New Halation Horizons

The Old House in San Francisco circa 2001

This is the view overlooking my house in San Francisco from 1996-2001 with tons of my art hanging outside on the walls.

I remember thinking I should have painted something for the roof, but in reality, I had nothing that big to put up there. That took 'til moving to Oakland when I moved into the breathingSpace and made Claming Space from the 2003 gallery.

Much Love and Repect Hillary T-Shirts

Everybody kept talking about it. Hillary has to stop. Why is she still running? Come on girl, give it up.

I've been a big Obama supporter since I read his first book after seeing him at the Democratic Convention.

The reason I have always been into politics is because of my Mom. I still remember the night Carter lost to Reagan in 1980 because my Mom's birthday party was on election day that year.

The line was electric a year ago when I told her the depth of my support for Barack Obama.

She explained her support of Hillary as this:
Her entire Modus Operandi in politics has been about supporting the equality of women.
Hillary is so much the fruition of so many woman over so many years.

Any Obama lovers who want to hate on Hillary, aren't really getting the message.
I for one am proud that she played hard as long as she could. She played til the end.

Some will say she played a dirty game, I say she played well.

Much love and respect Hillary. Thanks for playing hard.
Thanks for representing.

In honor of my Moms... I made some thank you Hillary, much love and respect T-shirts.
Check 'em out.

Color is relative: video: halation explained

The Painting "Pascal"

All this time, I thought he was "Pascal". With an "S", not Pacal. I was wrong.

I named this painting after the Mayan emperor Pacal whose tomb inscription read to me like layers in my artwork. Turns out, somewhere along the line, I dropped in an "S".

When Eric and Andy got the painting "Pascal" they asked if I would send them a little something about the piece; an artist's interpretation, or comment on the work.

Now that they have returned from a year trip around the world, and are about to have a baby, ahem.... yes it has been years, I thought it might be time to finally deliver the goods.

The first thing to report is that the painting was meant to be called Pacal. Now that it's been years, I suppose the purple figure with his arms outstretched (who's namesake is the painting) will continue to be called "Pascal", as will the painting:
************The Painting Pascal******************

The painting Pascal was one of the first I did using the concept of pouring plastic resins, most commonly used for making sculpture, onto canvases into shapes outlined by caulking. The technique of using caulking to shape an image in plastic on canvas, to my knowledge, is still original.

The first layers of Pascal were lots of my own glyphs done in pen. Each layer of the painting is building up to the creation of Pascal, the figure. Each layer of abstraction is "striving for identity of self" as we all are when we are in the process of attaining consciousness.

Pascal is on a journey; a journey into new worlds of the unexpected where he will encounter new beings and new experiences. Some will challenge him and he will grow, others will validate his passion for his existence.

In the painting, his full sense of intuition, seems to extend out like a cone from his third eye. His intuitive center is clear and beaming. That lighter shade of purple inside his head that looks like a reflection is made of pearlescent pigment powder that I sprinkled onto the plastic resin as it was drying. The pearlescent powder extends down his spinal column. At his root chakra, again we find clarity and light.

The figure's arms are outstretched, almost as if he is using his hands to control his direction. With eyes wide open to experience, and with a firm sense of being held by fate, Pascal has his hands on the controls of his choices. He is going to other worlds, other paradigms of existence where his intuition, root and power of choice will guide him.

My intention with this painting was to represent and honor the Mayan Emperor Pacal's powerful disposition towards his actively changing reality.
******************

And now that it's been years and Eric and Andy have returned and are embarking on a new journey. Transformation abounds.

Blessings to new life.

Gorillas and Halation

Pacal: The Mayan Emperor

I came came to grips with the image of Pacal's tomb when I arrived at my guesthouse on my stay at Tikal in Guatemala. The rooms were white clay pods and an American Vietnam veteran lived in the back spending his nights staring out through his telescope at the stars. Someone had drawn with a black pen, a perfect representation of Pacal's tomb on to the white clay wall of the pod I slept in.

As I fell asleep I would see the outline of Emperor Pacal, reclining but with his head forward, moving his arms, surrounded by magical forms and dancing symbology.

Tikal is one of the greatest jungle-pyramid worlds that one can visit. While I prefer the vastness of Angkor Wat, I was enraptured by the detail of information and glyphs that depicted the Mayan's deep understanding of life, science, and spirituality. Mayan astrology is interpretted here.

Pacal's tomb was discovered in Palenque (in Chiapas, Mexico) in 1952. The Emperor Pacal died on August 31, AD 683 at eighty years of age after ruling for 63 years. detail picture of Pacal's Tomb

Interpretations of what the figure of Pacal on his tomb meant have been helpful, for instance:

• In the Maya dialects, "bone" and "seed" are synonymous.
• The bone piercing Pacal's nose as the symbol of rebirth.
• The object depicted above Pacal is the Tree of Life from which he is said to be falling.

However, he is not falling.

He is no more moving than the universe around him is. The object below him that gets interpreted as the setting sun is escorting him. He embraces his fate. His arms navigate the changing complexity of his surroundings.

Falling asleep with the glyph of Pacal painted on the wall, I found the that the inscription on his tomb was not so much about death, but about the process of transformation, any transformation.

Softness into the Distance

Halation 2

Olive Wine

definition of halation

Halation 3

definition of halation

Halation 4

The same color matrix.

definition of halation

Halation 5

definition of halation

Halation 6

definition of halation

Color Magic: How many colors do you see?

I just completed Dick Nelson's color class and have had my sensibilities of color completely deconstructed. Nelson was a founder of Art Maui 30 years ago and is a former student of Josef Albers.

Try this exercise:
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This is a natural phenomenon of our eyes. The background, or context of a color, affects how we see it. What the evolutionary traits of this are, I have no idea, but we've learned in the class how a painter can use these phenomenon to create luminosity-- vibrancy among colors.

The homework in the previous exercise was to make 4 different colors look as if there were only 3. The effect is not based on any tricks, if anything it is simply the illusion created by the natural state of our eyes. Our eyes are constantly adjusting not just to the light in a room but as well to the variance of color.

Impressionist painters used a similar effect in their work.





These insights on color have profoundly affected my own work.

Halation

Meet two colors, we'll call them the parents.
On the left, Purple, on the right, Blue.



By mixing each color equally, we achieve the middle child.


By adding the middle child and creating an array you will see halation.

The middle color seems to vibrate a little. If you look longer, you will note that the middle swatch of color has a little of the purple on the right and a little blue on the left.

Here's a full array of different colors with equal steps of 5 children.





How do solid colors start to look a little 3 dimensional?
Where does this gradient come from?

The effect is counterintuitive. Each of the seven rectangles above contains a unique and solid block of color. Each square is a single color and yet each appears not to be.

It's beautiful.

The colors begin to vibrate beyond their individual recognition. They suddenly know about eachother and they become luminous.

This is called halation.

Halation, as an artistic term, is the spontaneous effect of the eyes spreading color beyond it's actual realm.

When you start to see the individual color swatches as gradients, you are seeing halation. It's a phenomenon of our eyes to find a vibrancy in specific placements of colors. In the examples above, the placement of each swatch was based on equal steps to parents. Halation also occurs between equal steps between hues of equal value

definition of halation

SOURCE maui

.: : . .Dehumidifier. . . .

I live in Hai'ku.

This is one of the wettest climates one can live in. We are in the jungle. We keep telling people that and they think we mean we live in trees.

Some out here do live in trees or dug into the side of a hill. But most of us, we have houses, regular homes with roofs, doors, and windows. We even have appliances. But we do live in the jungle.

I have a King bed, carpet, a gas kitchen, a back porch surrounded by green of every shade, a stream behind the house and a bathroom with two shower heads--- the house and the location are amazing.

Except it's dank. Everything is dank. In upcountry Maui, when you are on the hilltops, or perched somehow to receive sun, it all dries out in the daytime. But in Haiku, on Holokai Rd., it can rain for weeks and never get sun. We are in the valley-- better known as a gulch- where the earth resembles a digestive system, everything is decomposing.

If I leave the refrigerator open for a few minutes, water drips from the seams. Anything in the closet that doesn't get washed every week starts to get digested by tiny earthen filaments floating in from the jungle outside my windows. My favorite photographs of my birthday last year and my nieces are molding.

Yesterday, someone mentioned to me that their friend had gotten mold in their lungs. They had to move to Kihei where it's dry. My roommate Jessica works with Malik, one of the leading nutrition and Chinese medicine specialists, who told her when she moved in that she couldn't stay. As I went to bed, the smell of mold crept up from my sheets and pillows. I sprinkled an essential oil of pine on the bed and went to sleep determined to be done with this.

So today, I fixed the dryer upstairs and I bought a dehumidifier.

Everything is different.

The dehumidifier has been on since 4pm (8 hours) and I have emptied about 100 pints of water. My thumbs are bleeding from wrench and metal scratches from installing the dryer. Right now the dehumidifier is in the closet, shooting hot air through the dank clothes.

I am realizing how completely sensitive I am to my environment.

I have lived here for 11 months. I moved in when the rainy season was just ending. That is what I was told. Now, I am told that the rainy season is just beginning.

My questions are:

• Why haven't I gotten mold in my lungs? How would I know if I did?
  
• If I haven't, at what point is this all mind over matter?
  
• Why have I been fine for 11 months? Am I just running the dehumidifier out of fear?
• What else have I been neglecting?
  

I've looked for a dehumidifier on craigslist for 3 months, starting when my new housemates, Jen and Jessica, moved into the house upstairs, and we started a cleanse for a month. Today, I finally went to Lowes (much better than Home Depot) and purchased the remaining dryer component and the dehumidifier.

Plants sprouting mushrooms
My room has been dank for months
I live in Haiku

Personal Note: Work Play and Focus

I've got my restaurant work down to about 2 days a week. My new relationship to my job waiting tables is that it provides me a job that I do well, don't have to think about and I get to spend time with a bunch of people I really enjoy. (Nice to get out of the isolation of the studio).

The restaurant is Hali'imaile General Store which in my view is one of the best restaurants in Maui. An operating wing of the company is Celebrations Catering, one of the largest and best Maui caterers. They also cater weddings and special events.

I spent an amazing day yesterday in Hana with my roommates Jenn and Nyema. It was clearing, yet we had stayed up 'til 6 am the night before with 30 of our friends initiating our home with a great party and I was exhausted. Today I went to the waterfall with Rachel.

All the while, knowing I had soooo much work to do (My To Do List):

1. Finish commissioned artwork for New York client. 5' x 3' painting
2. Complete and post on youtube, video of Source (interactive arts festival in Maui)
3. Promote The Black Box. The latest version is finished and available as a DVD. I want edIT from the Glitch Mob to provide the soundtrack and as luck would have it, he is coming out to perform at the Source fun-raiser in two weeks. The Black Box (original version) is on the internet, however the current version is only on DVD for now.
   
4. Create the latest Aloha Art Update to promote my artwork and share funky art news. I need to get this out before the War and Peace Art Show closes at the epOxybOx in Venice Beach, CA.
5. Find a gallery in SF/Oakland for the War and Peace Art Show that is traveling across the country.
   
6. Send Invoice for Website Work on HGS website.
7. pay bills, pay ticket, clean room so it's zen, prepare to go to SXSW film festival in Austin in March where the war and peace show will be...
   

I'll post in a couple days on how I'm doing.

Manifest.

Close-up of "Burning Angels, Hungry Ghosts and a Million Little Bubbles" now showing at the epOxybOx "War and Peace Art Show".

"Burning Angels, Hungry Ghosts, and A Million Little Bubbles"

If George W. Bush were to meditate, what would his experience be?

The notion that George W. Bush lives in a bubble, isolated from the opinions of the American Citizenry and the world around him, is a projection that we put upon him to relieve our own guilt and responsibility for America's war in Iraq. The fact is, that we as Americans are quite successful, in our own right, at living out joyful lives during war; each of us in our own little bubbles. We have pretty nice bubbles, especially here in Maui.

Like all projections, there is truth in it. Bush has a dogma he prescribes to that, given much external dialogue, would soon reveal it's inconsistencies. So, better for W. to remain in his bubble. Otherwise, the vision he is holding, his vision of freedom, which seems to include a religious polarity of us against them, would falter.

In the title, I am referencing Bush's self defeating starkly dualistic view of the world and religion. I am also referencing the public castigation of author James Frey for lying in his book A Million Little Pieces. Our failure to even censor the President for his lies is a painful hypocrisy.

In early discussions of what to name the art exhibition for which this art piece was created, Maui Artists for Peace wanted something bold and audacious that demanded an end to the war in Iraq. As more artists joined, the sentiment was expressed that it does not serve to fight for peace. To achieve peace, we must be and express peace. It has been said: heal yourself, heal your family, heal your community and the world will be healed. The question is how to manifest peace. The danger is isolating oneself on an island in the middle of the Pacific to the point where in other parts of the world, people experiencing the worst kinds of death and violence, seem a world away.

It was Dennis Kucinich who said, before the war started, that we must have compassion and hold the President's hand as we walk him back from the abyss. In this painting, a plastic bubble (made from petroleum) surrounds President Bush as he sits, meditating in the lotus position.

To manifest peace, I manifest a peaceful George W. Bush.

Cleanse and Rejuvenate: Day 22

Getting close to the finish line.
Tomorrow is all water. No supplements. No lemon. No nothing.
It's been raining everyday out here in Haiku. I was thinking of heading to Hana and getting a hotel for the night, but I don't want to be out there in the rain. Instead, I'll head to one of my favorite beaches out in La Perouse Bay for a day of quiet. I'll bring my tent and sleeping bag and attempt to camp.
The beach I'm headed to is serene. Maybe I'll get lucky and call in some dolphins.

All water. I'll pack some Inca Berries and maybe some apples and nuts for Thursday morning.
I'm looking forward to a latte in a couple of days.