31 January 2012

Coffee in the Morning, Wine after Five


I'm doing some work on the computer for a card deck. Creating drafts for the back image, trying to come up with several different compositions. Just made this this morning, I think its great, but it might not make the cut. The artist who is in charge of the card deck is in love with the four-point circles I've been painting for the last two years, not the classic 6-point flower of life symbol you see so often. Might I add this is my mom I work for, so we get to steal each others idea and fads. The deck is called "Magical Times," its good I get to make images for work that is as cheesy as me!

28 January 2012

CymaArt

Wow. On trying to go to my own page, I accidentally (inevitably?) stumbled onto this site. They are just as geeky as I am when it comes to the study of sound as a visual. I call my web page cymaticsart art, they call it the abbreviated version.

A little run-down on Cymatics is also within the tab labeled "Inspiration" at the top of the page. There I describe that "The title 'Cymatics' is a study that combines different frequencies with liquid or powders to create a form or image, thus creating a visual display of sound." I also have extra links to more articles and videos if you interested in learning more.

The website that I found today has Cymatic Images of the Chakra frequencies and the different Brain wave frequencies. Cool stuff if you ask me!


Go there, its awesome!




These three images are created by (my guess) placing fluid in a round object, then playing the frequency of the corilating chakra. Blue/throat/384, yellow/diaphragm/315, and violet/Crown/480, and them shining light through it and photographing the image. I'm sure they used photoshop to change the color or tone of the image to be the color of the chakra represented.

In the website you can also see images for the brain frequencies beta, delta, alpha, and theta. All of these experiments can be seen as a scientific experiment. There are measurable constants that are followed to discover these results. If your having a hard time understanding, it's okay. It is what it is, just enjoy the image.


23 January 2012

Colorado Aspens

4'x4' Acrylic on Canvas:


...Sometimes things leave a mark.


I probably could have found a better suited song, but during the trip that this was inspired from- this song became something that I played on repeat for quite some time.

I never saw myself as an emotional artist, but maybe emotion just comes with the territory of growing up. I'm finding it hard to talk about this piece because the backbone is 3 months of personal struggle. As the days grew darker, so did the picture. At one point I became to afraid to do anything else to the picture thinking I would ruin it if I did. Then something happened. I stopped worrying about it. I realized that life isn't so serious, and who cares if I mess it up? Its just a picture.

I've overcome many obstacles this last three months. And this picture is a reflection of all of it. I know some people may think "but its just a landscape?" That's the funny thing about art, it never is just that.

What I've learned is:

Realize there is no point
Laugh at your ego
Live in the moment
Love yourself and others
Do what makes you happy

Thank you again Wesley and Shana for this trip- I had a lot of fun in Aspen driving through the mountains. It left this imprinted in my head, and I was finally able to finish it the way I wanted!


Fantasia Remix

18 January 2012

Snowdays in Paradise

Its mid January and for the first time this winter we've seen snow! (minus my adventure on 11/11/11) And not just some flakes here and there, but blizzard status snow that's buried our house in a foot of powdery bliss. Makes me remember how much I love this stuff.

Its been a while since I've really been a ski bum, had to quite that shit after high school. But anytime I watch a video like this I start to get an itch to go back.



09 January 2012

Ode to the Dance Floor

I've been going to festivals since I was 14. It started with Reggae on the River for 3 years, then Northwest Reggae the following. By the time I was living in Canada, I made it out to a magical place in Nelson called Shambhala. The Next year I went to 3 more festivals including Shambhala and Soundwave. I then was only able to make it to Soundwave the next year, and in 2011 I made it to none. It was a sad time, especially during the weekend of Basscoast. I spent the whole weekend in discontent looking up towards the Canadian mountains from my house on a hill with the feeling I wasn't where I was supposed to be. But as time passes all you can do is let it go.

Still, because of these many experiences, I will forever be changed. There is a whole universe to be discovered along the west coast of communities of people that come together on a selected weekend of the year. Since then, I've felt unconditional love.

There really is nothing else out there quite like it.


There is many people I know and love in this video, they are all more wonderful then you could ever imagine.

08 January 2012

Free Hand Mandala Drawing of Dragons


I know that not everybody believes in reincarnation, but I'm pretty sure that in my last life I was a Buddhist sand mandala painter. I had been getting a sneaking suspicion that I was Asian, but I couldn't tell where, when, or what. The signs were everywhere. When I was born I couldn't pronounce my 'L's, they instead came out as 'R's which eventually forced me to change my name from Lily to Sky. As a little kid my mom would chant along with her Tibetan bowls, while she did this I would try to approach without being herd and crawl into her lap cross legged. There I would sit in silence while she did her ritual. Around my teens I adopted my signature clouds that appear in almost every picture I made, which is very reminiscent of the clouds found in Japanese landscape paintings. As time goes on, I've accumulated many trinkets that are part of Asian culture, leaving my living space as a life sized shrine. One of my favorites is a carved green jade necklace I bought in China Town in Vancouver BC of a Dragon and a Phoenix intertwined. Some people wear crosses, other people wear crystals.

Having been born in 88, I identify myself with the Dragon proudly. Now, in 2012, as we approach the Chinese New Year I anxiously await to see what crazy adventures it will bring. On January first as a pranced around the streets of Vancouver with a most beloved friend, I stumbled across my favorite magazine, Common Ground. This months title being "Year of the Dragon." Once I had arrived back home and settled in, I opened the magazine to figure out what wisdom I could find, this is what I read;

On January 23rd, 2012, we move out of the Chinese Year of the Rabbit into the prosperous and fertile Year of the Dragon. Dragons represent potent and benevolent power as the ultimate ruler of all the elements, embodying primordial power as a catalyst for change and transformation, wisdom, infinity, longevity, and movement through space.
It is critical that we adopt our way of living to eliminate out-of-date practices that hinder the brilliant future of our planet, our Galaxy and the entire universe. Research undertaken by cosmologist and inventor Nassim Haramein has created a "Unified Field Theory." (I have posted the video below) This information can change our lives on earth dramatically, as it unlocks deep levels of understanding of human existence through an exploration of the geometric structure of the universe and human consciousness.
The unified field is the space we occupy. No matter how big or small, all matter we observe is made of atoms and all atoms are of 99.99999999% space. Physicists use math to describe the universe and the nature of relativity through the language of equations. We can improve our understanding of the fundamentals of our universe when we understand the geometry of the fabric of the vacuum and the dynamics of space-time within that structure.
This is a critical period of our evolution where we can come into coherency and harmony with nature instead of destroying our environment as we interact with it and transform our society from scarcity consciousness to abundance.
We live in the perfect organization of a holographic and non-linear fractal universe structure. We are a reflection of the abundance of mother earth; like her , we are self sustaining. The anxiety we feel as human race is a direct result of the stress of living within the confines of a box of a closed system. Stress can be better defined as the misinterpretation and misrepresentation of misinformation and acceptance of living within the confines of a mistaken identity as limited beings confined within a limited structure. There are no closed systems in nature. What appears to be an isolated system is actually connected to an infinite potential of the entire universe.
Our society, as a whole, tends to embrace looking out-side of ourselves for answers, based on expansion and radiation instead of contraction - exploding fuel-filled rockets instead of floating hot air balloons.
The Year of the Dragon is a perfect opportunity to break out of the box in our search for creative solutions by going towards the center and using our intuition to find answers from within. We are invincible if we harness our collective power to command our energies toward the inevitability of a peaceful harmonious existence, through breakthroughs in enlightenment rather then disaster.
When most people read articles, I'm sure they take in the words for what they are. But the morning that I read this an image flashed into my head. A mandala to be more precise. I've painted two Mandalas in my life. One of the painting I still have, the other was given away to two wonderful friends for their wedding. Both contained the Shri Yantra. I never got to document the one I gave away, but I do have this picture as evidence.


This time the Mandala I envisioned did not contain the Shri Yantra, but instead the Cuboctahedron, with four dragons in each corner to represent the four elements/directions. Now, I know that in the last month I posted this video a few times, but if you have not seem it, now is the time. This is the video Nassim Haramein made about his "Unified Field Theory," and it has been influencing me this whole year. I've always had a love for geometry, but this video is what justified my obsession.

Nassim Haramein - Black Whole from Milo on Vimeo.
If you want to skip forward to the geometrics, start the video from 51 mins in. When I was 13, I drew the star tetrahedron inside seven consecutive circles, the "seed of life." I had to wait until I was 18 to get this tattooed on my back. 8 of these star tetrahedrons combined create a larger cubeoctahedron structure. When I watched this video, it defiantly blew my mind.

So when this image appeared in my head, I immediately put down the magazine and went a grabbed one pencil, an eraser and a stack of cheap paper. From there, I sat at my kitchen counter, and free handed this:


Later that night I enlarged the image on a photocopier. From there I traced the image on a light table with a black extra fine rolling ball pen. No rulers, no measuring, just a really steady hand and a good eye. This was what it looked liked:


I then took the liberty to fill in some details:


So today I spent my time typing this, and trying to color the image. I havn't really moved from the kitchen counter in 10 hours. My first love was Primsacolor pencils, I think they still might be. For most people, they don't have the patience to deal with color pencils. It takes a long time to slowly shade all the colors together and complete an area. I love it. I don't care for the instant gratification that painting brings, big brushes and paint strokes seem sporadic and sloppily done. There is a type of controlled perfection that comes with a well done color pencil drawing, its just the way I am. And this is what you can do with it if you have the patience:




Now that you've seen the result, lets go back to the beginning. I think in my last life I was a Buddhist Sand Mandala Painter. All the pieces make sense, the obsession with these images, my urge to paint them repeatedly, and the ability to gracefully create them without the use of measuring tools. I know that this isn't something I can put on my resume, and I'm sure very few people really even care. But the fact that I can spend my time being happy to create something that bring joy and fulfillment to my life is a unique gift that only artists have. And I use the tern artist loosely to encompass anyone that has the urge to make something. Whether it be cooking, writing, singing, doodling, building, anything! I urge every single person to find something that fills their heart with something golden, because now is better then ever to make yourself happy.

02 January 2012

The Land Between the Tides

SUBCORR - xxx (Forthcoming 10Pin) by SUBCORR

Images for New Years Eve "Warriors of Time"


First off, I want to give a shout out to all the incredible people I know. And when I say incredible, I mean down right awesome-ass-kickin-glamtastic-warrior-bitches that know how to do it up right. You know who you are, and you've earned the level of cool that you possess. Well fucking done.

I say this because only incredible people can take a rock climbing facility that is under full construction, and transform it into an amazing party within a day and a half. Big speakers, lights, burlesque, belly dancers, couches, blow up mattresses, decorations, and crazy costumes galore! There was no lack of creativity to speak of. Every party gets better and better because everybody is trying to one-up themselves. A suggestion I have to anyone who's listening; if you ever get the chance to help set up for these kinds of parties, do it. I understand the excitement of showing up late to an event that is in full force and being blown away with surprise. But its something else entirely to be part of the creation. After having helped set-up a small handful of shows, I think I enjoy the set-up more then the party.

But that is not to say that the party wasn't amazing. The reason I go to these again and again is to recreate the feeling of falling away into the abyss. The lights are dark, the sound is so loud it rattles your skull, and when you close your eyes your thoughts finally cease. Everyone has their own reason for going to these parties, but mine is that. In normal everyday activity my thoughts play tag with each other until I fall asleep, when the dark of the night shines light on my dreams which I then confuse for reality when I wake up. And on and on it goes. That's why I crave a good dance floor, its therapeutic and an investment for my sanity.

Plus, I get to parade around in a white and black polka-dot dress posing as a Glamazon Warrior listening to all different types of grimy-tribal-electronic music. How fantastic and utterly fun. So thank you everybody for continually blowing my mind, your taste is incredible and you made it such a fun way to spend New Years.