Galactic Template (version 2)

Engine diagrams, paisley designs, printouts from my health information technology classes, and material from two of my Micro-Chimerisms drawings went into the creation of this image. The process was particularly challenging for me because I wanted to create a circular design with equally distributed repetitions from another image created from the earlier sessions I embarked upon to create the Ataraxy series overall. So, yes, this image is part of the Ataraxy series. Please see the post listed as Ataraxy (version 1) to see if you can find any of the crossover in the details.

I also used another Micro-Chimerisms drawing for the more clearly apparent black mosaic pieces forming the inner mandala design at the center parts of this illustration. I had been wanting to create circular patterns and designs resembling kaleidoscopic compositions in the image editing program I use this time, instead of just relying on drawing them long-hand. While I have fun drawing my intricate mandalic designs long-hand, I knew I could take it further on an image editing application.

The variations on a theme exponentially multiply once I start playing around with the material I create by traditional means and scan it into digital media. The challenge I encountered with this piece was figuring out how to uniformly cascade the overlapping sections so that they overplayed each other in regular pre-calculated intervals. I had to manually calculate the degrees at which each section would be positioned. This image portrays eight segments which overlap each other like a pinwheel.

In my ongoing fascination with mandalas, I find that all sorts of poetic associations can be made with my finished products, enabling imagination evoking titles to be given. For example, since there are eight sides or segments composing the spokes of this design, an association can be made with Buddhism and the Eightfold Path, which are spiritual disciplines involving yoga; it looks like a lotus flower, or, at least, some kind of flower with petals; it looks like a pinwheel; it could be a spinning sparkler; and it could also be highly stylized depiction of a spinning galaxy.

So I titled this piece Galactic Template. I was trying to think of a different name other than supergalaxy as an allusion to one of the first galaxies formed at the beginning of time. That is, time and the origins of our known universe as 20th century scientists have determined. Who knows? Perhaps the models, theories, and constructs present day astrophysicists teach are merely myths like how we know ancient Greeks had myths to explain their understanding of the cosmos.

Anyway, I thought of this idea that the universe’s first galaxies were—or are—like stem cells in the human body. They act as generators for new galaxies to send out into the universe as it stabilizes itself in the present continuum it exists in presently. Even using the word “presently” to describe the universe’s state is laughable, as great distances and time are relative.

Here’s this work of art keying off notions of a “stem” galaxy, relatively forever generating new galaxies as it shovels out new primordial material at cyclical intervals into the great pregnant void, full of inexplicable dark matter and energy. In this case, there are eight definite points at which new material is introduced into the universe. Simultaneously, this galaxy is a creator of new ideas as well, as the layers of drawings, patterns, diagrams, text, and designs flow out from the center into the great abyss hinted at on the corners of this representation.