Gnôthi Seauton

Gnôthi seauton, latin for " know thyself "...This seems an appropriate way to start my blogging in 2012, a year for which I have chosen ' transformation ' as my theme. One of the many aspects I would like to transform is my blogging habit...Let me reword that, I'd like to make blogging a habit! So this is my plan - I will blog once a week for a grand total of 52 new posts by December 31 2012. Hmmmm, okay I think I ' know myself ' well enough to state that if I post a mere 26 times I'll consider that a resounding success and transformation.

Gnôthi Seauton
Mixed media 3ft x 3ft

The mixed media painting "Gnôthi Seauton" is a bit of a reflection of who I am. My fingerprint, the shadows, the darkness, the light passages - all held together with wire; my life story written between each ridge of my print, sometimes a little smudged but mostly pretty evident.

My fingerprints can often be found in my work, even as a signature when I sign as Curio. As an adoptee from many years ago, there isn't much I know about my genetics. All I have is my DNA and my fingerprints. As a matter of fact, the only two people I know I am connected to by blood in this world are my two children. This is why identity often surfaces as a theme in my work and fingerprints have naturally become evidence of my identity.

As for holding it all together, so often it is only with a thread. The problem with thread is that with time it often becomes weak and is easily broken which is why wire is the binder I chose. It's not fail proof because it can rust and break down, but if you have enough layers it should see you through to the end.

A couple of examples of past works using my fingerprints.

Identidy
(You can read more about this painting in the post for July 16, 2009)

Entre la vie et la mort
(Between birth and death)
Monotype Chine Collé

All blogging aside, I think it worth mentionning, the time not posting will be devoted to ' knowing myself ' a little better and knowing my blogging friends better as well. I'm grateful for each and everyone of you and the inspiration you bring into my life.

The Divining World

I've always been very interested in such things as astrology, tarot, fortune telling and all forms of divination. Although I'm not a firm believer in predicting the future, I have always had a certain respect for the tools one might use to predict the events of their lives or to query the spirits about some problem they are facing. As such, I have a pretty good selection of books and paraphanelia relating to the subject of divination. I have used them in the past as I sought answers to some issue or situation I was seeking clarification for and very often answers came to me.

I use these methods still today and the reason is quite simple.

I believe all answers are available to us and, when the time is right, the answers are there to grasp if we open our minds. Whether through dreams or divination, through the reading of signs or even through some game or system we develop ourselves (ie. 'If I get three green lights in a row, then the answer is GO'), we are often looking for help in deciding which road to take or which career to follow and even with the more mundane daily questions we come up with.

There is a wide array of tools one can use in a quest for answers but I have been developing my own. Of course, I do not presume to have the knowledge to create some new form of divining only instruments that I find aesthetically appealing.

That being said...My latest project will be a series of cards in the spirit of my Alpha Omega project, only much, much smaller. Presently I am working on a numerology set (pictured here) which measures just 1.5 inches by 3 inches.

I don't know if I will manage to complete it during this very busy family time of the year, but I do know it is just the first in a series because I consulted the spirits and they said so!

Alpha Omega - Part II

"From around the age of six, I had the habit of sketching from life. I became an artist, and from fifty on began producing works that won some reputation, but nothing I did before the age of seventy was worthy of attention. At seventy-three, I began to grasp the structures of birds and beasts, insects and fish, and of the way plants grow. If I go on trying, I will surely understand them still better by the time I am eighty-six, so that by ninety I will have penetrated to their essential nature. At one hundred, I may well have a positively divine understanding of them, while at one hundred and thirty, forty, or more I will have reached the stage where every dot and every stroke I paint will be alive. May Heaven, that grants long life, give me the chance to prove that this is no lie."

Katsushika Hokusai, painter and print maker from the 1760-1849.

Outer side of the canvas envelope (roughly 40 in x 16 in)

Inside Pocket

Inside pocket with Alpha Omega cards inserted

Spread of Alpha Omega

Life is what happens between the Alpha and the Omega.

Alpha Omega

I thought it would take me a lot longer than it did to get through the second phase of my project especially as I had no preconceived notion to begin with, only a monotype which I had stored away for the last five years. I always felt it was incomplete, however my professor at the time was very much the purist...you never enhance a print! In fact, because of his words I was extremely hesitant to touch , let alone recycle, my old print. Now that I've done it, consider me hooked.

As a total control freak, just letting things happen is not so easy but I think I'm getting the hang of it. My project, which eventually evolved into Alpha Omega, began with thoughts of the how small a connected world is. I thought of the continents, the people, the common threads and the different languages. And that is where the project took on a life of it's own. Using signs and symbols, each of the eight pages looks to promote a sense of well being.

The writings and symbols include Greek, Hebrew, Sikh, Hindu, Chinese, Alchemy, and Runes. The mediums I used include pen and ink, conte crayons and acrylic paint.

The next phase is an envelope for which I have already tea-stained a piece of canvas. Not quite sure of how it will end up...Stay tuned!

Letting Creation Develop

Can art find expression amid the chaos of construction? I sure hope so!

A few posts back I wrote about recycling my student prints. These are works that are just laying around the studio, many of which just don't seem complete in the fullest sense of the word.

My first recycling projects were story box books. My latest is a monotype print that I am hoping will find a voice after being silenced for five years. The print was about 32 x 24 inches and the subject was about the beginning of Christianity. It invovled numerous ink passes to build up the background; some laser copy transfers of maps from a bible; chine collé using beautiful japanese paper; and impressions of skeletal hands and bones which I cut out in balsa wood, inked, positioned on the print and ran through the press.

When I came upon it in my studio I was actually looking for another print, but as soon as I spotted this one I was compelled to go with the flow. As a matter of fact that is exactly what I am hoping to achieve...going with the creative flow and just letting the piece, which seems to be in book format, develop itself. No preconceived notions; no ultimate goal. Just creating and recognizing when the piece is done!

So far, I have divided the large print into eight equal pieces;

glued them back to back to create four pages;

thus, I now have eight equal size backgrounds. What will develop will develop as it should!

The creative process has begun!

Angels

A few years ago I came upon an angel and it has managed to find it's way into a variety of my art pieces. Although it remains consistently and conspicuously the same, the atmosphere in which it finds itself is ever-changing. The feeling of security of her steadfast presence does not escape me as, regardless of her environment, she reaches upwards for something better.

Etched in glass, she stands out against an earthy background, subtle yet present.

Most of the times Angel has appeared she was in a lithograph. She is photo-etched on a metal plate which can be used many times. Probably the time she appeared that has meant the most to me is in the image below. As she points towards the heavens, she draws your attention to a segment of a love letter my father wrote to my mother during their courtship over 70 years ago.

You can see more three more prints in my previous postings.

Time to go to my studio. Although it is -7 degrees celcius and there is 3 feet of snow on the ground, the sun is shining and I'm looking forward to finishing one of the paintings in my sunflower series. I think I'll call it my Departure Series because it is so far away from what I've been doing.

Champignons - Block print


Between Birth and Death -chine collée