Category Archives: Art of eVan

Back in 2011, I was going to two different drawing groups here in town where models would pose for professional artists. The watercolor drawing/painting you see in this image is material from hundreds of drawings and watercolors I did while attending those groups. I’ve had this material stored away for a few years now. I knew I would end up doing something with them, but I didn’t know what until a few days ago.

As you know, I’ve been experimenting with layering multiple pieces of my artwork and coming up with new artworks. I’ve been doing that with my Wrecked Tangles series, my Micro-Chimerisms series, and now the nudes I’ve accumulated. The nude drawings I had been doing in the past really honed my hand-eye-muscle coordination. Those sessions—countless of which I attended—were invaluable, as I now have more of a sense of mastery and command than I’d ever had before.

I can still feel that mastery, even though I haven’t been to those drawing groups for about three years now. I plan on going back soon as I finish up my health information technology degree. Actually, I already graduated for that, but what I’m doing right now is studying diligently for the registered health information technologist (RHIT) exam. I have been fortunate to also have a little time to develop some ideas for the Art of eVan lately as well.

I was inspired by some of Pink Floyd’s early videos in which they used projectors with psychedelic imagery cast upon them as they played their music. The Velvet Underground also played with this idea. I’m not sure who came up with it first—the Velvets, Syd Barrett, or Andy Warhol; I do know Andy Warhol used old military film to record the videos he did, so, it’s quite possible this idea extended to the Velvet Underground, and the music they’d play at The Factory. Perhaps Syd Barrett caught on to the idea and used it for Pink Floyd. Who knows? Anyways, this idea really comes from the cultural and art revolutions of the 1960s.

There are a couple other contemporary sources that inspired this work as well. Some of the artist’s work at Curbside Clothing gives me pleasure to look at. I’ve always been into drawing mandalas since I was a child. Both my mother and father were artists. I suppose they still are artists at heart, but they aren’t currently practicing their art. My mother is the one who really got me fascinated with mandalas. She was a Flower Child at one time, and she would show me some art from that genre. One album cover from that era that had me fixated is Anthem of the Sun, by the Grateful Dead.

While the figure depicted here isn’t perfectly proportional, I still felt it embodied the strokes, contours, and coloring I wanted to use. I had no idea how the final work would turn out, but I used two different drawings as backgrounds from my Micro-Chimerisms series, and meshed it all together for the hybrid you see here. I look forward to working with this new concept in the future, and evolving it into something more sophisticated.

What started out as a light valued drawing ended up getting darker and darker after I scanned it on to the computer and started manipulating it. At least the yellow and orange colors are dominant enough to catch the eye’s attention and retain power as centers of interest. Speaking of eyes, a theme I often explore in my work, you can see eye shapes on the left and right hand sides.

In thinking of what to title this drawing, I first thought of calling it Externalized Homunculus. A homunculus is basically a “little man.” In philosophy, the homunculus is supposedly the real intelligence inside your brain or your mind who is operating your body. The reason why I was thinking of titling this piece Externalized Homunculus is because I often ponder how people can sometimes watch themselves act something out from an externalized perspective, as if they are watching themselves in a film.

I didn’t draw “the little man” without in this drawing because one’s self, separate from one’s body, may not even have a human form. I still needed some kind of representation that would indicate a disembodied state of self-observation.

In this drawing, the selves are represented as mandalas, not human forms as well. There are two of them occupying the center space of the picture. One is above and one is below. I had wanted to do a painting or drawing for a while now of two equal sized mandalas. I knew it would work well within my Micro-Chimerisms series, as it portrays more of the mosaic style I’ve been working on throughout my life.

To put it bluntly, this drawing is actually crowded, oppressed, and full of conflict. The four fish-like figures surrounding the two mandalas are traveling upward, as if they are traveling upstream instead of downstream. Water naturally seeks paths of least resistance, to finally find resting places at the lowest points it can. Water is, not only a symbol of the unconscious mind and emotions, but it is also a symbol of collecting. Since humans are self-reflecting beings of nature, it is only natural that I would find this anthropomorphic quality in water.

The yellow and orange colors in the positive spaces of the objects are affiliated with the sun, light, oranges, lemons, and the splanchnic of citrus fruits. These colors are also opposite of blue, which fills the negative spaces of the rest of the drawing. There are two waterdrop-like forms with pointy yellow petals in them coming from the left and right sides of the picture and penetrating the space between the two main mandalic forms. This adds yet another dimension to the conflict felt in the artwork.

As a whole, I don’t think crowded conflict is bad, as oppositional forces can often be turned into creative ventures. I also don’t think growth can occur in conflict-free situations. While I don’t consciously seek conflict out, I realized my unconscious mind was communicating tension and conflict in this illustration after I finished it and started working on it digitally. Synchronistically, I was at Lowe’s today, and saw a large quote painted on the wall in the back of the store stating “safety is when nothing happens.”

I was surprised to see such a quote in a large corporate chain warehouse store such as Lowe’s. I would have thought that they’d be so regulated by our fear mongering totalitarian government that they’d say something like “see something, say something,” meaning, tell the government if you see someone acting weird. It was refreshing to see Lowe’s promoting an idea that was easily the mindset the founding fathers of the US had when they wrote out their revolutionary writings.

So you have the hot and the cool expressed in this image, surrounded by a dark frame. Beyond the frame are other worlds, and other universes. It looks like you could hop over the frame anyways, as the darker shadowy parts appear to be receding, rather than moving towards you. Enjoy the viscous sliding of churning organic shapes and figures lovingly resisting and accepting one another in a symmetrical moment in time.

Note that the word Exoculation is an obsolete word. It meant the act of putting out the eyes. That’s not the meaning I intended for this picture however. As I already wrote above, the externalized eyes are symbolic of a non-physical self observing one’s self interacting with another in a physical state.

There are many ideas that associate and connect with this drawing. Off the top of my hair follicles, the first one that comes to mind is how it can remind one of the ancient Egyptian gods Aton, Amon, Heliopolis, and Ra; Aton’s rays of light are depicted as hands in reliefs found representing him in various buildings, pyramids, and temples in Egypt. The colors yellow and orange consume most of this picture, with yellow being even more dominant than the orange. Friendship and warmth are obviously associated with sunlight. Eggs are yellow; mustard is yellow; bananas are yellow; and some gold fish are yellow. I made the center of interest with an eye surrounded by a sun-egg-like globe, fish fins coming out of the corners of the eye, and an egg white spreading out, as it does, when cracked open on to a frying pan.

The outstretched and open hands are symbols of provision. In other words, the hand is what we learn at a very young age that provides for us by our parents. Light from the sun provides energy for plants so that they can grow and produce flowers, vegetation, vegetables, and fruit. I put loops around the sun-like center so as to indicate solar flares and coronal mass ejections that occur on our sun in our solar system. Basically, this image is a gallimaufry of symbolic color and form associations. I’m hoping that they’re allegorical enough that some harmony can be felt even amongst the surreality that they provoke. Even the joints in the arms extending out from the eye beholden center represent how I imagine quanta, or quantum particles to be. In summary, quanta are bundles of energy that scientists like to give all kinds of futuristic names like bosons, photons, and electrons.

I have been thinking of light as mostly expressed in wave-form, though it can be expressed in particle form as well. Hence the term wavicle. What the hell is a wavicle except for some fancy illusion concocted by our mostly unconscious minds? There’s a concept that I learned while reading Robert Monroe’s out-of-body trilogy. He discusses that, simply put, where you focus your attention is what you’ll create, or bring to fruition. He’s saying that we alter our reality by what we focus on with our consciousness. This ties in with the new age cliche, penned by Jane Roberts, her husband Robert F. Butts, and their channeled entity Seth, that “you create your own reality.”

I had struggled to understand this concept so often throughout my years of observation and research, but I get glimmers of how it functions every now and then. It has a lot to do with feelings and emotions, those vast and broad invisible spectrums of human experience. The physicist Tom Campbell describes our universe, in his theory of everything, as going latent into pure wave form when it’s not observed by intelligent consciousness (i.e., human consciousness) in order to conserve energy; but then it switches to particle and physical form when it’s observed by human consciousness. This idea approximates with Robert Monroe’s and Jane Roberts’ ideas that physical reality is created and sustained by consciousness.

So, to me, it makes sense that light bundles up into units of energy called quanta when we focus on something or other. Points of consciousness, then, can be formed into a matrix of physicality, and, ultimately, composing, theoretically, our entire universe… as we know it at least. This brings me, once again, to notions, rituals, and beliefs found in religion. Prayer, for example, is a focusing of attention on to desired results. Churches, synagogues, mosques, and other temples of worship are even more extensive and committed expressions of focusing consciousness. They are intended to bring together and house many people for certain rituals, prayers, and worship, thus bringing about higher states of consciousness for a community, or even the entire world. I suppose everlasting peace is the highest and longest term goal that many of us as earthlings attempt to create, but much of our world is created by human ego, which is mostly interested in keeping games of unforgiveness in their myriad and infinite forms going.

My title for this piece is Be Held, and Forgive. Be held in the warmth of light and love by a higher source of consciousness, and forgive, then, anyone who you feel has betrayed you, hurt you, or caused you grief. It is only in giving that you will receive anything. Giving and receiving are truly a two-way street, though most of this world seems to be devised contrary to that notion. Nevertheless, it is only with an open, healed heart that you can come around to creating again what you once had, what you lost and thought you could never regain. It can be yours again. But in my experience, it takes a lot of work to introspect and heal wounds that happened, or that you imagined happening, from the past.

This piece reminds me of a bow (as in a bow and arrow) flexing as its string is pulled back with an arrow ready to be flung by the string. I imagined that the bow is being flexed over the bow of a ship, as the waves from the water below ripple, rise, and fall. Waves are sources of power, whether if they’re from water, light, or sound. Many of these sources of power are latent in this time period of the “fire wagon.”

It is part of my Micro-Chimerisms series. I wanted to play around with pieces and parts composing my mosaic drawings by making them with color instead of just the usual black ball-point pen designs. I accomplished that goal in this particular drawing by using felt-tipped pens with both magic markers, and water-based markers.

The green and blue swaths and waves that compose the background in this image dominate the eye’s view as you look at it from afar. And when you walk up closer—or zoom in closer—you can see the intricate details of what I call the flexing bow. It is composed of both my usual black ball-point pen mosaic designs, as well as the added color schemed designs.

Many of the shapes and colors repeat themselves, thus encouraging a sense of regularity, harmony, and uniformity. A sense of cooperation can be felt in this work as the bow’s upper limb stretches back for another arrow to be flung out into a sky of dreams. Perhaps the circular structures at the center of the bow’s limb look like eyes. This can be seen as a sort of self-reflection—a self awareness—as one feels the stretching of limbs and muscles in the morning time, getting ready to face the day with peace and calm.

This idea had been lingering around in my head for a while now. It’s a satirical characterization of the current corrupted state of the western world’s centralized financial institutions and government. It centers on highlighting the relationship of the banksters composing the network of fraudulence at Goldman Sachs and their puppet show in Washington politicians.

It is well-known that the US government and banking system has been converged so that the edifices of power can retain that power by any means necessary. Often times those means are deceptive, if not all the time. One of the mechanisms of deception our puppets and financiers in Washington use is the “revolving door policy.” This essentially means that top officials in office never really go back to “normal life” as prescribed for politicians by the founding fathers of the US. They just revolve through the doors of deception and perception in and out of the White House of mirrors so as to make it appear that they go back to “normal life.”

It is said that once a person gets a taste of power, they never want to give it up, and, if they have to give it up, then they will do anything to get it back. So people in politics and finance never leave office or positions of authority. They just revolve through different states of fraudulence. While Jim Cramer may not be a figure who revolves through the doors of Goldman Sachs and Washington, his image reminded me of Lloyd Blankfein, a CEO of Goldman Sachs. They both have balding heads, and both have that flimsy  fang-hiding financial grin.

The fact that banks invent debt out of thin air in order to financially enslave millions of people across the world to them, I found the symbol of a balloon to be quite applicable to them. They try to expand economic growth with debt, not realizing that a more mercurial concept called economic confidence, is what actually stimulates economic growth. I don’t want to get into the details of these factors because their ramifications go on and on.

I thought of putting a suit around a balloon so that its head expands out from the neck of the suit’s shirt, thus making the suit float from the helium in the balloon. I thought of making several of these suited balloon bankster-politician dolls, and attaching them to a rotisserie type machine that would revolve. This idea would be part of a bigger idea in which they would be displayed in a museum of natural deception, politics, and satire.

The pant legs and shoes of these precarious jokers and liars are getting all dangled up as they revolve, thus symbolizing their increasing inability to walk on ground and have normal relationships with real people anymore.

It seems counter-intuitive, if not downright against the habits of nature, for a moth to be fleeing a source of light, doesn’t it? So obviously there’s a twisted story to be told here. Indeed. Well, this picture is symbolic of a very significant and rare event in time. Before I get to what the meaning of this image is, I’d like to explore the elements, materials, and colors that compose it.

First of all, the moth is a generic image I found on the internet. It’s specifically a Death’s-head hawkmoth. Its Latin name is Archerontia atropos. For my medical field studies, I learned that the two part names of smaller organisms start with a capital letter for the first name, and the second name starts with a lower-case letter. Why this is particular, I don’t know, but it is a habit professionals in the life sciences adhere to.

Archerontia atropos is the moth that is used on the cover of the movie for Silence of the Lambs that covers Jodi Foster’s lips. The name Archerontia is derived from Archeron, the River of Pain in the Underworld of Greek mythology. Vincent Van Gogh painted a painting of this moth once in his rich, vibrant style. Perhaps he unconsciously felt death lurking around the corner of his life at that point when he painted it. Yet, this is such a beautiful moth, and I’m sure its population is hardly aware of this idiosyncratic tendency of humans to be superstitious of it, and to apply all kinds of neurotic meanings to it as it partakes gleefully in the flight of life.

Nevertheless, Atropos is the Fate in Greek mythology—one of three called the Moirai—who is responsible for cutting the thread of life for an individual at the destined time apportioned for him or her. The root word in Atropos, tropo, means “turn,” “reaction, response,” and “change.” So, literally, atropos means turning away. (On another note, entropy literally means to “turn within.”) It turns out that this word is quite convenient to this image, as the moth turns from the light, and dives into a state of uncertainty. Shortly, shall I explain, but first…

The colors yellow and purple are the predominant colors composing the plane of this picture, with purple overwhelming the yellow. Purple is sometimes associated with paranoia, and other times associated with royalty. The yellow on the wings of the moth is a native color to it, and the purple background is often depicted in storytelling art with nighttime. You vaguely see the words “opponent,” “question,” and “argue” inculcated over the upper right side of the moth as it descends downward to the lower left side of the picture. I thought these words to be fitting for the theme because they are relevant to doubting a source of authority that has a bad habit of deceiving and abusing its power.

And there you have it. I just gave it away… the symbolism, and the story, that is. The moth is fed up with the lies, abuse, and corruption of a light that it was once drawn to. And that is why it is a significant anomaly of nature. It gives visual meaning, in a symbolic way, of people around the world rising up against their corrupted governments. From Europe to Asia, people have had enough of the oppression and corruption their leaders rule them with. We are entering a period of civil unrest, and it is time for all the moths to fly away from the false, flashing, deceptive lights of their masters, leaders, and twisted politicians, and their heartless greed ruled banking financiers at Goldman Sachs.

References:

Natural History Museum. (2015). Archerontia atropos (death’s-head hawkmoth). Webpage retrieved from: http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/species-of-the-day/evolution/acherontia-atropos/

Addendum:

Some people thought of the moth in this picture as a fruit fly. It’s political of course. I felt it necessary to react to it in an insightful way, even though insight found outside of certain 20th century reality boxes is something that will have to wait till future lifetimes.

While I don’t fully identify as the standardized stereotype of “liberal” in my politics–especially the boring, unchanging mantra conservatives try to frame their straw man version of “liberalism” to try to get reactions out of people. Nevertheless, it is seen that liberals are perpetually angry, unhappy, hiding in the dark, and trolling 20th century conservatives online relentlessly and anonymously.

I must say that many left and right politicians and talk show hosts are the tried and true managers of societal thought. Much of their ideology has long been habituated by the governmental and economic patterns of the 20th century, from world war two onward. These patterns of sleepwalking have come to an end, and many elites in government, politics, and economics know it, but can’t handle it, so they cling ever more tightly to their unworkable ideologies, thus making themselves more extreme in the process, and thus pointing the finger of blame anywhere else but themselves.

Part of the ideology that is tied to 20th century American thought (if you could call it that) is Christianity. I’m not into bashing, suppressing, or destroying any religion, including Christianity. I use it here, however, as a reference to the symbolism in this image, and also because I was raised as a Christian.

Light and darkness are understood in common standard ways as taught in American culture. Light is good, and darkness is evil. It should be noted that many people in academics do not believe in, or take the time to study religions, as the atheistic belief system comes down to humans being the result of hard matter, billiard ball-type DNA randomly assimilating together to produce the wonders and mysteries of life, including human intelligence. The intent of this addendum is not to address the laughable inconsistencies found in materialism and atheism however.

This is a work of art, so, naturally, there is a lot of symbolism, meaning, and psychology involved in it–if not politics as well. When dealing with subconscious material as an advocate for the sciences, one has to accept the more “primitive,” speculative, and “superstitious” aspects of the rich material that can be found therein.

And so I come to the point. Biblically, in Christian lore and mythology, Satan was the brightest, most beautiful, angel in heaven before he was cast out by God because he would not bow to man as God commanded him to do. It is this myth, so succinctly inculcated in the average western mind, that has created the confusion in reference to my illustrative story of a moth fleeing from a light that has been corrupted.

In a sense, I turned the myth of Satan falling from the heavens on its head, and made it seem like God is the one now to be questioned. While I’m not questioning the existence or nonexistence, the goodness or badness, of God with this image per se, I am shedding a light on the institutions that have used and abused the powerful belief in God as a means to obtain power over others through corrupted, oppressive, and abusive means. I mean, the full gamut of evil as outlined in the Bible has been committed in the name of humanitarianism, helping the poor, government, and Christianity, and so forth, by people in power.

I see politicians in government as the topmost perpetrators of the evils listed above and more. Since we are at the end of a public wave in economic confidence, as defined by Martin Armstrong, the economist, the habits, patterns, and identities have been formed around this basic foundation of civilization. In my curiosity about what a “public wave in confidence” means to me, I have seen more and more in my surroundings how the general attitudes of people formed in it are most trusting, safe, and secure in governmental institutions.

Because we are transitioning over to a collective confidence in private enterprises, we are seeing the old institutions crumble right before our eyes. From fifty and hundred year old railway systems in the US creating accidents more often, to perpetually failing wars half way around the planet that debt enslaved populaces can no longer fund, governments and politicians are increasingly losing the faith and confidence the people once had in their empty visions and promises.

Politicians in office are very keen on this shifting perception from peoples’ faith in their lies over to faith in more private enterprises that show promise for our rapidly advancing technological future. This is why Washington is finding every way it possibly can to extract more taxation from people. Armstrong has been blogging that the desire of elites in power is to shift from paper dollar currency to digital currency. That way all money can be tracked and taxed everywhere.

The moth in this image symbolically represents the people of the world collectively shifting their confidence in government away from government to other sources of security, safety, protection, work, trust, and much more. Need I point out to you the plethora of instances where police just kill people in broad daylight with no consequences? Need I point out to you the justice system that no longer works for the people, but only itself and its government employees? Need I point out to you the false “freedom, democracy,” and “capitalism” propagandists on right wing radio frantically trying every trick in the book to prevent the growing realization that our police forces are becoming militarized into police state units, while also trying to maintain the helpful, innocent, Norman Rockwell image of a policeman?

So, as I started out the blog for this image, it seems counter-intuitive that the moth would be fleeing the light, instead of going towards it, and mindlessly, endlessly circling it like moths normally do. In order to break a pattern that no longer serves one’s needs, one must face fear and uncertainty. Otherwise the crumbling institutions that once were safe will drag one along into an escapeless vortex of their own demise.

The US government is at an apex of power right now before it starts collapsing this October. That means politicians will do anything to cling to power, and when the crash starts escalating more, their attempts to retain their power will become increasingly more monstrous, totalitarian, and fascist. And that is why I liken politicians to Satan. They absolutely must use every deceptive means possible to maintain illusions of safety, security, and protection in the peoples’ minds, while abusing, stealing, killing, and oppressing them at the same time.

I interpret government, presently, as associated with God in the collective unconscious mind. So much terminology in government and the language of law involve religious terms such as: “In God we trust (found on the dollar bill),” the word “federal” means “covenant between God and man,” and the word “government” itself means to steer, be at the helm of, to govern, to rule. To govern and rule sounds like the job of God, which is, again, a religious understanding. There is no way a human or human organization could ever be as powerful as God, as we understand this concept, yet we worship our politicians presently as rock stars who can do no wrong. This perception has come to an end; and, hence my image The Flight From Corrupted Light.

For an image previous to the creation of this one, I titled Opening. It is titled Opening for the obvious reason of the text you see at the upper right hand corner of this picture. This one is titled Close Opening however. This is because it is a closer selection of an area I wanted to focus in on and embellish from Opening.

The foundation drawing that Opening and Close Opening came from is Wrecked Tangles (After the Crash) A1. To refresh you on my After the Crash series, it is a continuation on the Wrecked Tangles theme, which started in 2011 with my Wrecked Tangles (Encircled) series. Like the Encircled series, the After the Crash series are grouped alphabetically. Visit my Art of eVan Facebook page to look at what I have completed for the Encircled series.

Wrecked Tangles (After the Crash) is meant to give structure and meaning for after the economic fall that is due in the United States soon. I have been a reader of Martin Armstrong’s economic forecasting blog for about three years now, and his analyses of capital flows is top notch quality. I recommend following his work for further insight into how he has found a way to measure economic cycles and their inevitable and unalterable patterns. Currently, we are in a stage where we are on the precipice of collapse here in Western countries. The collapse that is due to begin will start at the end of October, 2015, according to Armstrong.

We are at the end stage of a cycle here in the Western world. This does not mean the end of the world, but its effects can be seen in the basic breakdown of the institutions of our society. What I’m doing with the Wrecked Tangles (After the Crash) series is giving an abstract and artistic catalog to the various stages of collapse, entropy, and change that have befallen us all.

The stressed, weathered, and punched out text, objects, shapes, and colors are supposed to communicate things that are old, worn out, forgotten, and thrown away. My intent is to inspire people to not throw their junk and trash away, but, first, to try and come up with creative ways to re-use them—even artistically. Many artists turn junk and trash into art nowadays anyways. Why not explore this trend?

I just am not satisfied with the results I’d obtained from the After the Crash A series so far. Even the foundation drawing irritates me. It just was not compositionally ordered well enough. This may come as a surprise to you, since it obviously looks like I revel in the chaos of entropy, splatters, near-spastic hatch-marks, and so forth. While this is true, I invite you to also consider the subtle order that can be found in chaos if you look for it. That’s really what artists do anyways—look for orders, patterns, and ideas not considered before.

Chaos is not an absolute state, just like order isn’t. It’s merely a polarity to order. There are so many stages of change within the continuum of chaos and order, but, ultimately, I believe there is a hidden order even in the most chaotic of patterns. Mathematicians, for example, have found patterns in white noise. Perhaps there is a teleology to the rhythm of the universe after all, and my Wrecked Tangles series provide a visual eschatology for this current, and minute end stage to a cycle we are in within a grander scheme.

How many ways can you say something usual differently? There’s a term called tautology that generally means redundancy or saying the same thing too many times. When you get to a certain level of perception, you start seeing all the interrelated patterns and how everything is truly interconnected. The patterns you see repeat themselves ad infinitum.

This evening, I revisited the first images I made from my Wrecked Tangles (Encircled) series. When I started this series back in 2011, I ordered each group alphabetically. So there was the Wrecked Tangles (Encircled) A series, B series, C series, and so forth. This image, titled Swing, I just worked on tonight. The material I used to make it came from the Wrecked Tangles (Encircled) A series. It is a new addition to the series.

For those of you who don’t know what my Wrecked Tangles series are all about, I’ll explain briefly here. First of all, it’s a play on words—that is, wrecked tangles played upon the word “rectangles.” The word “encircled” means I sometimes employ the usage of circles with the predominately rectangular shapes that compose the series. I’m trying to give a colorful expression to rectangular shapes and objects in various stages of entropy through abstract designs.

I wanted to use the most basic shapes for a very extensive art project. This project would mostly be done online through an online or virtual gallery. So really, Wrecked Tangles is a sort of tautology, but the expressions are visual instead of verbal.

The first drawing I produced for the A series was a good start for the direction I wanted to take the project in. The very first drawing I produced for the project didn’t include the cut-out material, nor the block letter text I later started employing. I feel that my drawings got too confined, and less entropic—not more—within the rectangular patterns I subsequently created after the A series. It’s like the entropic process occurred in reverse with this project; a result I had not intended.

Swing is the title, as I mentioned, of this image. The founding drawing consists of pastel on paper. Quite simple really. And that is good. While it can be fun to experiment with a multitude of mediums, I think it’s better to keep to simpler patterns, mediums, colors, and media for a series. It’s titled Swing because it looks like a hammer that’s swung around a fulcrum. Perhaps it’s a human powered fulcrum that’s swinging the hammer, while appearing as if there are four hammers from the motion of the swing.

It is a colorful cry for labor, as computers, robots, and artificial intelligence replace human labor in the 21st century. It’s a symbolic gesture of man destroying his own labor by creating detached, soulless labor to replace himself through mechanisms, programs, and automatons. The process of entropy doesn’t happen solely by natural means, nor exclusively by traditionally humanly destructive means, but by abstract and “intelligent” means as well.

The inspiration for this piece has several sources. One idea that is integrated in it is the idea of the fractal universe. Most people have seen fractal designs and understand the concept behind it—that is, the idea that there really is no end to how big or small a perception can penetrate the universe.

Another idea that is integrated into this piece is the repetition and continuity of life. Life replicates itself, whether if it’s at the cellular level, or the animal and human level. I often work out repetitive designs in my work, such as this piece, as a response to mimicking and appreciating nature. I feel that an artist’s abstract designs can be imagined as just as alive as a living organism. In fact, I’d be so bold as to say that the entire universe is alive, not to mention the subatomic particles composing it.

The next concomitant idea that is integrated into this piece is the similarity to quilt patterns that it has. My grandmother and her sister used to make quilts and patterns for quilts as I remember when I lived on the family farm in Nebraska. I often marveled at how similar these patterns were to some mosaic art. As you know, one of my main sources of inspiration is mosaic art. So, my inspiration with mosaics and quilt patterns nicely dovetailed together, resulting in what you see here at this point in my development of them.

The last idea that I can think of in the completion of this piece is the title. I have been fascinated with the world and the ideas of the 20th century science fiction writer, Philip K. Dick, for a while now. One of the books he wrote was titled “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” The first time I’d heard that title, I just thought it was so damn far out that it practically snapped me in that direction for a few moments of wonder.

I often try to think of different ways to say cliches, or common sayings, so as to put a twinge of interest on the otherwise irritating boredom that they provoke. Well, I didn’t want to necessarily just reword the title of Dick’s book for the title of my image. I did like the notion of asking a question with a title however. So, for a growing, living universe, including the economic and manufacturing activities of humans, I decided to associate the universe with the idea of fields. Fields often look like quilts to me, and I imagined the beautiful patterns on quilts being so potent with creativity that they would be able to manufacture textile factories, which, in turn, would also manufacture quilts.