A collection of images and text related to the person I'm trying to become.
Building the Arte
The “Saturn” or Binah rondel on the painting “Black Pillar” in progress. I haven’t decided if I’m painting the ring brown, or leaving it unpainted canvas, or painting it white, yet. Thoughts?
So the embed function doesn’t work on Tumblr, but this is a quick video of the practical geometry that underlies the Tree of Life diagram.
The painting, “Black Pillar”, has been started. It hangs on the left, over a Mycenaean-inspired statuette by Japanese-trained American potter, Albert Sussler. Progress shots for the creation of the Rondel on 8, at the base of the pillar.
Progress on the painting “White Pillar”. There’s a niche on the other side of the doorway, where “Black Pillar” will eventually hang.
There are definitely three more triangles to paint; I’m debating adding text to the three rings around the geometrical circles/stars, but I’ve decided on neither scripts nor texts.
The right side of the painting is done in glossy titanium white paint; the left side is ungesso’ed canvas, suggesting both “natural” energy and “pure” energy”, though I admit I’m not sure it matters much. The pillar, suggestive of one end of polarity, itself suggests a polarity.
Painting titled White Pillar, in progress. It always seems to take forever to work on this because I have to let coats dry before I can move on. Sometimes quite upsetting. Usually relaxing.
Various points during the final filtration of my vervain spagyric. Last three photos show filtration about a week ago — first two photos (with blue funnel) show how dark and opaque the liquid went into 3rd filtration, and how translucent it was coming out. Overall a success.
The History of Typography
I try to teach this to my students. It usually takes hours. I think I’ll show this video to my students, now, instead… and then let them get to work.
So … I’m trying this. I’ve made a poster of the sixteen signs of Geomancy, which I’ve been studying for a while. They’re very basic black-and-white images of the sixteen images associated with the sixteen dot-patterns, along with the telesmatic images of the signs. The names are in Welsh (because I’m a member of DOGD) and English.
This is my first attempt to earn money from my artwork. Here goes. (breathe, Andrew, breathe…)
An architectural fantasy on Flickr.
Via Flickr:
My students decided to have a little architecture competition. I don’t think I was specifically included in the bounds of the competition, actually, as a potential contestant. I decided to enter anyway.
How did I do?
As teachers, it’s our job to set standards and constantly raise the bar —to provide quality examples of what can be done, what ought to be done, and what might be done. We’re also expected to provide know-how, so that students who are curious can also learn how this was done and with what tools.
I don’t have enough architectural chops or interest to see to it that this building ever stands. But if even one kid sees this, and then learns to draw a building in some fashion other than as a triangle on top of a square, I’ll be happy.
In that sense, this is a Gordonian sigil-shoal, all rolled into one image. It’s not just designed to change my experience of the world, but to remold the minds of people who see it. It doesn’t just fix one small thing in the world; it makes a range of positive outcomes far more likely.
I think visual thinking skills are far more important than we generally give them credit for being, in the Western world. I’m going to have more to say about this eventually, but there’s a power in the visual image that cannot be conveyed by other means. And we ignore this way of knowing the world at our peril, especially in how we educate young people.
