2621 SE Clinton St. Portland, OR 97202. I’ve put a bunch of energy into promoting the show and my fingers are crossed.
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December 17th, 2009
Help! I’m addicted to Flikr and I can’t stop. I find myself checking on it several times a day. Have people been looking at my stuff? Are my new shots anyone’s favorites? Hours will go by as I link from one person’s images to another. The amount of photographs is staggering. Out of curiosity I searched for groups that have the word “sunset” in their description or title. The result was over 62,000 groups each with thousands of images. I’m thrilled that people all over the world are looking at my work and I get to see theirs. The new developments in photo, whatever they may be, are going to happen in relation to the internet. I submitted to a call for entries done entirely on Flikr. Ironically it was an exhibition showcasing artists working with light sensitive material (not digital). The long term effects of The Web on photo will certainly merit further thought.
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August 21st, 2009
While conducting an interview with photographer Doug Ethridge he mentioned that he doesn’t intellectualize as he’s shooting and lets his emotions dictate his imagery. I had asked him about the “overarching themes” in his work and I found his response to be a little surprising. I was trying to get him to speak more specifically about particular storytelling or things that happened to him. Conversely he was trying to keep his image making fresh by not over thinking it and letting the photos come to him. In retrospect I think we were saying the same thing, but not realizing it.
I firmly believe that all photography is practiced as an emotional exercise. From staid catalog shots of products to Joel Peter Witkin tableaux of amputees to Moholy-Nagy abstracts the thing that all photos have in common is the viewer’s ability to identify with the image in some way. This identification does not happen as an intellectual decision, it happens, I believe, on an unconscious and emotional level.
Take, for example, Huynh Cong Ut’s famous photograph of the young girl running naked toward the camera fleeing a naplam attack in Vietnam. The power of a photograph as a piece of art is that it affects our emotions. We feel what we imagine the subject feels which in turn sparks a myriad of personal feelings. This is why photographs are used so much for advertising and politics. They hit our brains in the same place as memories and dreams.
It’s this same emotional response that lets us as photographers know when we “got it”. It’s what Alfred Steiglitz called “Equivalents”. He experimented with the theory by photographing clouds in the sky. To paraphrase, the point of the “Equivalents” project was to make the viewer feel what the photographer felt when selecting the shot. Minor White believed that his photographs had a spiritual foundation to them for similar reasons. I would go further and suggest that it is all photographs produced that have this reciprocal, emotional element.
I believe that this is also the reason why photography will always be considered “real”, or based in reality, no matter how much it is manipulated by digital processes.
And maybe I do tend to over think things, but when I’m out hunting or brainstorming images they come to me, sometimes from out of nowhere. And when something hits me just right I grab it.
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