Triptych (How to capture time)

A triptych (/ˈtrɪptɪk/ TRIP-tik; from the Greek adjective τρίπτυχον "triptukhon" ("three-fold"), from tri, i.e., "three" and ptysso, i.e., "to fold" or ptyx, i.e., "fold") is a work of art (usually a panel painting) that is divided into three sections, or three carved panels that are hinged together.

An image is only one moment captured for eternity, it may have allusions to the ever elusive past and present, but the attempts are in vain. We forget that all movies, shows, films, are all just individuals images shown in rapid sequence. Here, the birthing of a flower, the reaping and sowing of a thought, become manifest in sequence:

Space

How does one capture the ephemeral? That which is defined by which it is not, where "it" is not. Allusions to the void which without no form could be. The womb of all that is, yet rarely revered for its awesome powers.

Light and Form

To light, we are like fish in water. Light has a body and essence of its own which dances around us. This brilliance is usually made peripheral, what care does the modern person hold for the body of light?

Mundane Perspective

Distance juxtaposed to focal length:

experimenting with the mundane. These photos suck. I had to do an assignment and had 5 minutes to comply.

Awareness as Magick

We find ourselves in an age where words like mystery and magick are met with furrowed brows and Aristotelian rhetoric. The great occult mystery schools of the past termed phenomena and certain knowledge as esoteric, occult, "mystic", or magick. Even ideas of construction and architecture, which are now firmly part of our culture, were once highly regarded as the greatest of occult secrets.

Magick, in the truest sense is enacting change in the external or internal world, by means of willpower and intent. Many techniques are used depending on one's time period, culture, and other such variables, but one thing is ubiquitous, and that is the importance of awareness. Awareness OF consciousness. Some practices recommend single pointed awareness, like a laser, while others say the broad awareness, like a flood light leads to higher knowledge. The truth is both extremes will take the practitioner to higher levels of understanding. Awareness can make a heaven of hell, or a hell of heaven. What do you focus on? What are the narratives playing in your mind? 

                                    

Visions of the Past (Dream Sequence)

 No matter your quest, no matter your grail, you will need to prepare. You will need the tools and skills necessary to ensure the success of your endeavor. For some, all it requires is a paintbrush, a pen, a bicycle, a brain, but for others it could be anything.

 What is your quest? Where will you go? What are the things which your mind cannot help, but to want to know? Here is the remaining armor of Mazzerisk of Mazzerk. As the legend is told he was once an upstanding knight, a master of games and pageantry. Until one day he took a lance to the chest and was flung from his horse. As his horse cantered away, and his body hit the ground, his knee went one way, and his body another. He was stunned and in agony. The cacophonous blood-screams and jeers of the people seemed to just phase out. He thought it was broken, and as every millisecond passed, he could feel the rumble of his adversary's horse getting closer and closer. 

 He thought it was broken, and as every millisecond passed he could feel his adversary's horse getting closer and closer. Across the arena his enemy dismounted and slowly started to approach, staring at the injured knight with malicious intent.

Mazzerisk's squire hurriedly ran to his side and tried to hand him his sword.
"Are you alright?"
He tried to scream over the roar of the frenzied crowd. 
"H...help...me...up."
Forearm in hand, his squire lifted the Mazzerisk from the unforgiving sand and held him on his shoulders.
"Can you fight?"
The knight hadn't heard anything over the overwhelming sounds of breathing and ringing resonating through his skull and helm. That is until his squire's last question. All his training, his victories, and previously surmounted obstacles, flooded his mind. He unsheathed his sword and raised its point up to gods.
"FOR HONOR, FOR VICTORY, FOR DEATH!"

Seeds, Germs, Time, Absurd

                               
Where do germs of thought originate? How is it that tightly wrapped and packed proteins can store the information of an entire species? We view time as this linear arrow which started somewhere in darkness and will continue long after we return to the darkness, but this is not the case. There is no beginning or end to the arrow. We are riding the wave of that spectacular explosion, an explosion so powerful and hot that there was no light until things began to cool.

     

    Did that explosion contain the seed of all seeds? Was the germ of consciousness inherent in whatever it is that expanded and continued to expand? I am not convinced of the current perspectives of time and space as separate. I am not convinced that there is a beginning, middle, and end. The Greeks were known to have been the first to say that, "Man is the measure of all things."
    We are locked into our physical bodies and  much like a tree we experience inescapable periods of birth, growth, regress, blooming, and eventually, death, but even in death do we truly die?
    Perhaps our fickle mortal frames waste away, but as in the same way a tree begets a seed, and a seed a tree; do we not live on in the DNA of our seeds? What of the Harmony which orchestrates the seeds?

                                         

The Quest Continues

The void, the great unconscious, the subtle energies which permeate all consciousness. Here is where the artist sets sail.

My voyage past the veil started at a young age. A fascination with what was unsaid, unseen, yet ubiquitous. I hoisted my sails and took off toward the horizon hoping to find truth. I traveled, I meditated, and experimented with modes of consciousness. My awareness was ripped, stretched, squashed, and decimated.

It was too much for me. I had broken the veil and came face to face with the writhing, surging, all powerful and indifferent force which underlies all matter and consciousness, and I was scared. Not scared as one is of monsters under the bed, or of the darkness, but terror, true fear, of that which was at the heart of this universe, and it was not what I had wanted to see. I was too young, too naive, to truly integrate and understand my experiences.

I just dropped everything. I threw out my supplies, burned my photos, and tried to recompense and reorient by switching my education from one that was art focused, to one based and rooted in science.
 Hard facts, ratios, rationality, they became my gods. All the while that swirling void of catastrophic power whispered.

"Nothing is true, all is permitted."

It seems that now, nine years later, I am ready to set sail again. I'm bringing provisions, I'm raising the sails, and am indifferent to the time of my arrival, or return.

So lets begin at the beginning, and I hope you enjoy the journey.