SOME OTHER WORK.

Over a period of ten years, 1983 to 1993, i regularly contributed illustrations, magazine cover drawings, posters, bumper sticker and T shirt designs etc. for Earthwatch, a local grassroots environmental organisation no longer in existence.

Few who know me or the work on this blog will be aware i've done a lifetime of other artwork besides paintings.  Sustaining the flow of the current blog posts over five years there have been quite naturally and continue to be periods of what's called 'artist's block'.  Though that's always been the case and the same applies to the writing.

While i may or may not appear to be prolific i have always been familiar with the diversity of concepts and forms of what constitutes a painting.  Yet such multifaceted possibilities regularly produce an impasse where it's not apparent how to proceed and that's an understatement.  

It just feels more amplified from a lifetime of exploring different approaches and since posting regularly online. Especially from having an overview from looking at thousands of paintings you can get the impression that everything imaginable is and has been already explored by someone somewhere.

Such infinite diversity can cause you to question the possibility of creating something that has communicable personal significance and evolving it into further areas.  The alternative seeming to be repetition with variation which obviously becomes limitation at some stage.

Even though creativity in and for itself is in no way related to competitiveness which is merely comparative, inhibiting playfulness.  Due to the commercialization of art and its competitive materialism it can seem dauntingly so.

Along with the exponential advance of sophisticated computer generated imagery and technology in all areas of life, where there is a gain there is also the possibility of an imbalance in favour of progressive dominance by artificial intelligence over all that is intrinsically sacred. A trend we are persuaded to embrace without question, in itself a cause for wise circumspection of possible motive.

A slight digression on the theme of the creative urge to flow and share encountering a paradoxical anomaly.  For now i'm posting a select few from a huge body of previous graphic work.  Just for the record here's a handful of the few drawings that remain and but for a co-worker who salvaged them long after the event i would have no record at all.  Some published book illustrations may follow.  While i puzzle over how to express in paint and colour and the conundrum of how the barely conceivable but universally longed for is quite naturally seemingly beyond the means to express.  ~        

More Earthwatch drawings continued in another post.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

Martin Rainbowmaker

CHERRY BLOSSOM.

I wonder at having produced another painting despite being critical of anomalies within it.  So now i wonder what can be said of relevance to how it came to be, inspiration or lack of, or the context it came out of, which requires other images besides the words to describe properly.

It's not as if i'm on a roll, in any sense of the word, quite otherwise.  Zero inspiration which was barely bearable and i had to do something about it.  Find a visual clue, an image to contemplate, something to express a contrast to the apparent current chaos prevalent in the world, and hopefully without being predictable.

There are some experimental photos i took for a blog post titled: 'A Global Spring', May 1st. 2014.  To refer to the article and see a few of the photos, type that title into the search box at top left corner of the blog.


A rainbow spectrum tinted dark glass globe, carefully placed in positions relative to an overhanging cherry tree in full blossom, in a so called 'Peace park' that's never used for peace in any practical or productive sense.  Ever closer zoom shots of blossom reflected in the rainbow sphere.  Being the most succinct image of peace i could imagine and improvise in the moment.

Choosing a suitable photo and zooming in, as if approaching some exotic planetary sphere, in depth beyond curved confines, into an unfamiliar world of semi-abstraction bathed in blended bands of rainbow blossom.

Admittedly complex and confusing to simplify and transfer on to a canvas.  Fine in a photo but challenging to make a painting from it that works.  So to focus on a portion of it enlarged on the screen thereby losing some focus in the process, but getting enough on the canvas to gradually shift from the back and forth to the painting having a life in itself.

            Cherry Blossom.  Click to enlarge.         

     

Even so, it's difficult to duplicate such a profusion of enlarged  and out of focus blossoms.  With precise but arbitrary colours being the only indication of light on form. Becoming so laborious i had to let it be unresolvable for a while, daunted, distracted as i was by looming dealings with doctors and dentist, toxic chemtrail shocks, the populace oblivious, and weary with wars in the world.

Yet i did return to the painting, making whatever subtle adjustments and modifications seemed possible for a semblance of resolution.  Plus an updated and better photo as well as a completed description of the process so as to be worth sharing.

With this addition, i mean, where on earth is the collective vision of a world at peace with itself ?  Yes it's such an innocent question that it's considered too absurd to even imagine asking.  So, being 'mature' and 'educated' we don't even imagine such things, remaining preoccupied and coping with the long buried wound of its absence.  Which is why i posit such a naive, taboo but otherwise valid question.

Where is the collective life affirming vision ? Where is the collective good news ? The same goes for beauty, truth, honesty, integrity etc. When it's vision that counts, a positive sane project for our communication technology, creative education, art and music. Imagine everyone asking where is the vision ? The one whereby everyone is liberated and benefits, and not just the few, who then put limitation on everyone else. If it's not good for everybody then it's not good. Bypassing adversarial forces we have all the means to manifest if used correctly.

There is an indigenous native american saying: 'When there is no vision the people perish.'
Apparently we weren't listening. *

 **** **** ****
Martin Rainbowmaker

GOLDEN AGE MEME ?

    GOLDEN AGE MEME ?

The word, 'meme', seems to mean something like a blend of myth and theme.  one that spreads by popular usage and comes to be taken as an unquestioned given fact.  We seem to be swimming in a sea of such memes.

Two current examples are, the concept of 'ascension', and an imminent 'golden age'.  It's a daunting challenge to write about succinctly, as documentation of these interrelated themes is extensive, persuasive, and pervasive.  Becoming, like the concept of Christmas, an apparent reality simply because a significant majority agree to participate and not question where the idea originated from.

The religious connotation of the word 'ascension' is for many people not easy to dissociate from, making it hard to conceive of other than Biblical interpretations.  Who can say, and to what degree its current alternative usage may relate to wishful thinking, as there seems to be a divergence from Vedic texts regarding time cycles in which it might apply, but i'm no authority on the subject.

Connecting a few sources contributing to the thread of the current popular hypothesis regarding 'ascension'/'golden age', whether prophecies, time cycle calendars such as the Mayan, to contemporary authors, teachers, such as the mystic Peter Deunov.


The Ra material channeled by Carla Rueckert in the 1980s, incorporated by David Wilcock and combined with the findings of the Russian scientist Alexey Dmitriev who in his paper 'The Planetophysical State of Earth and Life' stated ' the whole solar system is changing', and by implication we, and all life are due for radical change also and which can be scientifically demonstrated.
Then add, The New Earth.org, Montalk.net, John Lash/Gaia Sophia's Correction, Webre, Cobra, Tolec, and finding i'm not up to the task, the list is endless, forget succinct dot lists.

Then i witnessed Alfred Lambremont Webre boldly stating repeatedly that "we go straight from Kali Yuga into Satya Yuga", that is, from where we are now, just into the bronze age straight into the golden age, and Peter Deunov says much the same thing.

In stark contradiction to the Vedic text and diagram which progresses from Satya, to Treta, to Dwapara, to Kali, rotating cyclically in reverse order to return to a golden age over a period of thousands of years.  I swear i saw Alfred's version of the chart flash on the screen for about a second whether intentional or not.  Later scanning frame by frame Alfred's long interview with Patty Greer and Penny Kelly i failed to find it. All rather puzzling.  (A later insert: I do wish to add however that i do respect Alfred and the work he is doing.  Especially after listening to a most powerful three hour long interview presentation with four good, strong, well known creative women all targeted for speaking truth and just aired on March 3rd.  on his site: News Inside Out.  Very inspiring and i do recommend listening to it as it's really crucially important.)*****

In a culture already ripe with wishful thinking it only takes a continually rolling snowball of persuasive sounding hypotheses to turn it into a self perpetuating popular belief.  The emergent popular meme, in some sense a metamorphosis of previous ones, says, contrary to appearances, everything is rapidly rising in 'frequency' and we must do so too otherwise we won't make it.  At least the hypothesis is rising in frequency.  How do we go from global war and corruption to a natural harmonious order and is a cosmic wave the catalyst or what's commonly called 'a phase shift' ?

These simplistic paragraphs are a mere distillation of an equal amount of notes discarded for simplicity.  Not intended to discredit but to point at what may have gone unnoticed.  How did we come to be in such a clamourous ocean of contradictory memes?  It would be good if the query proved to be of no consequence after all.
Just an innocent question about 'The Emperor's New Clothes.' ~

          ~~~  ~~~  ~~~  ~~~
            Martin Rainbowmaker

 Paintings: Towpath Vision.  April 2013.
          Pre-Dawn Fields.  October 8. 2014.   

SPIRAL OF LIGHT

"When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly."  ~ Lao Tzu.

Spiral of Light, the painting, a progression or perhaps also a radical departure from the one before, and the one before that and so on.  Yet again emerging seemingly out of nothing and nowhere, when a feasible creative idea worthy of working with was felt to be an ever elusive improbability. 

In some ways similar in format to the previous painting Blue Lunar Icon, a moonlit landscape on planet earth, Spiral of Light is quite obviously in some other part of the galaxy and on some other world.  The horizon line was lowered three times for the right balance and perspective.  The lower down, the more the viewpoint is from ground level.

  
Originating in a mere four inch square vague pencil doodle on a sheet of paper.  Delaying for days, dubious as to if it was even do-able.
Eventually drawing carefully on canvas with many erasings and alterations, then with a dilution of blue, establishing all elements in their right inter-relationship.  From there to enliven portion by portion with that as foundation.

I know the paintings have gone through some changes lately, reflecting whatever focus is going on, but it was always that way.  A daughter of mine responded by email, curious as to what the inspiration for this one "a wild one" might be.

That's not the easiest thing to describe simply in words, though i'm aware of the context and the response to it.  The energies worldwide in 2016 were evidently challenging for very many on a multitude of levels and that makes it complex to write about, so perhaps the painting reflects that.

Ongoing revelations of a world in turbulent change impinge according to awareness, sensitivity, and aspiration, and that's only stating it impersonally.  It may be that when there is a refined sensitivity to subtleties of what is beautiful, there is also sensitivity to its absence.  Absence due to a collective veil of consensus familiarity pervading perception, reflected as mundane drabness in the environment, a limitation considered to be the norm. 

Paradoxically, wishing a more humane and harmonious world can also amplify non-acceptance of what is, thereby manifesting in disunity and disharmony within. Perhaps that describes the norm, and  how do you accept non-acceptance ?  A kind, compassionate, harmonious, freely cooperative human world is not merely desirable, it's urgent ! 

  
In this mode, doodling for a visual idea, expanding imagination outside the known, wondering how things might look on one of infinite zillions of worlds closer in to the central spiritual source or galactic centre, while living in harmony with the planet itself.  Infusing this imaginatively into every minutest meticulous modulation and touch of the brush.  Whenever someone seeing it for the first time simply says "wow", i know the energy wasn't wasted.

With many still unaware of the renewed debate as to whether the earth is round, flat, hollow, or even holographic, or even the motivation for such diversity of deviation from current consensus which could be either an evolutionary development
or a divisive distraction.

After millennia of circles of forgetfulness and return, you'd think we'd know where we are. Most probably in a purposely perpetuated plot of polarization and perceived to be the principle permeating a plethora of perennial politically pertinent popular planetary persuasions.  In infinite eternal eons of evolving cycles around the Spiral of Light. *

             ***  ***  ***  ***
            Martin Rainbowmaker      

BLUE LUNAR ICON.

  

Over a period of days, and more, contemplating a concept for a painting forming itself in mind without picking up a pencil. too complex to draw.

Being an imagined combination of paint methods, multi-leveled structure, both abstract and figurative, and aerial perspective potentially unified as one. Intending to express 'a wave of love' across the earth.  Rather a tall order, and it can't be said i wasn't aiming high.

Until, unsurprisingly, considering the elements involved and how to combine them into a communicable painterly image without falling into the cliche of a literal illustrative depiction, it became clear that it was as unresolvable on its own terms  as a Zen koan, and i was none the wiser.

   

So, subsequently becoming thoroughly bored with the impasse of urgently asking another unanswerable question and for want of something creative to do, thinking to do something semi-abstract, coated a canvas with cobalt blue. 
                             

Before the paint was even dry, and with a washed wet brush, carelessly without clear intention,wiping away in places down to the bare canvas.  unformed and crude as it's possible to be, cloud shapes, tree shapes, horizon of hill shapes and a round smear in the centre that might be a moon.
                                                  

Only later attempting to modify what was a vague and amorphous mess of blue, another seemingly impossible task, one with little chance of success, given the indelibly hard to eradicate nature of the pigment of cobalt.  If you paint over it, it still comes through, even turns pale blue to brown, some chemical reaction hard to get around, and the vast difference of colour between electric light and daylight.                                            

                

Yet despite all that, it came to a satisfactory completion.  This is just a glimpse for now, as i'm having difficulty with the Blogger process seeming to have limited space to continue and not yet able to find the way to crop the photo not for want of trying everything, this being only my second attempt at blog posting.

                          
 But there it is, a glimpse at least, of 'Blue Lunar Icon' and how it came to be.  Hope to find a way to make what's within the completed painting more visibly accessible and do it justice.  Who knows, might even make sense of these admittedly downright contrary alien robotics.
P.S.  So i called on my next door neighbour who happens to be in the computer business, and he kindly showed me how to crop the painting, which i then did.  Simply a matter of knowing the procedure, otherwise hard to guess.  What a relief. }


               }{ }{ }{ }{ }{ }{  
              Martin Rainbowmaker

         
             

                                       

   

APACHE MYSTERY.

APACHE  MYSTERY.
(A painting that shape-shifted.)

There's another indigenous portrait i intended to include in a recent post dedicated to the people of Standing Rock.  However, i wasn't able to retrieve it from the folder due to lack of a code number and how to resolve that.  So i rephotographed the painting till i got a presentable image to feature in this post.

Actually two images, the completed painting plus a print of an earlier stage on the same canvas, which is the only record of what i set out to do.  That image now under further layers of paint, as, in modifying details it took on another life of its own and went through a radical transformation, simultaneously gaining something and losing something in the process, which i hope to show chronologically.

        

It was originally based on a 19th century photo of an Apache woman in a book called The Spirit of Indian Women, a collection of photo portraits from that period.  I chose to study this image because of the depth of experience clearly apparent in the face, and having read some remaining documentation about her life.  So i'd like to think i can preserve a record of this earlier stage of the painting.                

                     

To express in paint proved to be continually elusive and comes nowhere near the presence in the photo.  Involving hours of concentration and imaginative empathy with the mystery of the life of the subject.  It came to feel like a ritual of healing, not only of this woman, but universally, through art, acknowledging in spirit what indigenous people have been subjected to for 500 hundred years and still continuing in the present.

There can come a point after a long intense contemplation of subtleties of a face, when its actual essence eludes you completely, and no matter what minor adjustments are made, it seems to morph into something other, subjectively as slippery as a fish, and that's exactly what happened.  Gender and age become ambiguous, proportions questionable, light and shadow needing endless adjustment, and eyes reflect even the slightest modification.

I stayed with the process for many long hours and sessions, not knowing where it was going or if it would arrive satisfactorily.  Even resorting to a magnifying glass momentarily when anomalies in the weave of the canvas made it problematic to apply a blemish-free brush stroke to crucial areas of the face.  Sometimes difficult to discern a textural shadow from a painted one, and the slightest tone change makes a huge difference for better or worse.  A face is very challenging because we are biologically attuned to reading faces.

A superimposition of faces and races, a microcosm of the macrocosm, blending as unity in diversity.  A mere microscopic metaphor hopefully harmonizing and healing the pains of polarization.  A further footnote to feet on the ground and tribute to all souls at Standing Rock, and everywhere indigenous to earth and beyond.  Painting as prayer.  Apache Mystery, painted November 2008.  With diligent care that the goodness of human-heartedness radiate and shine through. < 

          >>>+<<<+>>>+<<<
             Martin Rainbowmaker

 Standing Rock.

               'Water Is Life'.  

A few selected paintings in support of all the people gathered to protect the Missouri river which serves 17 million people, and protect the land and sacred burial grounds already desecrated by the unlawful construction of a huge oil pipeline project, almost completed, without consultation and against the wishes of the Lakota people's birthright to live on and care for all life in that area despite their treaties that were broken as always.

There has long been a traditional prophecy that if when the black snake crosses the land it is not stopped then the world will end.
Thousands of people from many nations continue to gather there in peaceful  non-violent and prayerful support, not retaliating to the lawless corporate, corporeal and literal abuse, injury, and needless desecration.  

Despite media attempts to distort and suppress coverage of the true situation, aware people around the world are watching via internet as well as demonstrating peacefully and colourfully their solidarity and support for the growing gathering at Standing Rock, North Dakota. Quite evidently little or nothing has changed since Wounded Knee.  This is a wake up call for the world.

Informally and still fumbling ineptly with the idiosyncrasies of computer tech which seems reluctant to heed my instructions, i thought to re-release a small selection of relevant paintings as a smoke signal of solidarity with 'the people' and in reverence and celebration for the sacred integrity of earth, air, fire, water, all life interdependent, interconnected, whole, healthy, abundant.

        
         1. Weenyon Wahkon.  'Holy Woman. 2008.  
           


                     

        
         2.  A Love Of Leaves.  2012.   

                   
                      

                       3.  Sacred Sunrise.  2010.

          
             4.  Kisses the wolf.  2009.

            

                             

                               5.  Indian Sunrise.  2003.

                                

Though i only seconds ago found how to get the cursor to stay where i put it long enough,while font sizes mutate by themselves and my layout is not what i intended, this is, A PRAYER FOR STANDING ROCK. WATER IS LIFE. 

The Lakota word for water, 'mni', is pronounced  'm'nee', which means 'me sacred.' ~

        

        ><  ><  >< . ><  ><  ><  

             Martin Rainbowmaker

               

Night Sky Event

Perhaps nobody noticed, an uncharacteristic break in the regular flow of previous blog posts, due to factors too convoluted and numerous to describe.  Meanwhile attempting to remedy and reorient, and involving me trying to get a handle on the blog posting process by myself from scratch.

No doubt simple for those with a left brain aptitude who are otherwise familiar with the digital process and i've never claimed to be one of them.  On the contrary, i feel to be on the other end of the spectrum, and the logic, if that's what it is, of most things technical has tended to feel 'more than a little alien'.  However, in retrospect, i completed the task satisfactorily in one stretch of five hours, with zero instruction or assistance, despite  some annoying idiosyncratic self-contradictory anomalies inherent in the robotic system itself.


Then just today, after trying to familiarize with the Blogger process and making slight but slow progress, my current digital camera abruptly ceased to function and not even switch off or on.  The third of its kind in a row to do that , in barely more than the same number of times.
       

      
         
However, in the meantime, my mode of painting shifted into a radically different realm of uncharted territory.  A natural enough and common occurrence whether temporary or otherwise.  Resulting in three paintings, the first called 'Improvisation', and two with the title, 'Night Sky Event', numbers 1 and 2.

Improvisation is the one with the ochre and pink variations on 'cup and ring' semi-circle symbols relating to fertilization from above, containment and gestation, and birth.  Happening in an imaginary spatial environment or dimension, but they're all improvised, starting from no fixed concept.

Next came Night Sky Event. No.1. on a slightly larger canvas, but they're all fairly small.  A random organic event, across a night sky, and which also went through minute modifications in detail, colour tone (i changed the blue around the forms three times), and in overall feeling till it was integrated, a magical mythic event above a moonlit landscape.

Night Sky Event. No.2.  Extending deeper into the mode of blue, with a lunar element shining through.  Softening the other elements into a higher vaulted dome of psychic firmament.  The colour tones muted and pacified into a vast infinity.  Peppered with traces  and filaments of webs of stars.  The dark earth likewise flecked with distant lights of habitation.  Unlike the artificial robotic linear logic, an organic excursion solely and soulfully into the right intuitive realm of refined feeling.           

                    ****  *****  ****                               Martin Rainbowmaker.