Fundraiser for London Exhibit - UPDATE 10/30/15

Sometimes you just have to jump off the deep end and hope there's a life guard.

UPDATE 10/30/15
Thanks to all who have been so supportive in jumping off the deep end with me. I'm afraid that the reality was not quite equal to the appearance. 
Having submitted a full proposal and asking to set the dates of the exhibit, I received a delayed response that included a Terms & Conditions form for my "perusal" which made it very clear that I was certainly welcome to exhibit my work in the Sacred Space Gallery -- for a hefty price.  

I am in the process of returning the funds that were so generously donated.  I am very blessed by your friendship and buoyed by your awesome support.   

The Great Transition

It's the time of transition into the month of Elul (an acronym of Ani LiDodi V'Dodi Li – “I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine”), the month before the next Hebrew New Year and Yovel.

I find myself wandering on the other side of the veil, having gone to the cremation of a beloved woman of our community at day break yesterday, my mind is lingering on the profound, personal transition that awaits us.

During the cremation ceremony (see Crestone End of Life) there was a recitation from Savitri, the epic poem of Sri Aurobindo that went right to where I lived. That  and the poem Tagore poem set to music by Sylvia Hazlerig that we are singing in Sacred Song are very present today.

As it happens, I also received guests to my studio yesterday and spent some time focusing on Reflection & Passage – Through the Thinning Door. 

All three are below. 

Immersed in voiceless internatal trance The beings that once wore forms on earth sat there In shining chambers of spiritual sleep.  Passed were the pillar-posts of birth and death, Passed was their little scene of symbol deeds, Passed were the heavens and hells of their long road; They had returned into the world's deep soul.  All now was gathered into pregnant rest: Person and nature suffered a slumber change. In trance they gathered back their bygone selves, In a background memory's foreseeing muse Prophetic of new personality Arranged the map of their coming destiny's course: Heirs of their past, their future's discoverers, Electors of their own self-chosen lot, They waited for the adventure of new life.  A Person persistent through the lapse of worlds, Although the same for ever in many shapes By the outward mind unrecognisable, Assuming names unknown in unknown climes Imprints through Time upon the earth's worn page A growing figure of its secret self, And learns by experience what the spirit knew, Till it can see its truth alive and God.  Once more they must face the problem-game of birth, The soul's experiment of joy and grief And thought and impulse lighting the blind act, And venture on the roads of circumstance, Through inner movements and external scenes Traveling to self across the forms of things.  Into creation's centre he had come. The spirit wandering from state to state Finds here the silence of its starting-point In the formless force and the still fixity And brooding passion of the world of Soul.  All that is made and once again unmade, The calm persistent vision of the One Inevitably re-makes, it lives anew: Forces and lives and beings and ideas Are taken into the stillness for a while; There they remould their purpose and their drift, Recast their nature and re-form their shape.  Ever they change and changing ever grow, And passing through a fruitful stage of death And after long reconstituting sleep Resume their place in the process of the Gods Until their work in cosmic Time is done.
	Savitri - The World-Soul - Canto XIV

NONE lives for ever, brother, and nothing lasts for long. 

Our life is not the one old burden; our path is not the one long journey.
One sole poet has not to sing one aged song.
The flower fades and dies; but he who wears the flower has not to mourn for it forever.
Brother, keep that in mind and rejoice.

There must come a full pause to weave perfection into music.
Life droops toward its sunset to be drowned in the golden shadows.
Love must be called from its play to drink sorrow and be borne to the heaven of tears. 

Brother, keep that in mind and rejoice.

…

Beauty is sweet to us, because she dances to the same fleeting tune with our lives.
Knowledge is precious to us, because we shall never have time to complete it.
All is done and finished in the eternal Heaven.
But earth’s flowers of illusion are kept eternally fresh by death.
Brother, keep that in mind and rejoice.

excerpt from Rabindranath Tagore, The Gardener

Reflection & Passage - Through the Thinning Door

Bee Light

 Here is the illumination which came to fruition in the last few days.

The first name it  received was Invocation.

The instructions were very specific: 1 bee, 2 bee-ish flowers and an 8-fold form within a mihrab.

The mihrab form (the arched doorway shape) is suggestive of a womb space.  This illumination followed on the heals of Mihrab ar-Rahman which, itself,  contains an 8- fold form arising into aliveness from out of the "Breath of the Compassionate".  The similarity here suggests that there is a "coming into beeing" happening here.  The particular 8-fold luterose I was directed to use here appears to be made up of pre-sequenced bee parts, sort of a reservoir of elements.

Even though 8 is the Source, a hexagon lies in the very center towards which an actual bee can orient.

...and now for the light...

Not enough of that sweet, honey colored, mica left to use here.  Remembering that amber mica sheet I get is made by fusing mica flakes with shellac,  I saturated a piece of pellon  (translucent insulating material) with some recently acquired amber shellac.  Lo -- it yielded a very similar appearance to the mica, only a little grainier.  So close but not it.  I then looked to see what kind of rice papers I might have to mitigate the graininess and found a remnant square of blue mulberry paper which closely matched the blue metalic wax used in this piece.

unilluminated luterose where only the mulberry paper is visible

 Interesting, but missing the honey.

Playing around, I placed the shellac infused pellon behind the mulberry paper and illuminated from behind. Oh my! Bullseye!

I love to sit, gazing at this piece in muted light, where illumination comes in through a window but the bee itself either comes to light or remains in shadow.   I love how it transforms as the ambient light changes throughout the day. I am moved to feel the nature of things coming in and out of being.  Invocation as a title was no longer cutting it for me and I asked if there might be an Arabic title to which I might better relate.  

What I heard was Nur an-Nahl - "Light of the Bee."   

In light of that, my own soul finds comfort.

Nur an-Nahl/ Invocation Acid etched copper with fretwork and engraving; oxides, vitrial enamels, metalic wax and amber shellac; backed in Japanese mulberry paper and pellon infused with shellac; mounted on cedar.  

17”x12.25”x1”

Enlettered Essence

"The Holy Essence of Blessing transformed itself into letters in order to take up residence within the underworlds"

Midrash Tanchuma, Naso 16

This latest illumination is about being as "enletterment". Life is encoded, as we know.  From the standpoint of Hebraic Mystical Tradition, the Hebrew letters themselves .are the matrix of mattering.  All aspects of Life are embedded with a resonant frequency, a song cycle.  

It was wonderful to find that the central spinning geometry precisely incorporated all 22 Hebrew letters beginning with Alef in the center.

work in progress

Two bees find there place to imbibe Divine nectar from the flowers.

I have the sense that the spheres on either side are the sefirot of cHesed and Gevura - "fluid benevolence" and "restraint,"  harmonizing the elements.

I thought of this at first as a threshold piece, something in a garden, maybe a library's garden.  The vertigris patina is so subtly lovely however, that I'd rather see it a bit more protected.  Still as threshold sema, perhaps, but at the covered entrance to a home or a library.  I even think it would make an exquisite crown to Hekhál or Aron Hakodesh (Torah Ark) within an intimate setting, or as a focus piece on a mantle or within a circumscribed sacred space.

The size is relatively small - 25" wide by 14" high by 1" deep.  Lighting from behind would amplify the swirling pattern of the glass plate behind the central geometry and the textured glass behind the two sefirot.

Acid-etched copperwork illumination with cutwork backed in textured glass. Letters are engraved.  Framed in cedar.

hebrew art for sale

Dynamic Intervention

Acid Etched Copper in two parts with fretwork, engraving and oxides.  

Fretwork backed in amber mica. 

29"x16.75" x 1.5"

Here is the latest illumination to unfold in my studio. The name I was given for it is Dynamic Intervention. I can tell you some of the elements that I believe I understand.  Anything that you see here that sheds more light on the meaning of this piece is, as always, much appreciated.  If you aren't up to posting a comment then please email me (as usual).

The seed for this copperwork arrived with an investigation of the Hindu feminine divinity known as Aditi - the power underlying temporal reality and the primordial energy that powers the universe.

According to that gratifying, ubiquitous and omniscient source, Wikipedia :
Aditi (अदिति "limitless") is mother of the gods (devamatar) and all twelve zodiacal spirits from whose cosmic matrix the heavenly bodies were born. As celestial mother of every existing form and being, the synthesis of all things, she is associated with space (akasa) and with mystic speech (Vāc).  

That reference to 12 caught me immediately as the thread I was to follow and that you can see expressed in this copperwork as the theme of 12 around 1 in various iterations.

As I continue to explore the meaning of the symbolic elements I was directed to include, I came upon an article which, within its discussion of quantum string theory suggests that 
"Our civilization is out of balance, and it all starts with our God image, (God, a.k.a. the creator, the field of intention, the universal super consciousness, the matrix of all matter, divine intelligence). We have overlooked God's other half, the Goddess energy, the healing and transformative power of heavenly mother."  

To paraphrase the article:
Rather than the 3 dimensional definition of reality that is limited to hard animate matter we see, sense touch and feel with our five senses, matter does not arise from hard animate building blocks or particles of anything solid. Atoms are 99.9999% empty space, and, recent theories of Quantum physics describe a "field of infinite possibility" from which all matter arises. This energy field has even been described as being responsive to the intentions of the observer.

Perhaps it is the response to the intentions of the observer that is implied by the name "Dynamic Intervention."   Dynamic Intervention may be a pictograph of an evolutionary process (suggested by the DNA spheres) that is emerging out of our collective "mattering" intentions. 

 

 

hands art for sale

3 Day Copperwork Immersion

Class size is limited to 4.
Immersion begins Saturday, April 4^th continues Sunday, April 5th and then resumes the following Saturday, April 11th to allow time for the solvent bath to work its alchemy.
Each participant begins with a sheet of 26 gauge copper approximately 8"square.

Instruction includes:
Using an open-throat shear to cut the outside form; preparing copper to receive transfer of pattern; scribing in pattern; using asphaltum as an acid resist; acid etching; stopping etch and placing copper into solvent bath for a week. Revealing the etching via polishing, flaming, coloring, forming or whatever is required.
The first two days begin at 9am and end ~4pm. Due to waiting times required between processes, each day of the immersion consists of about four hours of actual hands on working time.
The final day of the session begins between 9 and 10am with participants typically bringing their copperworks to completion an hour either side of noon.
Cost for the 3 Day Immersion is $300 which includes all materials.
To register call (719)256-5442 or email moresca.copper@gmail.com .

If you are interested in being informed about upcoming immersions, please email me with your request as well as the month and days of the week that would work best for you.

Preparing your Design at home:

You'll need to bring a finished concept to transfer to your 8” square of copper sheet.

As you're designing you piece, think in terms of thick lines. You might want to include a geometric form (Celtic knotwork, arabesque mandala...) , maybe some calligraphy (your initial, a focus word - maybe a wprd, letter or symbol from a sacred language). Google Image searches can help you find a logo, symbol or tattoo design that you can use. Coloring books can also be a good resource, especially some of the Dover publications for artists. You can also email me early on for guidance if you need a little nudge in the right direction.

Design a form that will take your piece out of the square 8”x8”. Think medallion, shield, arch, hamsa ... I recommend you stay away from “perfect” cicles or pointed stars. You'll also want to draw an inner border within the form to frame it and keep acid from eating away at the edges.

Here is an example of a simple, yet beautiful copperwork created by a first-timer at a 3 Day Immersion: Fluid Islamic geometry, thick lines (inscribed with free-hand designs) and an interesting border design. A little formwork really brought this piece to life!

Creating Transitional Entrances

A Pattern Language, a book that addresses the human needs of public and private spaces, speaks to the need for transitional entrances as a space to leave behind one's exterior, streetwise self in order to enter a more interior, personal frame of mind. "If the transition is too abrupt there is no feeling of arrival, and the inside of the building fails to be an inner sanctum."

Creating a transitional entrance can be accomplished in many ways, by marking a path which connects the street to the entrance with "a change of light, a change of sound, a change of direction, a change of surface, a change of level, perhaps by gateways which make a change of enclosure, and above all with a change of view".

An approach that I have taken to mark transitional spaces is the Threshold Sema.  

Until this morning I was really at a loss as to what word to use to express what I had in mind. Emblem, motto, banner, focus, sign... it's all of those things.  I began exploring the etymology of each to see if I could find a word with the appropriately fitting nuance.   I was led to the word "semantic" (via "sign") which stems from the Greek semantikos "significant," likewise semainein "to show by sign, signify, point out, indicate by a sign," both deriving from sema "sign, mark, token; omen, portent; constellation..."   I have known the word sema from its Arabic meaning of "listening," the name for the ritual dance of the whirling dervishes.   Threshold Sema then.
 
The blog "Light is Planted at the Garden Gate" discusses the Threshold Sema created for the Art Song Garden.

Here is a version that I created for the portico of my studio:


JoAnne, a friend as well as a member of the Sri Aurobindo Learning Center here in Crestone, asked me to create one for the garden gate of the Mother's Garden at the Savitri House last autumn. Here is the result:

The Mother's Garden gate is overhung with trees and there is no light that would come through the back as there is in my garden, hense the rectangular banner form with no light revealing cutwork. 

The central flower symbol is the that of the Mother, Mirra Alfassa, closely associated with Sri Aurobindo. Here is a link to the meaning of the symbol: Mother's Symbol.  The Sanskrit on the left is Bhakti - Devotion. The symbolic language beneath it is a lotus with a flame. The Sanskrit on the right is Ishvara Pranidhana - surrender to the Divine unfolding. Centered within the Sanskrit calligraphy is a flower facing out, away from the Mother's symbol - listening, as it were, to another voice.

It came out so beautifully that they now want to create a more sturdy and beautiful gate for it to hang on, which I hope will happen in the Spring.  In the meantime, Ginny, who caretakes the house, created it into a mantle piece until then:

As with the Crestone End of Life Project, for which I create plaques with a symbol that represents a significant element of the life of a person past,  I love the thought of creating a symbolic language for the daily thresholds we transition while living.