Building the Arte

Completed, mostly: “White Pillar” on the right, and “Black Pillar” on the left, with roundels or mandalas representing the numbers 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, and 8.

Progress on my painting, “Black Pillar”. I’m going to cover the right-hand side, already painted black, with a gloss wash. Then I’ll paint the rest of the painting black, but it will be matte black, and the glossy bits will be facing the door-side of the painting.

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?

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.

Beginning “Black Pillar”, the companion piece to “White Pillar”. Where WP dealt with the numbers 2, 4, and 7… BP will deal with 3, 5 and 8.

Currently it’s just pencil sketches in two of the rondels: an equilateral triangle in the top rondel, and a series of eight pointed star/knots in the bottom rondel. The middle rondel is still empty — I’m not going to do the math for pentagons and pentagrams in the middle of the night. It’s not that I’m scared; I’m just error-prone after midnight.

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.

Days like today, I love the internet. A few days ago, I read an article by JC over on the Rosicrucian Vault, on the Dodecahedron of Space.  Based on that article, I constructed a black and white dodecahedron of Space using a dodecahedron template from Mathisfun.com.  It was an OK model, but then JC did me one better.  He provided a new template, already colored, for the Dodecahedron of Space, and directions on how to build one out of wood in a serious way.

So of course, I built his paper template of a Dodecahedron of Space right away.  And now it’s sitting on my desk at school. 

I love the Work.  But more than that, I love the workings, the learning, the study of fundamentals and the methods for both teaching and learning fundamentals.  Elegant, really.  Thanks, J.C.!

Current White Pillar in place to the right of the door to my study. My rental apartment had two of the niches, one to either side of the door way between my office and my living room. Found the two irregular canvases — 4’x1’ — in an art supply shop. Black Pillar and White Pillar are born.

The themes here include iteration —a series of complex and simple geometries make possible both the Yin-Yang and the heptagrams, join above and below.

There will not likely be a Middle Pillar painting. The act of walking between them acts to help make one aware of being that pillar.

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.