Flowers of my mind

waste and graced...

2012-01-28T22:30:00.000-08:00

Been watching some moving documentaries lately that I wanted to share. They are not directly related to my art but somehow will influence it and perhaps touch you as well.

Starting with "Wasteland"

Synopsis

Filmed over nearly three years, WASTE LAND follows renowned artist Vik Muniz as he journeys from his home base in Brooklyn to his native Brazil and the world's largest garbage dump, Jardim Gramacho, located on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. There he photographs an eclectic band of “catadores”—self-designated pickers of recyclable materials. Muniz’s initial objective was to “paint” the catadores with garbage. However, his collaboration with these inspiring characters as they recreate photographic images of themselves out of garbage reveals both the dignity and despair of the catadores as they begin to re-imagine their lives. Director Lucy Walker (DEVIL’S PLAYGROUND, BLINDSIGHT and COUNTDOWN TO ZERO) and co-directors João Jardim and Karen Harley have great access to the entire process and, in the end, offer stirring evidence of the transformative power of art and the alchemy of the human spirit.

And continuing the journey of the possibilities of humans transformation with the shocking but amazingly graced "Wounded Healers"

Synopsis:

Wounded Healers: How Do You Forgive the Unforgivable? The documentary film, Wounded Healers, chronicles the extraordinary personal stories of five Rwandans and their post-genocide journey through the stages of extreme hurt, hate, and healing. The central characters of the film are faced with the dilemma of what to do when those who inflicted genocide on their families are released from prison and move back into their neighborhood. Tense face-to-face meetings between survivors and killers eventually lay the foundation for forgiveness and a new future. In the process, viewers come to understand that forgiveness, however improbable, is truly possible.

It is encouraging to see there is hope in places we would never expect...

And last but not least a film that I have seen quite a while ago, and it still leaves me with so much gratefulness. It is called, "Fierce Grace" with and about Ram Das.

"I was going fingers thru life before the stroke, and I kind of thought that was that, that was all it was. But the stroke, its like a whole new incarnation. There are qualities in me that never would have come out, never. I am at peace more now than I have ever been. The peace comes from my settling in to the moment. This moment is all right. NOW, this moment is all right."

Go to the limits of your longing... geh bis an deiner Sehnsucht Rand

2012-01-24T09:48:00.000-08:00

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
Go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.

Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

Gott spricht zu jedem nur, eh er ihn macht,

dann geht er schweigend mit ihm aus der Nacht.

Aber die Worte, eh jeder beginnt,

diese wolkigen Worte, sind:

Von deinen Sinnen hinausgesandt,

geh bis an deiner Sehnsucht Rand;

gieb mir Gewand.

Hinter den Dingen wachse als Brand,

dass ihre Schatten, ausgespannt,

immer mich ganz bedecken.

Lass dir Alles geschehn: Schönheit und Schrecken.

Man muss nur gehn: Kein Gefühl ist das fernste.

Lass dich von mir nicht trennen.

Nah ist das Land,

das sie das Leben nennen.

Du wirst es erkennen

an seinem Ernste.

Gieb mir die Hand.

– Rainer Maria Rilke
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/rainer-maria-rilke (english)
http://rainer-maria-rilke.de/ (german)

The Scream

2012-01-20T21:52:00.001-08:00

acrylic on sculpted styrofoam (its hard to see in the photo
but it's actually a soft scoop out where the face is
and another on the right where the drop is,
originally the styrofoam looked like it contained a saxophone),
unframed, 12 x 12 inch (30.05 x 30.05 cm)

contact me for more information

The Tortured Artist

2012-01-16T20:28:00.000-08:00

This is interesting and has me wonder...

Dave Eggers and Jonah Lehrer - Tortured Artists and 'Grit'

"People who are a little bit sad . . . they become a lot more centered and focused and more likely to persist. So they stick with that task for longer."

Reminds me of the classic examples of artists like Frida Kahlo and VanGogh.

Do we really need to be suffering in order to create? Perhaps too much suffering is counterproductive, but a bearable dose of unhappiness might just push us further than any happiness ever could.

Its like in spirituality where we almost have to have longing and crisis in order to push outside the boundaries of our existence. Looking at Meister Eckhart, Rumi, Utpaladeva and Eckhart Tolle, there is story after story of suffering and pain turned into longing and finally break thru.

"The rain-weeping and sun-burning twine together to make us grow. Keep your intelligence white-hot and your grief glistening, so your life will stay fresh.  Cry easily like a little child."  ~Rumi

"My barn having burned to the ground, I can now see the moon." ~Japanese poet Masahide

"I walked a mile with Pleasure She chattered all the way;But left me none the wiser For all she had to say.I walked a mile with SorrowAnd ne'er a word said she;But oh, the things I learned from her When Sorrow walked with me." ~Robert Browning Hamilton

"But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world." ~C.S. Lewis

I saw a face screaming in my recent painting and had to paint it, but was wondering where that came from, I never scream. Perhaps spirituality and creativity allow us to express our emotions and deepest longing when the world and our experiences have taught us to keep quite.

acrylic and mixed media on styrofoam mold, 12 x 12 inch (30.5 x 30.5cm)

title page for the children book...

2011-12-27T22:50:00.000-08:00

Been working on some changes on the illustrations for a children book I had created earlier in the year, and finally got inspired for the title page...

2012 Calendar of my artwork for you...

2011-12-20T22:56:00.000-08:00

Order now and you will be able to enjoy my paintings all year round.

Order Now!
$25.08 (plus shipping)

High quality calendar, tough wire binding and hanger,

200gsm satin art paper with a tougher cover,

Dimensions: A3 (297 x 420mm / 11.7 x 16.5 inch)

And when the years is over

(and Christmas comes around again next year)

you'll have a couple of beautiful prints to frame :-)

back of Calendar

to see more samples
click on images below...

Made by RedBubble

printed locally

Order here!

What Happens...

2011-12-02T00:15:00.000-08:00

Another beautiful poem by Hafiz that brought tears to my eyes for reasons that cannot be expressed any other way . . .

What happens when your soul

begins to awaken your eyes

and your heart

and the cells of your body

to the great Journey of Love?

First there is wonderful laughter

and probably precious tears

and a hundred sweet promises

and those heroic vows

no one can ever keep.

But still God is delighted

and amused you once tried

to be a saint.

What happens when your soul begins to awake in this world

to our deep need to love and serve the Friend?

Oh, the Beloved will send you

one of his wonderful, wild companions --

Like Hafiz

. . . and so He did :-)

Inspiration... (coming and going)

2011-11-27T16:05:00.000-08:00

...an unfinished painting and some leaves that started dancing.... :-)

My first animation. Hope you enjoy!

separation pains...

2011-11-17T23:31:00.000-08:00

Just exactly what is this longing that pulls us thru life: love, devotion, bhakti, I keep wondering, as I find (and lose) my self again and again, stumbling, and face down in the mud.
And in those moments sometimes poems make some sense of the "non-sense" :-)

TIRED OF SPEAKING SWEETLY

Love wants to reach out and manhandle us,

Break all our teacup talk of God.

If you had the courage and

Could give the Beloved His choice, some nights,

He would just drag you around the room

By your hair,

Ripping from your grip all those toys in the world

That bring you no joy.

Love sometimes gets tired of speaking sweetly

And wants to rip to shreds

All your erroneous notions of truth

That make you fight within yourself, dear one,

And with others,

Causing the world to weep

On too many fine days.

God wants to manhandle us,

Lock us inside of a tiny room with Himself

And practice His dropkick.

The Beloved sometimes wants

To do us a great favor:

Hold us upside down

And shake all the nonsense out.

But when we hear

He is in such a “playful drunken mood”

Most everyone I know

Quickly packs their bags and hightails it

Out of town.

~ Hafiz ~

And... Rumi says:
"A true Lover is proved such by his pain of heart; No sickness is there like sickness of heart. The Lover’s ailment is different from all ailments; Love is the astrolabe of God’s mysteries. A Lover may hanker after this love or that love, but at the last he is drawn to the King of Love.

However much we describe and explain love, when we fall in love we are ashamed of our words. Explanation by the tongue makes most things clear, but Love unexplained is clearer. When pen hasted to write, on reaching the subject of love it split in twain. When the discourse touched on the matter of love, pen was broken and paper was torn. Naught but Love itself can explain love and lovers.

The creed of Love is a Way unto itself, by itself. It cannot be compared to any other path. It has its own religion, its own worship and its own code of conduct. And to round it up we could say that its religion is sacrifice of self for the sake of the Beloved, its worship is the unceasing contemplation of the Beloved, and its code of conduct is to seek only the pleasure of the Beloved.
(Mevlana Rumi, the Mathnavi)

Bulleh Shah [1680 AD - 1752 AD] was a great sufi mystic-poet born in Uch Gilaniyan, a settlement in present day Bahawalpur district of Punjab, Pakistan. When he attained to youth, he was already in the grip of an intense longing and uncontrollable restlessness for union with the Divine Beloved. He met his destined spiritual guide, Shah Inayat Qadiri of Lahore, and grew in the stations of Love. But what brought the wildly surging waves of the river of desire to rest in the serene ocean of union, was the final annihilation that came to him through separation from his Pir. This is also reminiscent of what passed between Mevlana and Shams Tabriz. As the most excellent verses that Mevlana composed came from the tongue of one maddened by Love, dictated by a heart seared by separation in Love, so is the best of Bulleh Shah’s poetry an outpouring of his love-ravaged heart.

Bulleh Shah sings of his agony in separation from his Pir:

I befriended one who is unfeeling

My eyes shed endless tears in love.

He left, abandoning me

Planting the spear of separation in the soil of my heart.

From my body He plucked away my soul

He who thinks Love is a trade did so to me.

How shall I rely on one so cruel?

Not an atom of fear in his heart.

This is for him a recreation like that of one laughing at the falling bird.

He laughs and claps at my devastation.

O’ I befriended one who is unfeeling!

He said he would return but never came

He forgot all the promises of returning.

In my innocence I locked my gaze with his

But what did I know I was befriending the one who would loot me."

source: Naila Amat-un-Nur http://www.nazr-e-kaaba.com/intoxication.php

And Rabia, who said, "My Beloved is always with me" described the pain of separation from and the joy of reunion with the Divine in terms of separation from and longing for an absent lover - sometimes in rather direct terms:

"I pray to God that you fall in love With someone as cold and indifferent as you are. Then you may understand The pain of love, the sufferings and tortures of separation, and you may appreciate my devotion."

While Utpaladeva cries out in his Shivastotravali:

"At the time of showering grace you ought to have thought if the person whom you shower grace is worthy, is capable to receive it. But you never do it! Now what has happened to me, that I never see you? I have been made your slave, and still I don't see you."

Love, Devotion, Bhakti

2011-11-01T22:20:00.000-07:00

Just finished a new painting, for a very dear friend. And noticed again how strange that it is much more difficult to paint the (half) portrait of someone I see every day versa someone I have seen only once or twice. Perhaps I should pay more attention :-)

The rest was so much fun, and if you like your portrait done like this with a tree full of the things you love or a befitting poem, let me know. I would enjoy to paint you one as well.

"Thought we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it within us or we find it not."
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

click on images for details...

acrylic and collage on paper

21 x 27.25 inch (53.5 x 69 cm)

I will be showing some of my recent artwork....

2011-10-14T20:17:00.000-07:00

click to view/download PDF

You are cordially invited to the

Culver City Art Group

16TH ANNUAL HOLIDAY ART SHOW

Saturday November 12th, 2011, 1:00pm until 7:00pm

A body of original artwork by our members
• oil painting • acrylics • watercolors • photography • ceramics • digital works • collage • drawing • colored pencil and other artistic media

Artists’ Reception...

Meet the artists!

Refreshments and awards 3:30 pm - 7:00 pm

Our beautiful new location...

Playa Vista CenterPointe Club

6200 Playa Vista Drive

Playa Vista CA 90094

(Click for map!)

For more information, check our website at www.ccartgroup.org

Your deepest presence...

2011-09-01T21:46:00.000-07:00

Birdwings

Your grief for what you’ve lost lifts a mirror
up to where you’re bravely working.

Expecting the worst, you look, you look, and instead,
here's the joyful face you’ve been wanting to see.

Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open,
you would be paralyzed.

Your deepest presence is in every small contracting
and expanding,

the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
as birdwings.

~ Rumi
("The Essential Rumi", translated by Coleman Barks)

The Love of Allah

2011-08-23T23:20:00.000-07:00

For a long time I have been trying to express in my paintings the idea of what is Love to God, Bhakti, or Devotion. Not all of my paintings are about that but it is a constant underlying search.

The other day I was a bit down and asking a friend about her idea of happiness. "It is overrated", she said, and instead she gave me this very uplifting description of her Love for Allah: "It has grown so glorious that all my desires, ambitions, expectations, longings became invisible under the magnificent tree of Allah's love. I believe it was at that time, that I stopped seeking for happiness, because I could now replace it with a superb feeling that is called 'peace'", which I found so inspiring that I just had to try and capture it in a painting. . .

Details of painting . . .
written on the three tree branches as the pillars of love are:
forgiving patience gratitude

acrylic and collage on paper
27.25 x 21 inch (69 x 53,5 cm)

Hope we will all find peace this way or that way. . .

Stay empty and held between those fingers, where "where" gets drunk with Nowhere.

2011-08-09T10:07:00.000-07:00

The Prophet has said
that a true seeker must be completely empty like a lute
to make the sweet music of "Lord, Lord."

When the emptiness starts to get filled with something,
the One who plays the lute puts it down
and picks up another.

There is nothing more subtle and delightful
than to make that music.

Stay empty and held
between those fingers, where "where"
gets drunk with Nowhere.

This man was empty,
and the tears came. His habitual stubbornness
dissolved. This is the way with many seekers.
They moan in prayer, and the perfumed smoke of that
floats into Heaven, and the angels say, "Answer
this prayer. This worshiper has only You and
nothing else to depend on. Why do you go first
to the prayers of those less devoted?

God says,
"By deferring My Generosity I am helping him.
His need dragged him by the hair into My Presence.
If I satisfy that, he'll go back to being absorbed
in some idle amusement. Listen how passionate he is!
That torn-open cry is the way he should live."

Nightingales are put in cages
because their songs give pleasure.
Whoever heard of keeping a crow?

When two people, one decrepit and the other young
and handsome, come into a bakery where the baker
is an admirer of young men, and both of them
ask for bread, the baker will immediately
give what he has on hand to the old man.

But to the other he will say, "Sit down and wait a while.
There's fresh bread baking in the house. Almost ready!"

And when the hot bread is brought, the baker will say,
"Don't leave. The halvah is coming."

So he finds ways of detaining the young man with,
"Ah, there's something important I want to tell you about.
Stay. I'll be back in a moment. Something very important!"

This is how it is when true devotees
suffer disappointment
in the good they want to do,
or the bad they want to avoid.

Excerpt from Rumi's Mathnawi, Volume VI
Verses 4167-4275, 4280,4302-19, 4324-26
"The Essential Rumi"

The (invisible) flute player...

2011-08-05T23:57:00.000-07:00

“Love plays and is the music being played.

Let that musician finish this poem.” ~Rumi

"The Flute Player"

acrylic, collage, permanent marker on paper

27.25 x 21 inch (69 x 53,5 cm)

painting in process..

2011-08-04T20:54:00.000-07:00

This is how most my paintings start....

...and it takes a while till I find where the painting wants to go... It is never boring that way.
Though often this method leads me to do things backwards, like starting with the paper and then realizing that the collages I stick to it requires for it to be mounted :-)

Nowhere and Nothing

2011-08-03T14:14:00.001-07:00

Remember some time ago I wrote a blog post about my struggles to just relax guilt free and do nothing ("The one who is not busy" is not me... yet). I am still trying. Last monday I had this idea that doing nothing doesn't always mean doing no-thing...

I was cleaning out the closet finally, something I meant to do for a while but was avoiding to do, telling myself I didn't had the time, though when adding up all the time wasted trying to find something... plus being able to clear out a huge bag of clothes and give them to someone, plus gaining some space to actually find what I want to wear instead of blindly picking into a pile. And though I was sneezing for he rest of the day it was worth it and it sort of fun and timely.

Then I was reading a book, one of the many unfinished books that I thought I didn't had the time for, "The Tao of Pooh". And while I was reading it slowly dawned on me why I haven't been able to do nothing and while even my trying to do nothing wasn't very helpful...

[Excerpt from "The Tao of Pooh", by Benjamin Hoff]

"Where are we going?", said Pooh hurrying after him and wondering whether it was to be an Explore or a What-shall-I-do-about-you-know-what.

"Nowhere," said Christopher Robin.

So they began going there, and after they had walked a little way, Christopher Robin said:

"What do you like doing best in the world, Pooh?"
(And of course, what Pooh liked doing best was going to Christopher Robin's house and eating, but since we've aready quoted that, we don't think we need to quote it again.)

"I like that too," said Christopher Robin, "but what i like doing best is Nothing."

"How do you do Nothing?" asked Pooh, after he had wondered for a long time.

"Well, it's what people call out at you just as you're going off to do it, What are you going to do, Christopher Robin, and you say, Oh, Nothing, and then you go and do it."

"Oh, I see," said Pooh.

"This is a nothing sort of thing that we're doing now."

"Oh, I see," said Pooh again.

"It means just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering.

Chuang-tse put it this way:

Consciousness wandered North to the land of Dark Waters and climbed the Unnoticeable Slope, where he met the Speechless Non-Doer. "I have three questions for you," Consciousness said, "First, what thoughts and efforts will lead us to understanding the Tao? Second, where must we go and what must we do to find peace in the Tao? Third, from what point must we start and which road must we follow in order to reach the Tao? Speechless Non-Doer gave him no answer.

Consciousness traveled South to the land of the Bright Ocean and climbed the mountain of Certainty, where he met the Impulsive Speech-Maker. He asked him the same three questions. "Here are the answers," Impulsive Speech-Maker replied. But as soon as he started to speak, he became confused and forgot what he was talking about.

Consciousness returned to the palace and asked the Yellow Emperor, who told him, "To have no thought and put forth no effort is the first step towards understanding the Tao. To go nowhere and do nothing is the first step towards finding peace in the Tao. To start from no point and follow no road is the first step towards reaching the Tao."

What Chuang-tse, Christopher Robin and Pooh are describing is the Great Secret, the key that unlocks the doors of wisdom, happiness and truth. What is that magic, mysterious something? Nothing. To the Taoist, Nothing is something, and Something - at least the sort of thing that many consider to be important - is really nothing at all. Our explanation of this will attempt to give some sort of indication of what the Taoists call T'ai Hsu, the "Great Nothing".

We will begin with an illustration from the writing of Chuang-tse:

On his way back from the K'un-lun Mountains, the Yellow Emperor lost the dark pearl of Tao. He sent Knowledge to find it, but Knowledge was unable to understand it. He sent Distant Vision, but Distant Vision was unable to see it. He sent Eloquence, but Eloquence was unable to describe it. Finally, he sent Empty Mind, and Empty Mind came back with the pearl.
...
An Empty sort of mind is valuable for finding pearls and tails and things because it can see what's in front of it. An Overstuffed mind is unable to. While the clear mind listesn to a bird singing, the Stuffed-Full-of-Knowledge-and Cleverness mind wonders what kind of bird is singing. The more Stuffed Up it is, the less it can hear through its own ears and see through its own eyes. Knowledge and Cleverness tend to concern themselves with the wrong sort of things, and a mind confused by Knowledge, Cleverness and Abstract Ideas tends to go chasing after things that don't matter, or that don't even exist, instead of seeing, appreciating, and making use of what is right in front of it.
...
Many people are afraid of Emptiness, however, because it reminds them of Loneliness. Everything has to be filled in, it seems - appointments books, hillside, vacant lots - but when all the space is filled the Loneliness really begins. Then the Groups are joined, the Classes are signed up for, and the Gift-to-Yourself items are bought. When the Loneliness starts creeping in the door, the Television Set is turned on to make it go away. But it doesn't go away. So some of us do instead, and after discarding the emptiness of the Big Congested Mess, we discover the fullness of Nothing.

Benjamin Hoff
The Tao of Pooh
Excerpt from the chapter: Nowhere and Nothing
source: http://chippit.tripod.com/nowhere_and_nothing.html

You can also find great tips how to get things done with little energy and time by Michael Nobbs at http://www.sustainablycreative.net/category/the-sustainably-creative-tools/
and perhaps you have already read Leo Babauta's Zen Habbits advice on how to live more of life with less http://zenhabits.net/on-minimalism/

Now back to painting... :-)

Art, Grief, and Transformation...

2011-07-30T00:28:00.000-07:00

So there I was, sitting on the stairs to the beautiful garden, green and lush with moisture from the sprinklers going on at the peak of the day, the sun is shining bright, perfect blue sky, not a single cloud, and all I could think was how wastefulness and out of connection with nature we live.

Been reading this interview of Chris Jordan, a photographer who made this very moving video "Midway" about the Midway atoll where the birds are dying from plastic trash that humans have produced on the other ends of the Pacific...

http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/bearing-witness-chris-jordan-on-art-grief-and-transformation

... it had me cry but also marvel at the beauty of death, while I've been thinking about what he said,

"One of the fundamental problems of our world, underlying a lot of the disasters that are happening, is that we’re disconnected from what we feel. I think it would be fair to say that American culture is the culture that is most detached from its feelings of any culture in the world. We've become separated from nature and urbanized in this weird, new, overwhelming way—and the only way many of us have found to cope is to disconnect from the anxiety and the fear.

The nature of the information that we have to deal with compounds that disconnection even further. We converse daily in numbers of millions and billions as if we understand them. When I say we use 210 billion plastic bottles in the United States every year, I assume that I understand what that number means, and whoever is listening assumes they do, too. In fact it's totally incomprehensible. There are all these sociological studies that demonstrate vividly that the human mind cannot comprehend numbers higher than a few thousand. There are all these phenomena around the world, whether it's the 1.2 billion people in the world who lack access to safe drinking water or the 10 million tons of plastic that are swirling around in the Pacific Ocean. We can't see those phenomena, and the only information we have available to try to relate to them is in the form of numbers we absolutely cannot comprehend. It’s no wonder that we can’t relate to our global culture on any kind of feeling level.

That's where I think art comes in, and why I think it's so important right now, because feeling is the kingdom of art. I've gotten to meet lots of scientists who are uniformly wringing their hands in frustration at their inability to convey to the public any sense of the extreme urgency they feel about the issues that they're studying. The underlying phenomena are profoundly important, and yet the information we're receiving is fundamentally dry and incomprehensible. Art can act as a mediator between science and the public, translating what science can tell us into a visual language that we can understand, that allows for personal connection and feeling. My hope for all my work, and especially my Midway work, is to make the global personal."

I think he has done a terrific work (http://www.chrisjordan.com) and I wish more people would see it.

This world is dying! We are dying! But we are also being born, the world changing constantly...

Was that what Siddharta (the Buddha) saw when he came down from his fancy palace and decided to search for freedom from old age, disease and death, and found this world to be "unreal" and impermanent?

So what to do? Is there anything to be done at all? Perhaps it is just a lesson?

In the last parapraph in his interview Chris Jordan says:
"I believe that we need to allow ourselves to feel grief deeply. Anger and rage and shame—those are surface feelings. Grief is deep. Grief and love might be the two deepest human emotions. When we allow ourselves to really grieve, it's a transformational experience.
People I've known who have gone through the long slow death of a loved one from cancer, who have fully grieved and fully said goodbye and fully experienced the process, have come out of that experience transformed. They know more deeply who they are and what their priorities are. The Dalai Lama is not the only person in the world who has access to that kind of wisdom. We all do, but it gets clouded and fogged over by our daily rush and the messages we keep getting from our consumer culture, that material things will bring us happiness. We're all so involved in this headlong rush to a more materially luxurious lifestyle that we forget who we are and what really matters. We so badly need to reconnect with that right now."

What do you think?

The song of separation

2011-07-16T20:01:00.000-07:00

click on images below to see details...

click on images below to see edges...

"The Song of Separation"

acrylic, oil pastel, collage on canvas

11.75 x 11.75 inches (30 x 30 cm)

painted around the edges, ready to hang

original painting sold!

Jeden Tag ein neuer Tag . . . Every day a new day . . .

2011-06-29T12:56:00.000-07:00

Been sorting thru old photos to print an album for my father. While entering the digital age have been leaving behind some people that haven't gone with me into that world. And while going thru them realized just how much has happened that just went into some computer folder almost unnoticed.

Like this poem that I wrote on the plane to India, my first world trip, and who knew that it was going to take me almost a year to get back, and then leave again to go overseas for good...

Abschied

von der Vergangenheit
vom Tag
von der Zukunft
von Leuten
Gesichtern
Augenblicken
Momenten

und doch bleiben

die Bilder
Gerüche

Abschied

jeden Tag
jede Sekunde

frisch betreten wir

immer dassselbe
Land unserer
Erinnerung
und Phantasie

Farewell

from the past
from the day
from the future
from people
faces
instants
moments

and yet remain

the images
scents

parting

every day
every second

fresh we enter

always the same
land of our
memory
and imagination

painting from my website available as print

...and even though it seems a lot is changing, doesn't it seem like nothing actually changes but our point of view?

Look in a clear mountain mirror...

2011-06-23T00:17:00.000-07:00

After all the frenzy and busyness, suddenly feeling quite (which could be the quite before or after the storm)...

You Don't Have to Act Crazy Anymore -

We all know you were good at that.

Now retire, my dear,

From all that hard work you do

Of bringing pain to your sweet eyes and heart.

Look in a clear mountain mirror -

See the Beautiful Ancient Warrior

And the Divine elements

You always carry inside

That infused this Universe with sacred Life

So long ago

And join you Eternally

With all Existence - with God!

~ Hafiz

June gloom...

2011-06-15T17:40:00.001-07:00

Always forget about it when May is over and I think it is time for summer... the weather here in LA is overcast, cool and... well, gloomy. Really looking forward to seeing the sun again. The garden has been shining nonetheless, or perhaps because the sun hasn't been too scorching hot yet.
So here are a few sunny glimpses to cheer me/us up :-)

Like thread through a needle...

2011-06-14T10:57:00.001-07:00

Your absence has gone through me

like thread through a needle.

Everything I do is stitched

with its color.

~ W. S. Merwin

click on images below to see details...

"Like Thread"

H 11.75 x W 11.75 inches (30 x 30cm)
acrylic, collage, mixed media on canvas
painted around the edges, ready to hang
Original painting $ 194.00 (free shipping within the US)

"The one who is not busy" is not me... yet

2011-06-08T22:25:00.000-07:00

Been so busy lately, can't seem to stop. And after reading this very good article, "the one who is not busy" - meditation on the fly - Busyness Plan, realized, I am such a workaholic.

So I tried on monday just to have a day doing nothing....

There I was sitting in the garden with a cup of tea, then sat again with a piece of fruit, then again watching the wasps on the lawn... and before I knew it, thinking... why are there wasps on the lawn? Oh, well, the mind is a funny thing and before I knew I am at the laptop just finding out more about wasps... how did I get here? Thousand reasons to do SOMETHING anything, even just to tidy up the desk, hard to ignore the dishes, or the urge to read a book, anything but sitting still and doing nothing. It is impossible to do nothing all day.

A dear friend gave me this book by Thich That Hanh, "the miracle of mindfulness", in which amongst other ways of bringing more mindfulness into our lives, he suggests ways how to spend a day just doing nothing... well my first attempt failed! But I am going to try again. Maybe with a plan: what to do when doing nothing ;D

In the end I found myself dabbling with paint again... happy, mind being busy with some colors and quite... I have scattered some of the beginnings all over this post, rather chaotic but...

"The creative process requires chaos before form emerges. (Marilyn Ferguson)

Seems like some of the busyness has a lot to do with trying to catch up on self promoting my art, like uploading pictures to diverse websites and my own website as well as my blog of course. I have been procrastinating to put prices and "buy" buttons on my paintings for a long time, then started and then stopped... and then started again...

A good friend of mine wrote this very interesting blog post about the madness of self promotion, and she bases it on another very interesting blog post, about how we've become human infomercials. He writes: "The internet is a noisy place. The prevailing notion of ‘How to Use Social Media’ seems to be “the louder the better.”" So true and hard for someone "quite" to be heard or even bother.

Maybe trying to live like this lady who lives without money would solve the problem. And a while time ago a friend of mine was writing about some artists who, instead of charging a set price for his art, charges whatever the buyer is earning in the four days it takes him to paint it, pay it forward.

What do you think about that?

In the meantime, I prefer it quite... and I am I am not give up on getting a grip on all the "to do's" and this crazy workaholic attitude, and the crazy business that seems to prevent me from enjoying the quite moments, or just relax without feeling guilty. I keep trying. May it be a matter of attitude or a matter of getting a grip on what is really important and sorting thru the chaos of to do's.

Now that I wrote that, another "to do" done! Until next week perhaps if or when I have something else to write or share... and I am trying not to feel too guilty if I don't.

...and if you have some suggestion in that matter, please let me know.

Birthday girl, illustration for a children book

2011-05-26T11:08:00.000-07:00

After a big gap of no posts, here is (so far) the last illustration in the series for the children book, actually the second version or even third... I kept making changes. Starting with a collage from three photos to ge the composition and adding the background, and then my friend was asking if I could apply the "cartoon software" also to the background (?) not realizing that I was doing it all by hand with wacom tablet and pen in photoshop and I kind of like the contrast of "cartoon" and photo. What do you think?

This is from a rather sweet story about a girl that invited so many friends to her first ever birthday party and no one showed up, and then Swamiji made it all very special.

A Thought . . .

2011-05-20T22:08:00.000-07:00

Its been quite here after a very busy time, and it is amazing to watch the amount of thoughts that can creep into the silence when one isn't watching, but that's just another thought :-)

When you see that from a thought

every craft in the world arises and subsists—

that houses and palaces and cities,

mountains and plains and rivers,

earth and ocean as well as sun and sky,

derive their life from it as fish from the sea—

then why in your foolishness, O blind one,

does the body seem to you a Solomon,

and thought only as an ant?

source Rumi, Mathnawi, II:1034-1037

Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Daylight"
Threshold Books, 1994
Persian transliteration courtesy of Yahyá Monastra

Painting: "Surrender and alertness"
acrylic on canvas (Diptych)
31.5 x 31,25 inches
(79.5 x 60 cm)

.

Let the inner life grow... illustrations for a children book

2011-05-04T08:47:00.000-07:00

"Polish your heart with meditation and quietness.

Let the inner life grow generous and handsome."

~Rumi

This poem is not part of the story but it is so befitting for what the story is about that I couldn't resist quoting it :-) and could not leave out this music that I was listening to while putting the finishing touches on. So soothing and meditative. Now there is one more illustration to go...

Then there may be some editing to be done because the format is going to be A4 and some of the illustrations would fit nicer into the full page. Why didn't I think about this before?

As much fun as working in Photoshop and sketching and thinking about something fitting the story has been, and I was just starting to get better at handling the wacom pen and finding ever more interesting painting tools, I am already longing for real paint and brushes and perhaps since it was so much fun to use all those patterns its time again for some collages and textures... but first things first.

illustrations continued...

2011-04-29T09:03:00.000-07:00

The above illustration accompanies the story about the love for animals and non-violence.

And this is about how to talk to your parents with logic :-)
When wanting to publish his translation of the Bhagavad Gita, at an age when others where getting ready to marry, Swami Lakshmanjoo got his father to fund the money for it by reminding him how much it would have cost to marry, and how he would never marry and how much his father saved.
And so they published it: "Narain Dass and Sons."

Illustrations: Badi Boda ("bigger than the biggest")

2011-04-26T09:36:00.000-07:00

This illustration underwent a bit of changes from the original drawing . . .

In the middle of it is a life-sized drawing done by our teacher in his later years, which amongst others adorns the walls of the celebration hall in Kashmir.

This is the accepted version of the illustration...

The story tells of how Swamiji as a kid was asked by teacher what he sees when he is in meditation. His reply was, "Badi Boda", which means in Kashmiri, "bigger than the biggest".

"While talking to his friends or elders, if he had to take an oath, he would swear by “Badi Boda”. He feld “Badi Boda” was the ultimate truth and reality of life."

"Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge . . ."

2011-04-19T08:23:00.000-07:00

It's been a pretty chaotic and busy in my life lately, and I don't know about you but it seems as if it is a reflection of the universal chaos, or the other way around. Its harder to keep the balance when the world seems to be falling apart in front of ones eyes. So after spending way too much time on the computer, I've been itching to get my hands onto real paints and paper and texture with lots of layers and lots of color and lots of everything and get it out, all those feelings of the past weeks . . .

FUKUSHIMA
We are all connected!

mixed media, acrylic on paper
23 x 15 inch (58.5 x 38 cm)
Original painting $204 (free shipping and handling)

Now they say it will take another 9 month to gain control back at the Fukushima power plant, like some sort of pregnancy and we are left wondering what the outcome is going to be. Probably a lump of cement surrounded by a very peaceful quite space :-) kind of like Chernobyl.

Did you get to see this amazing "virtual choir" by Eric Whitacre, and on TED explaining how he got the idea and did it. Blew me away crying. Now sure why, just as if feeling and hearing very clearly the connectedness of everything and a huge wave of healing embracing us all.

It reminded me of another documentary I have seen a while ago, in the serious of "the universe" from the History Channel. How amazingly huge the universe is, and how humbling small our planet is, and how ever more small and fragile we are.

I died as a mineral, and became a plant.

I died as plant and rose to animal.

I died as animal and I was Man.

Why should I fear?

When was I less

by dying?

~Rumi

So while I was working, copying and pasting Sanskrit verses into the Bhagavad Gita transcript, there popped at me the chapter (12) where Lord Krishna appears to Arjuna in his universal form, with all its glory and gory. It's so terrifying that Arjuna just wants his handsome two-armed friend and chariot back, instead of seeing all the details of him (in his universal form) devouring a whole army, arms and legs included plus the whole universe. And so Krishna reverts back but not without reminding him how fortunate he was to see that form of his. Now I am wondering how close amazement and fear really are.

And just to balance all that seriousness I had to go to the library to research some children books to continue with my illustrations, and ended up on the floor with the wisdom of Winnie-the-Pooh . . .

“Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.”

Illustration: "what do I know..."

2011-04-06T09:34:00.000-07:00

This turned out so delicate, I just love it! And it was so much fun playing in Photoshop, finding more great painting tools. My favorite tool for this was some chalk looking one that I used in the background and for the lines to enhance the original sketch . . .

and the finished illustration . . .
I think the old textile designer came thru with all those different textures and pattern :-) Fun!

This is the story of Swamiji being summoned in front of his parent's priest/guru Swami Ram because they where worried about him fainting every now and then . . . upon watching the child sitting in front of him going into trance Swami Ram went into samadhi too. When they came out Swami Ram smiled and gave the parents the advice to put butter on his forehead. When asked later why, Swamiji said, "what do I know I was only a small child."

sketches to illustration

2011-03-31T19:17:00.000-07:00

from the sketch . . . to the final illustration . . .

to coloring it by hand (because my laptop broke)

then getting back with it into photoshop and . . .

making some more changes, voila! Done!

another story...

2011-03-28T23:25:00.000-07:00

. . . from the spiritual children book I am making the illustrations for
Playing . . . puja
from the sketch . . .
to the illustration . . .

and the changes: landscape to portrait, text in the sky changes from urdu to sanskrit . . .

drawings...

2011-03-23T01:05:00.000-07:00

Lately have been working on some Illustrations for a spiritual children book that a friend has compiled. They are stories from the life of our spiritual teacher from Kashmir and his message to children...

I started with sketches...

then scanned them and took them into Photoshop, and added color and texture...

His parents priest and saint Swami Ram from Kashmir (who couldn't use his legs due to many years of meditation) dancing with joy at the birth of Swami Lakshmanjoo.

As a child his favorite game was making Lingams out of sand and clay and singing "puja"

At school he is getting into trouble singing hymns with the other pupils instead of learning.
Teacher punishes him and gets sick for the same amount of days as he gave him beatings.

And then my laptop broke :(
and I went back illustrating by hand
and drawing some more....

because of the pain this world caused me...

2011-03-18T09:58:00.000-07:00

Just when all the recent chaos and suffering and pain of the world seems to be unbearable and not making any sense, I came across this poem, when I randomly opened up my favorite book, "Love poems from God" by Daniel Ladinsky . . .

I HAD TO SEEK THE PHYSICIAN

I had to seek the Physician
because of the pain this world caused me.
I could not believe what happened when I got there-
I found my Teacher.
Before I left, he said,
"Up for a little homework, yet?"
"Okay. " I replied.
"Well then, try thanking all the people
who have caused you pain.
They helped you come to me. "

~ Kabir, from"Love poems from God" by Daniel Ladinsky.

bug in my ear, pin in my nose :-)

2011-02-24T00:03:00.000-08:00

Recent drawings...

...here swimming ends always in drowning

2011-02-15T08:44:00.000-08:00

This beautiful poem of Rumi I came across while watching a video of Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee "A Dangerous Love" which caught my eye because of the title.
"How can love be dangerous", I thought...

Subtle degrees

of domination and servitude

are what you know as love

but love is different

it arrives complete

just there

like the moon in the window

like the sun

of neither east nor west

nor of anyplace

when that sun arrives

east and west arrive

desire only that

of which you have no hope

seek only that

of which you have no clue

love is the sea of not-being

and there intellect drowns

this is not the Oxus River

or some little creek

this is the shoreless sea;

here swimming ends

always in drowning

a journey to the sea

is horses and fodder

and contrivance

but at land’s end

the footsteps vanish

you lift up your robe

so as not to wet the hem;

come! drown in this sea

a thousand times

the moon passes over the

ocean of non-being

droplets of spray tear loose

and fall back

on the cresting waves

a million galaxies

are a little scum

on that shoreless sea

-- Version by Daniel Liebert

(no ode number given)

“The Rumi Collection”

Threshold Books, 1998

"Offering" acrylic on wood box

2011-02-12T20:21:00.000-08:00

Detail views...

"Offering"
acrylic on wood box, (painted around the edges and ready to hang wired)
32.5 x 12.5 x 2.5 inch (82,5 x 32 x 6cm)
Original painting $650 (includes shipping and handling)

what the paintings are saying...

2011-01-30T14:41:00.000-08:00

"What you looking at is a combination of my efforts to say something and what the painting is saying independent of me. They are saying more than me now" ~Chris Ofili
http://bit.ly/i9OcD2

source: Tate Britain | Past Exhibitions

http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/chrisofili/default.shtm

unfurl yourself across the universe...

2011-01-17T08:45:00.000-08:00

"Don't forget love;
it will bring you all the madness you need

to unfurl yourself across the universe." ~Mirabai

Impressions from Würzburg Dom...

...and more photos from my travels Snow to "snow-white"

The sun shines again and again...

2011-01-01T01:58:00.000-08:00

Winterwonderland...

2010-12-18T12:38:00.000-08:00

Some impressions from my walk . . .

just a small selection from . . . Winterwonderland

No More Leaving...

2010-12-10T11:51:00.000-08:00

Some point

Your relationship

With God

Will

Become like this:

Next time you meet Him in the forest

Or on a crowded city street

There won't be anymore

"Leaving."

That is,

God will climb into

Your pocket.

You will simply just take

Yourself

Along!

Hafiz: 'The Gift'

Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

Home

2010-12-07T13:54:00.000-08:00

"So you are going home?" they asked me. Having lived overseas (or away from "home") and in many places and countries for more than 15 years now, it had me thinking what that means... HOME. What does that mean to you?

I find it difficult to say where I am at home now. I have gotten so used to the places I stay, and back in the land of my childhood much has changed. I am no longer living the same life style and neither do my old friends, and even families have changed. There is new wives and husbands, parents have turned into old people or died, old relatives are gone, kids have grown up. Teenage and student friends have turned into mothers and fathers, with teenagers that I can now have real conversations with :-) It is an interesting feeling of old and new mixing... new perspectives, new life styles, and yet the same feeling of closeness and bond.

A while ago I was reading an article which had me nod my head.... "The philosopher Heraclitus, born in Ephesus on the Aegean coast of Turkey, said in the fifth century BC, “You cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters are continually flowing on.” Expats understand this concept more than most."

But when I went for a walk this morning I suddenly felt a memory of old sense of home. I realized how I spend most of my time as a child roaming the fields and meadows near the dike (levee), cows and sheep and ducks and geese, a cool breeze and real clouds. And when I walked thru the woods I noticed on the ground, the leaves in that favorite red that I now love painting with :-)

Still home to me seems to be more of a situation than a place. I feel at home when I am painting and forgetting all about my surroundings and are absorbed in the process of the brush magically finding its way on the canvas. I feel at home when I can let my fingers play the guitar or dance just for myself. Perhaps a place that my yoga teacher describes when she reminds us, "Now, forget who you are and where you are and where you are going..." Or as Neale Donald Walsh desribes it in his book "Home, in a live that never ends... " without leaving this body or this world.
That's the place I would call HOME.

So... HOME. What does that mean to you?

Head up in a cloud...

2010-11-30T14:05:00.000-08:00

From Stroud, Minchinhampton, London, UK

Detail of a beautiful mosaic that I saw while visiting with a dear friend.
I used to make mosaics and still have a fondness for them.
We also went to see the wonderfully done exhibit in London at the
Tate Modern: Gauguin — Maker of Myth

Commissioned painting...

2010-10-31T20:15:00.000-07:00

"Ganesh"

acrylic and gold paint on canvas

24 x 24 inches (61 x 61cm)

(commissioned painting)

Prints and postcards available here!

finally... "Two sides"

2010-10-23T19:55:00.000-07:00

Still had to add some touches, and wait for the rain to give way to a ray of sunshine to take a photo of it, but here it is...

for more details click on photo...

"Two Sides"

H 32 x W 45 x 1.5 inch (ca. 81,3 x 114 x 3,8 cm)
acrylic on paper, mounted on styrofoam, unframed
(with paper mache statue inserted).
original painting $1,550 (includes worldwide shipping and handling)

sometimes a little music makes all the difference...

2010-10-22T22:09:00.000-07:00

Find more music like this on Overtone Music Network

my favorites at the moment are "Call of the Birds" by Dean Frenkel

and "LIfe stream" by Gerhard Sattler - piano/Felix Mönnich - voice - Life!

Surrender to the will of my Beloved

2010-10-18T22:36:00.000-07:00

One day I feel confused and down,
the next I can reach the sky
without you I am never calm.
In your absence people ridicule me,
but when you come
I don't mind what they think or say.
I refuse to feast or be merry without my Beloved.

However he appears, I will follow.
If he comes as a cup-bearer, I'll become one too
if he comes as an ascetic, I'll become a pious pilgrim.
If he pretends to be a madman, I'll become a perfect fool
if he tries to escape, I will become a mighty hunter.

Yet when I complain about my sleepless nights
he mocks me and says I do not pray enough,
when I ask him for a favor he sends me off.
What am I to do but surrender
to the will of my Beloved

(Rumi)

this side and that side...

2010-10-14T20:54:00.000-07:00

and just when I thought I was finished I saw there is something little that needs to be added...

looking in and looking out...

2010-10-10T21:33:00.000-07:00

"This side and that side" continued...

2010-10-10T09:12:00.000-07:00

Wow, has it already been five weeks since I last wrote in this blog? So much happened, not so much in the studio, so you didn't miss anything :-) Not as an excuse... but to say that life sometimes takes it's own turns and throws its own turns, and while we make plans God has his own plans ;)

So before I took up working again on my latest painting "this side and that side", I had some extra time to reflect and think... always there seems to be two sides: breathing in or breathing out, inside or outside, left hand or right hand, withdrawn or extroverted, one truth seems to rule out another, and it seems as if everything in this world is based on duality. Or as Rumi says,

"God turns you from one feeling to another and teaches by means of opposites, so that you will have two wings to fly, not one."

What if the reality wasn't as it seems to be? What if we refused to look at the world in duality and instead saw the whole picture, hands united, not trying to find the opposites but rather see the thread that holds it all together... so many ways to see, so many truths...

Some articles fell into my hand this week while I was reflecting on this.
One was in a magazine that I picked up as I was waiting at the dentist, written by Martha Beck...

"We're used to living in an either-or world—but when it comes to yes-or-no dilemmas, says Martha Beck, the most powerful thing you can ask is: What if both answers are true?"

She relates in mainly to relationships, but we could just as well expand it to our relationship with the world at large or our own minds in particular.

Another article caught my attention because it was titled "You are truly loved" :-)

"What seems to start happening is that while we used to be searching for this to be truth vs. that, we paradoxically discover that everything is a manifestation of truth and nothing is truth. No longer can we say any experience is invalid. All of it is valid. All meaning is valid and yet life is totally meaningless. Every experience is embraced by the one and none of it is rejected even though rejection happens. Who am I? Not this, not that, and yet both this and that. and beyond this and that entirely and yet imminently right here.
We start falling into a space where nothing is valid, nothing is invalid, everything is valid, and everything is invalid.

Every answer is right. No answer is right."

And then I was reading in the Bhagavad Gita...

"In the first chapter of Bhagavad Gita Abhinavagupta explains that there is a war going on between your senses. In the organs of senses there is a war always going on. In senses there is joy, and joy fights with sadness; sadness fights with joy. In the same way there is lust, lust fight with detachment, detachment fights with lust. It is all going on in one's own body–this war.

So this is the conclusion of the first chapter of Bhagavad Gita.

What a yogi has to do in this war, in this battlefield... Which battlefield? ...of senses. i.e. good fighting with bad, right fighting with wrong, pride fighting with humility, humility fighting with pride; all the opposites are fighting every now and then. This fight does not persist only in waking state, this fight persists in dreaming state also. Everywhere you find this fight. You have to observe this fight going on in your own brain, in your own mind.

What a yogi must do there, he says.

Should I do right or should I do wrong?

When this fight goes on with right and wrong you are in a fix what to do... should we do this or should we do that?

If there is a way, avenue is only: don't think right, don't think wrong, be relaxed in your own nature, just enjoy, enjoy this fight. You just witness it, you have to witness it only. Don't get entangled in right and wrong–this war. Just witness this war then you will get rid of this war, there will be neither right nor wrong.

This is the conclusion of the first chapter of Bhagavad Gita.

(source: Bhagavad Gita samgraha (summary) by Swami Lakshmanjoo)

or as Rumi also says,

"Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase 'each other' doesn't make any sense."

What I have been up to lately...

2010-08-31T10:12:00.000-07:00

Been working on the little "manneken" that is to go into the new painting
marked the space to see what it looks like...

I made the mistake to start with paper instead of a mold from something else. So it was all wet and slippery and I had to wait for it to dry each time I applied a layer of paper, of course he needed lots of layers... so it took a loooooong time...
(which gave me time to work on a commission; blog post coming!)
Here is the humble beginnings...

It was supposed to mirror the meditator in the corner
so I kept comparing the two, but then it took on a live of its own...
...and the face... well, we are still working on that :-)

Next was cutting out the hole...

and here he goes... just temporary for now.

Still lots more to do...

when eyes can hear and ears can see...

2010-08-04T16:24:00.000-07:00

You live in me
as a constant pulse
every fiber of
my being
dancing
to your
drum beat.

Your heavy breath
touches my ear,
and every pore
of my skin vibrates
with the sweetest
lullaby it ever
heard.

And yet
louder than
the storms outside
your tune keeps
haunting me
in the night
in the day.

When
will
my
eyes
see?

There are different wells within your heart...

2010-07-30T09:46:00.000-07:00

There are different wells
within your heart.
Some fill with each good rain,
Others are far
too deep for that.

In one well
You have just a few
precious cups of water,
That "love" is literally
something of yourself,
It can grow as slow as
a diamond
If it is lost.

Your love
Should never be
offered to the
mouth of a
Stranger,
Only to someone
Who has the valor
and daring
To cut pieces of their soul
off with a knife
Then weave them into a blanket
To protect you.

There are different wells
within your heart.
Some fill with each good rain,
Others are far
too deep for that.

~Hafiz

this side and that side...

2010-07-27T11:49:00.000-07:00

It's been a while... and the current painting is sure taking it's time... growing and evolving...
Originally they were two...

and who knows why I had the grandiose idea that they should be together but I could see those figures emerging and went ahead, little did I know where that would take me...

because it occurred to me that there is the negative cut out that needed to be incorporated side by side, and then the choice of how they would best fit together... this side and that side...

and there it is glued together, so far so good...
painting in the only place that it fits, the floor. I added some details with the aid of the laptop to see how it looks like...

but realized quickly that I need to mount it on something... and since I had been working on Styrofoam before it seemed a good choice, little did I know how different the different papers would react to the gluing and it became a big challenge to get them to adhere properly.

But now I am happy painting again and it will take a while to finish, here are some details so far... lots more to do... the hand degressed — we'll work on that...

this will take some time but I wanted to give a little sneak peak so far...

talking with God...

2010-07-04T13:23:00.000-07:00

Nasrudin stories inspire me with their wonderful simplicity and yet profound wisdom, which often makes fun of our egos. Nesrudin is often portrait as a fool, and saints often times appeared to be fools when their wisdom would have been offensive and against the common knowledge. The fools of the village had a certain freedom that could not be taken too serious and in this way they could express the truth of our wickedness without repercussions, while others where killed for their outspokenness and candor.

This website has a wonderfully rendered collection of Nasrudin stories and it is hard to make a choice, so I opted for the one that addresses our ever nagging desire to hear from God . . . and our listening skills ;-)

When it comes to miracles, better open your eyes and your ears, and give all your attention to every word you hear. It’s worth it. This reminds me of a story:

“Nasrudin talks to God!” The rumour spread like fire through dry hay. In less than one week the news was whispered into the Emir’s all-knowing ear. As a result Hodja was summoned to the morning divan.

“How could you hide such an important thing from me, worm!” growled Timur when he found a spare moment among the many affairs he had to bid and to forbid that day.

“What thing, Master?” replied Nasrudin, while trying to remember which one of his countless misdeeds could have come to the emperor’s knowledge.

“Don’t try to play with me! Is it or is it not true that you speak with God?”

“Ah, with God the All Powerful! Blessed be his name! Yes, I do. I speak with him every day.”

“And He? What does he say?”

“Nothing. Unfortunately, He doesn’t speak with me.”

(Source: http://nasredin.blogspot.com/2008/01/conversations-with-god.html)

"I died as a mineral and became a plant..." Square and Round

2010-06-25T15:14:00.000-07:00

I died as a mineral and became a plant,
I died as plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I was Man.
Why should I fear?
When was I less by dying?
(Rumi)

Details...

"Square and Round"

acrylic on canvas, framed and ready to hang

(4 canvases assembled with a hole in the middle!)

H 28 x W 28 inch (71 x 71cm)
Original painting $865.36 (includes worldwide shipping and handling)

Tis the time for new prices... and a great opportunity

2010-06-22T09:32:00.000-07:00

Been working on a new price-list for my paintings that is more consistent, based on square inch, as suggested by a lot of artists friends and galleries. This is always such a delicate question for every artist, putting a price-tag on what we love most. Though there is plenty of advice and yet plenty of doubts even for the most advanced painter as well as for the emerging ones. Here is one of the articles I found useful on how to calculate the price (also the comments are very interesting to read!). I had been doing something like that, calculating my prices based on the size, but this is much more accurate.

First I looked at the prices of paintings that I already sold, compared them with the sizes that are most common for me, which should be my medium price and compared with other paintings of other painters, compared with the last gallery show (which just finished), compared and compared, calculated and calculated more, more spreadsheets and numbers . . . finally worked my way thru all my paintings and . . . voila!

Coming up next will be to put the prices on each painting with a link to paypal, which I have been using for a while and which I fund the most safe and convenient for both sides. I decided not to go for more calculating of shipping and handling and made it easy for us all by adding an average that varies according to the size, regardless of posting worldwide or within the US.

I will be slowly, working my way thru all the paintings, starting next month with the most recent ones, every day a few . . . it seems impossible to do them all at once.

So this is the perfect time and opportunity if you were thinking of buying one of my original paintings. You can see all of my paintings if you click on the tab 'paintings' or 'for sale' (which contains only those paintings that I have already added a price to. You can also find 'paintings' and 'for sale' in the right column of this blog under 'labels'. Send me an email with the name or the link, or simply click on the 'buy now' button if it is already provided. Don't forget to add your address! Comments are welcome too, as always . . . :-)

looking away, or the beauty is in the eye of the beholder

2010-06-19T10:03:00.000-07:00

... or as Henry David Thoreau says, "The question is not what you look at, but what you see".

waking...

2010-06-16T11:34:00.000-07:00

Those of you who have been following my blog might have noticed that I haven't been posting much lately... been rather quite lately, and not up to much words... even (dare I say!) not much up to painting, but instead more drawn to meditation and reflection and reading...

So it may not be a coincident that this book feel into my hands: "Waking, a memoir of trauma and transcendence" by Matthew Sanford. And even though I have no idea how it feels like to live in a paralyzed body, the way he describes the feeling of silence as three quarters of his body became inaccessible to him, struck me as familiar. Are we really connected with our bodies and feelings, with our surroundings, with every fiber our being rooted in this existence we have entered on earth?

Dying and letting go are part of every fiber of our bodies and cells, every minute, second, feelings and thoughts come and go. The grief he encountered when he realized the loss of part of his body, and the years that he ignored the pain, seemed similar to the way we treat our own impending death and loss and pain that we encounter in this life on earth. Add to that the impending dissolution of the world around us, terror, suffering, sorrow, war, environmental disasters...

What is it that makes us still struggle on, that makes us live despite the pain and the sorrow of this existence on earth? The joys, the successes? Or the feeling of a greater good, connectedness, or sense of something more than all those parts added up? Some sort of "healing stories" as he calls it in his book?

"Hope is the dream of a waking man." ~Aristotele

"There is a difference between seeking and looking for answers. I am not looking for answers. Rather I seek to appriciate and believe in my experience." Matthew Stanford.

"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience;

we are spiritual beings having a human experience." ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Wherever your mind becomes peaceful...

2010-06-09T10:21:00.000-07:00

Found this very interesting especially in the light of recent upheavals in the world and around us. There is always a peaceful spot to be found... off to painting and gardening... :-)

"Wherever your mind becomes peaceful, wherever your mind is situated peacefully, put your mind there. If your mind is situated peacefully in working in the garden, put your mind there; don’t go in the prayer room for prayer. Going in the prayer-room at that moment is a sin for you, and working in the garden is the right way for you. Wherever your mind is fixed, attracted, put your mind there.
There you must fix your mind; don’t go anywhere else. Don’t think that this is an impure act. That is a pure act for you; the pure act is an impure act for you. There and then, at that very place, the supreme Ananda (bliss) state will take place. Wherever your mind is appeased, in peace, there and then the supreme kingdom of bliss will appear to you."
Swami Lakshmanjoo, VB vs. 74, Dharana 49)

the rebels and the changes... a short story without ending

2010-06-02T11:05:00.000-07:00

Been working on this "puzzle" of a painting for a while now... it is going in a circle and has a square whole, what more can I say... keep changing the left panels but I think now I know how they want to stay... or maybe... (below are some versions)

acrylic and collage on canvas

(4 pieces) together 28" x 28"

in the meantime I have been starting three more paintings and it looks as if one of them will be finished before this one...

This is how it goes with paintings, they take on a life of their own and one never knows where they are going, and sometimes they stall and rebel and don't want to go anywhere and that is also fine... off to another and another...

Butterflies, a metamorphosis...

2010-05-25T10:20:00.000-07:00

"What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly."
(Richard Bach)

"Everything you see has its roots in the unseen world. The forms may change, yet the essence remains the same. Every wonderful sight will vanish; every sweet word will fade, But do not be disheartened, The source they come from is eternal, growing, Branching out, giving new life and new joy. Why do you weep? The source is within you And this whole world is springing up from it."
(Jelauddin Rumi)

(details)

"Butterflies, a metamorphosis"
acrylic on canvas

24 x 24 inch (61 x 61cm)

Original painting $650 (shipping and handling included)

See my paintings in Long Beach...

2010-05-21T21:56:00.000-07:00

Join me this Saturday, May 22nd, 7:00pm for the opening reception of LarkGalleryOnline Show "Go Green", which is part of the Second Annual Ecological Long Beach Festival. "Go Green" reflects this year's Green Long Beach Festival theme - "Turning The Tide" towards a more sustainable and eco-friendly world. The participants of the exhibition present artwork that embodies the beauty and fragility of nature, the thoughtless human exploitation of nature and other interpretations of the theme of the festival. Some of LGO artists also use in their artworks found objects or waste materials, sending an environmental message and serving as an example of how new life can be breathed into discarded objects, rekindling a positive future by acting pro-active in the present.

Featured Artists of "Go Green" are Ariyana, Bryan Toro, Cassandra Tondro, Claudia Dose, Elisse Pogofsky-Harris, Gwenlyn Norton, Felice Willat, Helen Berger, Ione Citrin, Juan Rosenfeldt, Lark Pilinsky, Lisa Tomczeszyn, Marlene Struss, Young Summer.

Enjoy musical entertainment featuring Songs from Africa to Brazil performed by Pashyo (voc) & Sel Sarkin (piano) and Rome Yamashita (guitar, voc) from SangomaBeat at 8.30 pm.

What: "Go Green" Art Opening Reception
When: Saturday, May 22nd, 7:00 - 10:00 pm
Where: 345 E. 3rd Street, Long Beach, CA 90802

The artwork will be on show for at least 2 weeks...

"In your Hands"
acrylic on canvas,
18 x 18 inch (46 x 46 cm)

"Freedom and Fear"
acrylic, mixed media on canvas,
20 x 20 inch (51 x 51 cm)

metamorphosis and other happenings...

2010-05-15T10:25:00.000-07:00

Seems like ages since I have been painting. We were hosting our annual study retreat and Birthday Celebrations and there was a lot of preparations and organizing, cleanups and catering to do. It was more an intensive study course with lots of practice: chanting, walks, good music, good food and for the final day we went to a concert...to meditate.

Now I am ready to retreat... into my cave/studio. Lots seems to haven happened since then and I am continuing on my letting go theme of transformation.
Here is some of the works in process...

This unfinished paintings has been sitting for a while until I got inspired by a video and the spring air to paint the butterflies and hand emerging... still lots to do... (click to see larger)

And this square painting is going in a circle... :-)
also a sort of metamorphosis happening here it seems... not sure where this is going... still a long way to go...

thoughts and words....

2010-05-01T09:46:00.000-07:00

Since my camera is not working and I couldn't post pictures , I was thinking maybe a good opportunity to write more about my paintings, which I am both reluctant and having difficulty with. Always hard to write about something while it is still developing but also a good idea to clear the idea perhaps...

Though while I was de-cluttering the bookshelves (and basically re-claiming most of them) I came across one by Nick Bantock, I remember how inspiring it was to open it for the first time and it still is so full of inspirations, In the end of the book he writes something that I don't remember reading before.

He recons that our imagination starts with pictures rather than in words. That even historically pictures came before the words. Cavemen first drew on the walls, before signs got invented to represent what we were trying to convey, then those become more sophisticated until now we have words and sentences and books.
Now we are living so much in the world of words that we have lost that connection with our inner pictures, dreams. And how nice to just dive in and let our fantasy wander and explore those lost and forgotten fragments and images in our heads or who knows where they are coming from...

Still resolved to collect a couple of words at the end of my painting nights, not sure if I will post them here, at the moment thoughts and words don't seem very cohesive :-)

This is going to be a long winded story....

2010-04-21T12:40:00.001-07:00

At the "Slow Art" event we spend a long time looking at just one painting, instead of rushing past hundreds of paintings without seeing or worse being overwhelmed. As the host was a yoga teacher, she encouraged us to compare our initial reaction with the feeling after seeing it for a while, which is done in yoga classes to raise inner body awareness.

I found it very difficult to focus on my feelings, my mind kept drifting to the way the painting was made, the loose brushstrokes and the construction of lines and forms. I felt drawn towards the figurative works and reluctant to linger in front of some abstracts. Yet it was relaxing not having to rush to see hundred paintings and instead focus on a few and really take them in and 'see'. And also interesting to notice my feelings.

When comparing our notes we noticed that everybody reflected differently on the painting, some found it sad, the other uplifting... perhaps reflecting our own feelings. Even when the story of the painting/painter was revealed we empathized with understanding based on our own experience. Perhaps we can only 'see' or 'hear' what we can understand based on our own experience, our own feelings.

Because we could spend so much time with each painting and really take it in, the feeling that lingered on after the painting had been seen for a longer time gave way to something similar to the feeling after a good yoga class or a good meal. Also noticed the same after a good concert the other day. We feel we have stretched and really felt our bodies, satisfied our appetites, really focused on a great piece of music, we have really 'seen' the painting. The initial reaction and feelings seem to give way to being at peace (if not relieved to move away from an ugly or boring painting or an annoying peace of music! :-)).

more info...
Founder, Phil Terry, Slow Art Day: http://SlowArtDay.com
Article with some background info: http://www.artsjournal.com/realcleararts/2010/05/slow-art-day.html
Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/SlowArt?v=app_7146470109
Events: http://showsupport.typepad.com/odyssey/art-watch/
NY Times, "At Louvre, Many Stop to Snap but Few Stay to Focus": http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/03/arts/design/03abroad.html?_r=1
and another blog post of mine, "Seeing a painting": http://claudiadose.blogspot.com/2009/03/seeing-painting.html

the fabric of life... (death)

2010-04-19T21:26:00.001-07:00

new painting, with details...
Is it the fading tulips on the table (love it) or the general mood of retreating and de-cluttering, of letting go and getting back to the basics, who knows. It is a re-acurring theme in my life, that of death. As my favorite quote: "death is always on your heels" (Swami Lakshmanjoo) reminds me just to keep that in mind to cherish our lives more and make the best out of it.
Or as Rumi puts it...

Go die, oh Sire, before thy death,

So that thou wilt not suffer the pain of dying.

Die the kind of death which is entrance into light,

Not the death which signifies entrance into the grave.

click on photos for more details...

"The Fabric of life (death)"
acrylic on canvas,
24 x 20 inch
Original painting $550 (Shipping and handling included worldwide)

Bleeding... small works for sale

2010-04-13T08:06:00.000-07:00

I really like the way the leaf blends with the thorn and the cross, perhaps a reminder to the kind of suffering that we have to bear sometimes for understanding our true destiny...

There Could Be Holy Fallout

2010-04-10T17:47:00.001-07:00

I love this! Of course by Hafiz, so funny and yet so true...

We are often in battle.
So often defending every side of the fort,
It may seem, all alone.
Sit down, my dear,
Take a few deep breaths,
Think about a loyal friend.
Where is your music,
Your pet, a brush ?

Surely one who has lasted as long as you
Knows some avenue or place inside
That can give a sweet respite.

If you cannot slay your panic,
Then say within
As convincingly as you can,
“It is all God’s will !”

Now pick up your life again.
Let whatever is out there
Come charging in,

Laugh and spit into the air,
There could be holy fallout.

Throw those ladders like tiny match sticks
With “just” phantoms upon them
Who might be trying to scale your heart.
Your love has an eloquent tone.
The sky and I want to hear it !
If you still feel helpless
Give our battle cry again,

Hafiz
Has shouted it a myriad times,

“It is all,
It is all the Beloved’s will !”

What is that luminous rain I see
All around you in the future

Sweeping in from the east plain ?

It looks like, O it looks like
Holy fallout

Filling your mouth and palms
With Joy!

Hafiz

Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

in the eye of the snake... small painting

2010-04-09T21:17:00.000-07:00

"In the eye of the snake"

acrylic on masonite panel
H 4 x W 4 inch (10 x 10 cm)
Original painting $36.64(shipping and handling included)

In the studio... small and big works in progress

2010-04-08T11:39:00.000-07:00

Sweating the small stuff... and getting paintings done one night at a time :-)

"Genius is one percent inspiration,

ninety-nine percent perspiration.'

(Thomas Edison)

This is a small painting that evolved from a circle and ended in a snake ;)

Acrylic painted on masonite board

4 x 4 inch (10 x 10cm)

There is a few more small ones coming up, like the one below (6 x 6.5"), which is still in work...

you can see the pigments I started using again, a bit tricky but there is some really nice colors that I found, this one is not exactly a very good example but I liked the subtle natural green.

Also working on another bigger painting (20 x 24") at the same time, and keep laying aside and turning around until the inspiration strikes again...

This one... not sure what to call it, but those paintings seem magically attracted to each other... and I am still deciding to keep them that way or separate them in the end... it has a couple of collage pieces like leaves that I keep using and remnants of older paintings that strike me as interesting and befitting... I am exited to see where this is going...

Now... back in the studio...

:-)

Website update...

2010-04-06T13:38:00.000-07:00

Been working on my website and added 5 recent paintings to it. The link on the pictures below should send you to the page, where you can see close up views and details be clicking on the photo, a lightbox should pop up (Sorry, doesn't work in Internet Explorer!).

At the same time have added links to the blog with prices and paypal buttons. The posts are tagged with "for sale" so you should be able to see 5 of them now being available either by clicking on the tag under each post or on the right side under tags. I have included the shipping and handling so there is no need for calculations, the price is the final price. I am sending it express mail internationally because that includes tracking and insurance of the artwork. It will arrive in around 3-5 days, depending on the destination.

Let me know if you have any more questions. I am preparing a purchase page and want to add relevant information to that. Prints of my work are also already available thru RedBubble.

I will slowly add more buttons to the other paintings as well, until then then just email me if you are interested in purchasing a painting or print. I am also still available for portrait commissions and other commissions. At the moment I am working on one without a dateline :-).

Please visit www.claudiadose.com, I'd be honored if you take a look, and I would love to hear your feedback.

losing it...

2010-04-03T11:29:00.000-07:00

Got a huge shock last night. While working on my website I had been consolidating backups from old to new computer, de-cluttering, and at the end of the day missing a folder of very important files for work . . . went to bed with thoughts of the worse . . . what would be the worse that could happen . . . and worse . . . what if I lost the whole computer . . . what if I didn't have a table or a chair or a room or roof over my head . . . what if I didn't have a body working properly . . . what if I didn't have a body . . . what would be left . . . nothing! — Just a sweet silent nothingness. — Not even nothing to be thinking "what ifs"!

When I woke up in the morning my body was there intact . . . the bed, the chair the table and the computer where all still there . . . even the thoughts . . . when I opened the computer the files where still . . . nowhere to be seen, but when I searched for them they suddenly where there.

Grateful for "what is" as well as for "what ifs" because both made me grateful today.
And one last bizarre thought: "what if" this was God's way of showing me how to de-clutter my head and not just my life . . . really letting go!

letting go...

2010-03-31T11:35:00.000-07:00

letting it fly like a kite in the sky...

"Letting go"
acrylic on canvas, 16 x 12 inches (40.5 x 30.5 cm)

Original painting $250 (shipping and handling included)

Too much stuff... or abundance for the sake of creativity?

2010-03-23T20:16:00.000-07:00

Seems to come with the spring, this urge to clean up for a new beginning.
Time to pull up the weeds in the garden and plant salad. Getting rid of unnecessary stuff in the studio making room for some fresh ideas.

Not sure if I will go so far as the minimalists, but I like the idea of "less is more". Since I've always lived in small spaces it comes natural. In fact, living for years out of an open suitcase has made me feel comfortable with the idea of being able to see in one look what's there. Too bad though that stuff just seems to settle like dust as soon as one stands still long enough. And then there is the "stuff" for inspiration...

So how much stuff do we need for the sake of creative abundance and with how little can we still be creatively abundant?

Or does having less create more abundance... at least creatively?

When I was an apprentice (embroidery) the motto was curiously enough: "less is more" and it stuck in my head since. As a textile designer I worked best with restricting techniques. While my paintings nowadays seem to start with abundance and everything-is-possible, until an image emerges that narrows it down to a particular form out of the many possible (aka chaos?).

Sarah Zoutewelle writes about de-cluttering her studio in her blog: "It takes time, a sort of inner focus and energy, but it needs to be done if you are really serious about preserving Space rather than Things." Michael Nobbs has some very practical advice as he is going about living (and creating) with less on his blog.

For those who want to go even further Zen Habits has a great collection of ideas to simplify your whole life. And perhaps has an answer in his article the creativity of constraints

Would like to hear your experience with less or more, (more or less :-))

Out of darkness, light is born...

2010-03-16T13:28:00.000-07:00

"The deepest experience of the creator is feminine,

for it is experience of receiving and bearing."

(Rainer Maria Rilke )

for detail click on the photos...

and to view some of the stages of the painting...

"Out of Light Darkness is born"

acrylic on masonite panel
21.75 x 14.75 inches (55 x 37.5 cm)

Original painting $383 (shipping and handling included)

Getting out and about...

2010-03-13T15:36:00.000-08:00

Went on an outing with the Culver City Artist Group to Bergamot station. Lots of Galleries and lots of other stuff to see. I should go out more often, it was very inspiring, even the trip on the bus. Felt like a kid exploring the world.

On the right is a car that was filled very sophisticated with a succulent garden, even had sprinklers installed!

Had an interesting talk with the owner of Latin American Masters gallery about the exhibit of Julio Valdez (New Water Paintings). There was a wonderful Catalogue of his other work and I totally admired the way he painted...

Julio Valdez – New Water Paintings
February 13 – March 27, 2010

When there is unconditional surrender...

2010-03-09T15:22:00.000-08:00

This came to me after painting my latest painting (below) while contemplating the meaning of surrender, and I thought it was quite befitting.... It is from the Bhagavad Gita my favorite text of all times...

Those who say, “I have understood the reality of Parabhairava,” they have not understood. Those who say, “I have not understood the reality of Parabhairava,” they have actually understood.

For instance if you just plunge, jump in water, and take hold of those bushes on the shore, and those bushes also are uprooted and you fall down. There is no way out. When you have lost all confidence then you are . . . some, another incarnation comes and takes you up. That is shaktipata [grace], when you have lost all the hope.

Drupati when she was, she was disrobed, she was calling Lord Krishna, “come and help me”. But at the same time she was holding this Sari with her mouth. But he didn’t come. He said no, she has got faith that I will hide myself. Then when she lost all courage, she left it, she left it open, and then Lord Krishna appeared and gave tremendous amount of dhotis and she would never be undressed. And it was a miracle. There, that was the real time of shaktipata [grace].

Qestion: So there must be unconditional surrender.

Unconditional surrender, bas! When there is unconditional surrender, bas! You are one with Lord. There is not this much difference between you and Parabhairava. Parabhairava is you and you are Parabhairava. Or, in brief words, there is only one Parabhairava.

~Swami Lakshmanjoo, (Bhagavad Gita Chapter 2 Verse 30, commenting on a sloka of the Kena Upanishad 2.3b)

Finished painting and other acts of faith :-) . . .

2010-03-05T18:18:00.000-08:00

It never ceases to amazes me when a painting is finally finished... and yet I never seem absolutely sure, or as Paul Gardner put it, "A painting is never finished -- it just stops in interesting places." And when even Leonardo da Vinci is quoted, “Art is never finished, only abandoned.” What to say about this poor girl when even Leonardo, who executed the most perfect paintings and drawings, feels he can't seem to finish anything, Is it the feeling of imperfection or not quite getting it right that makes us start another and another and another and yet they all seem just like stepping stones to something else entirely, and once we stepped on them they are there for eternity (or at least for a while!) to enjoy by others while we have already moved on. Maybe it isn't about finishing. And it is more like an act of faith that makes us throw our creativity out onto the canvas and letting it go?

Reminds me of what Erich Fromm says about love:
“Love means to commit oneself without guarantee, to give oneself completely in the hope that our love will produce love in the loved person. Love is an act of faith, and whoever is of little faith is also of little love.”

click image for more detailed views...

"Surrender and alertness"
acrylic on canvas (Diptych) 31.5 x 31,25 inches (79.5 x 60 cm)
Original painting $1,070 (shipping andhandling included)

in the eye of the beholder . . . painting in process

2010-02-24T17:17:00.000-08:00

This sure needs some more work . . .

Our soul is so vast . . .

2010-02-19T10:14:00.000-08:00

HIS LIPS UPON THE VEIL

He has never left you.

It is just

that your soul is so vast

that just like the earth

in its innocence,

it may think,

"I do not feel my lover's warmth

against my face right now."

But look, dear,

is not the sun reaching down its arms

and always holding a continent

in its light?

God cannot leave us,

It is just that our soul is so vast,

we do not always feel his lips

upon the

veil.

~St. Catherine of Sienna (1347-1380)

How the deer quietly sneaked into the painting . . .

2010-02-16T19:41:00.000-08:00

. . . honestly escaped me, but it started all

very randomly, a couple of scribbles of sanskrit

that got lost in the different textures of brush stokes . . .

almost like a thick forest, when I saw

a head appear thru the light

and still fascinated with "hrim" from

the previous painting . . .

saw rivers flowing and another

head apearing and out of the circles

eyes looked into the dark and a hand

was reaching out . . .

and as the head in the middle started to have more

of a profile, the head on the right chanted "hrim"

and manifested itself into a lady ghost . . .

(was reading "possessed by ghosts" at the time!)

and there it was . . . the deer! Visiting my father

I used to see them coming into the garden early

in the mornings . . . with eyes one never forgets,

so cute!

still working on the ghostly lady that seems to have

her hair interwoven with the hand reaching out.

Want to add some more leaves, that I see laying around her

so she is laying softly, he, he, he!

Still working on the eyes and not sure at which point it will stop

so not to loose the suggestiveness and invite the imagination of the viewer.

Was reading in a blog that Dali, inspired by Jung, went to far as to develop a technique to harness the stage between sleeping and waking for his paintings. In yoga this gap is used to access samadhi. His paintings are magnificent samples of his phantasy and dreams but wondering if he ever reached the other stage as well.

In the blog it says:

In Provenance is Everything, Bernard Ewell, considered the foremost authority on the art of Salvador Dali, discusses the artist’s connection with Freud:
“A well-read student of Sigmund Freud, Salvador Dali – who never used drugs and only drank alcohol (especially champagne) in moderation – turned to a most unusual way to access his subconscious. He knew that the hypnologic state between wakefulness and sleep was possibly the most creative for a brain.
Like Freud and his fellow surrealists, he considered dreams and imagination as central rather than marginal to human thought. Dali searched for a way to stay in that creative state as long as possible just as any one of us on a lazy Saturday morning might enjoy staying in bed in a semi-awake state while we use our imagination to its fullest. He devised a most interesting technique.
Sitting in the warm sun after a full lunch and feeling somewhat somnolent, Dali would place a metal mixing bowl in his lap and hold a large spoon loosely in his hands which he folded over his chest. As he fell asleep and relaxed, the spoon would fall from his grasp into the bowl and wake him up. He would reset the arrangement continuously and thus float along-not quite asleep and not quite awake-while his imagination would churn out the images that we find so fascinating, evocative, and inexplicable when they appear in his work…”
(Park West Gallery has Ewell’s full essay posted here)

One more thing to do . . . do I really need a fanpage?

2010-02-12T21:50:00.000-08:00

After much prodding and resisting I finally sucumbed to making a fanpage. What convinced me in the end was reading Lisa Call's blog "MakeBigArt.com". In her article "Do I need a facebook fanpage?" she writes that it is technically illigal to have my art on an ordinary facebook profile.

And finally, here’s a little tidbit in the fine print of the facebook terms of service that might help you decide if you want to create a fan page.
All personal site features, such as friending and messaging, are also for personal use only and may not be used for professional promotion. If you add a user as a friend, for example, this person will be invited to be a friend of your profile and not your Page. Using personal site features for professional promotion, or creating unauthorized Pages, may result in your account being warned or disabled.
Technically, if you sell art from your regular user profile, or even promote it, you could be in violation of these facebook rules, which they seem to take rather serious.

It was, as some suggested, very easy to set up, with easy to follow practical tips from Lisa's blog, though consider that facebook has changed some of the setups. And after much searching even found nice applications that work to forward posts from twitter, flickr, my blog and bitly, which saves a lot of time, my favorite one is RSS Graffiti.

So here it is . . . the legal and official place for my paintings on facebook . . . a fanpage!

I invite you to become a "fan" or/and a "friend" :-)

Claudia Dose Facebook Profile
Claudia Dose Fanpage

Or create your own "fanpage" and let me know what your experience is.

Knowledge (mudra)

2010-02-05T20:29:00.000-08:00

details...

"Knowledge (mudra)"
Acrylic on canvas, 20 x 16 inches (51 x 41 cm)
Original painting $383 (shipping and handling included)

the infinite ran to the edge of space . . .

2010-02-02T10:30:00.000-08:00

NO ONE WILL BEGRUDGE ME

I talk about it sometimes with Him, all the suffering in the world.

"Dear God," I have prayed, "how is it possible
all the horrors I have seen, all the atrocities you allow man
to commit when you--God--are ever standing
so near and could help us?
Could we not hear your voice say 'No'
with such love and power
never again would
we harm?"

And my Lord replied, "Who would understand if I said that I
cannot bear
to confine a wing, and not let it learn from the course it chooses."

But what of a man walking lost in a forest
weeping and calling your name for help, and unknown to him he
is heading for a covered pit with sharp spears in it
that will maim his flesh when he crashes
through the trap?

"Yes, why don't I remove every object from this world that could
cause someone to weep? Yes, why don't I speak in a way
that could save a life?

I opened up my mouth and the Infinite ran to the edges of space--
and all possibilities are contained therein, all possibilities,
even sorrow.

In the end, nothing that ever caused one pain will exist,
No one will begrudge Me.

The Absolute Innocence of all within my Creation
takes a while to understand."

~St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380)

from "Love poems from God" by Daniel Ladinsky

painting in process . . .

2010-01-30T15:45:00.001-08:00

this time it looks as if a mudra is emerging from the abstract beginnings . . . and so it goes . . . not finished yet.

He is filled with tears, everywhere . . . Love

2010-01-26T22:24:00.000-08:00

Here is the promised snippet, that I talked about in my last post, about what love is by Swami Lakshmanjoo . . . there are those saints that are moved to tears by everything they see, smell, hear or touch . . .

"This supreme state is absolutely different from all these, you may call it manifested you may call it un-manifested, it is very ancient; all world is destroyed, he is not destroyed.
And this is the real state of His being, that is the real residence of mine.

And that state is not impossible for anybody to achieve. Everybody can achieve Him, but with what, with what element, with what weapon?
Bhakti, devotion!
If he undergoes intense devotion towards God he will reach in my nature.

Q: So devotion is more important than knowledge or anything?

Devotion, yes. Knowledge is nothing before devotion. And this is the basis of all beings . . . what?
The state of God.
And that state of God can be achieved by anybody, any disgusted being by bhakti, by devotion, by love.
You know love . . . what is love?

Q: What is your definition of love? What is love from your point of view?

Love is just one-pointed, love is always love. Love cannot remain without love. You cannot remain without love, love is . . . in waking state there is love, is sleeping state there is love, in walking state there is love. He can weep, at any moment he can weep, tears are always in his eyes, tears are always . . . when he is laughing in dream, tears are always in him. He is filled with tears, everywhere. When he is urinating he is filled with tears. You can’t imagine what is love.
O, love is just blind!
And he does not know what is love. He himself does not know what is love. Love is the greatest element, which is created in the body of Parabhairava. . .

Love is the answer and the key."
(Swami Lakshmanjoo while explaining the Bhagavad Gita chapter 8)

Love it when art inspires art . . .

2010-01-23T09:57:00.000-08:00

By Liz Bennefield

Looking at Claudia's painting, I recall a poem that I wrote a very long time ago.

"Memories"

I do not live alone.
One by one come memories,
purged by time,
existing once again
in the perfection
of what might have been.

Visit her two blogs ("the moments between" and "quite spaces") for more poems and wonderful photos. I especially like her latest icicles.

"Jewel of Remembrance"

2010-01-22T09:42:00.000-08:00

. . . finally finished.
Now I really like it... after retrieving an oil pastel mark that was buried beneath the painting which showed up as a kind of tear flowing down (or rather flooding).

It reminds me of a passage I found in the Bhagavad Gita where Swamiji Lakshmanjoo was explaining what love is which I had mentioned in another post ("He is filled with tears everywhere").

I am intrigued by the marks on the left bottom, looks a bit like Sanskrit or Arabic. Had been playing around with calligraphy and pen and ink in my sketchbook and was looking at some Arabian calligraphy that I saw in those persian miniature paintings.

"Jewel of Remembrance"
Acrylic on canvas, 20 x 16 inches (51 x 41 cm)
Original painting $383 (shipping and handling included)

Could you embrace that?

2010-01-19T09:59:00.000-08:00

After watching Avatar, I had a discussion on facebook about my disappointment with its solution to the problems of survival of this planet being again war, as it has been unsuccessfully practiced in history for eons now. Though I really liked the way they showed the connectedness of everything and wished they could have plugged everyone into that just for a change. It irked me about the movie being so futuristic but then there wasn't going to be a new creative/spiritual answer to the world problems that seem to intensify lately, be they man made or created by nature, like global warming and starvation, especially in the wake of the latest one in Haiiti.

On one hand it could be seen as a lesson in compassion and empathy for the suffering of others, and my friend Laurion has written a very wonderful blog post about that (in German!), ideally leading to an understanding of ourselves not as isolated beings but all connected. If we knew, our actions would be different. Or it could be a great test in tolerance and faith in the Universe or God or whatever name you want to call it, to get us thinking and questioning our ideas of this world: constantly being constructed and destructed, filled with opposites of good and bad, light and dark. And as I was reading in my favorite book of poetry this one by St. Thomas Aquinas jumped at me with a very interesting twist . . .

I said to God, “Let me love you.”
And He replied, “Which part?”
“All of you, all of you,” I said.
“Dear,” God spoke, “you are as a mouse wanting to impregnate a tiger who is not even in heat. It is a feat way beyond your courage and strength. You would run from me if I removed my mask.”
I said to God again, “Beloved I need to love you – every aspect, every pore.”
And this time God said, “There is a hideous blemish on my body, though it is such an infinitesimal part of my Being – could you kiss that if it were revealed?”
“I will try, Lord, I will try.”
And then God said, “That blemish is all the hatred and cruelty in this world.”

(St. Thomas Aquinas, from the book, "Love poems from God", by Daniel Ladinsky)

the long and winding path of painting... continued

2010-01-14T16:47:00.000-08:00

This is what I like about painting without pre-conceived ideas, and without judging and reasoning (at least not while painting), and this is how they seem to teach me. Usually though this happens long after I have painted them and this one might have been an exception because it took longer to complete and I took time out to take a break and then came back to it. Finding it so inspiring to paint this way. . . and hoping it inspires other who see the painting to find their own truth in the painting.

"Truth is more in the process than in the result." J. Krishnamurti

And what do you see?

the long and winding path of a painting

2010-01-11T16:39:00.000-08:00

Haven't finished this one, but since it has been taken so long I have had more time to wonder about this latest painting that has been evolving in my studio... You can click the "in process" tag on the side or beneath and it should just show those posts relating to the process.

There was some line elements ready to be filling the left corner (inspired perhaps by some sketches I had done, and my recent fascination with persian script), and with it came the eye (don't ask me why!)

inspired by nature...

2010-01-07T21:57:00.000-08:00

click to see bigger...

photos copyright Claudia Dose

Painting in process

2010-01-06T16:37:00.000-08:00

Back at the canvas...

2010-01-04T16:29:00.000-08:00

Back at the canvas after its been sitting there for a while, looking at it with 'fresh eyes'. There is some more in the pipeline just not flowing onto the canvas yet . . . never mind, for now plenty busy painting the rose, emptying out my head meanwhile.

lazy days....

2010-01-03T20:19:00.000-08:00

Been luxuriating in laziness over the holidays, ahhhh!
Haven't been that lazy for a long time, it felt needed and long due.
No blogs or tweeds or facebook comments or likes and friends requests, tried to stay away from the computer as much as possible. Btw. here is a funny movie about the facebook frenzy. Even talking seemed too much, and even though it made me be not very social during the holidays, I found back to listening again to my inner voice and enjoying my own company mostly.

In the process I re-discoverd the things that don't take much effort yet give the most energy instead of sucking energy (like working on the computer). Reading for example, or sipping tea while staring out the window ;-) sketching and dabbling around aimlessly with paint and brush, or taking photos, even walking for hours seemed totally effortlessly. Even got carried away finding knots in branches on my walks and contemplating to do some sketches... if I wasn't too lazy right now :-) or who knows what else will come to my mind if it wasn't to lazy but that will be another story...

I don't usually make New Years resolutions, so when I saw someone posting a link on twitter for a "New Year's Resolution Generator" I clicked on it just for fun.
"LIGHTEN UP!" it said, which seemed just right in the spirit of doing less.

Tomorrow will be another day with lots of things to do... that don't all need to be done :-)

What is your experience with laziness and doing less?

way behind...

2009-12-19T23:12:00.000-08:00

...with everything it seems, especially writing in my blog, paintings seem to multiply without getting finished, to do's are piling up, while life goes on and on...
It occurred to me that I need to slow down, and that perhaps this is the perfect time for it. Too much is going on yet at the same time there is a wonderful silence all around. It seems I am missing most of it by trying to "catch up" on things that need to be done yet are utterly unimportant really. This might be the perfect time to step back from the canvas (of life), look at it from the distance, take a walks, smell the roses...
(Oh, apropos rose... just one more addition to my painting in process)

inspired by a hug... painting in process

2009-12-14T21:27:00.000-08:00

Was watching this documentary "doing time doing vipasana", about how 10 days of silent meditation made a huge difference in the lives of the inmates as well as the officers. At the end of the course they all stood in a line to have a hug from the director (something very unusual due to caste system in India) and it was so moving to see the love flowing between those people divided by their fate and yet connected by it at the same time....

Look At Love

look at love

how it tangles

with the one fallen in love

look at spirit

how it fuses with earth

giving it new life

why are you so busy

with this or that or good or bad

pay attention to how things blend

why talk about all

the known and the unknown

see how the unknown merges into the known

why think separately

of this life and the next

when one is born from the last

look at your heart and tongue

one feels but deaf and dumb

the other speaks in words and signs

look at water and fire

earth and wind

enemies and friends all at once

the wolf and the lamb

the lion and the deer

far away yet together

look at the unity of this

spring and winter

manifested in the equinox

you too must mingle my friends

since the earth and the sky

are mingled just for you and me

be like sugarcane

sweet yet silent

don't get mixed up with bitter words

my beloved grows

right out of my own heart

how much more union can there be

(Rumi/ translation by Nader Khalili)