Existence is Pure Joy

“Existence is pure joy”. As I look back at every moment of my life, even in my times of greatest pain and sorrow, that statement holds true. To say that life is beautiful sounds like a happy-go-lucky cliché, but there has been beauty dancing on the edge of my consciousness in my moments of greatest despair. With memories, bathed in a feeling of nostalgia which color my otherwise cold evaluation of past events in my life, I can see how every moment, every second of existence is pure joy.

So my logical challenge is this: How do I translate all that I feel, all the unseen, the transient eternal beauty present in every conscious moment in people, places and time into a painting? This has to be what makes a work of art great to other individuals, to depict a mood out of an specific time and space that connects with the viewer's spectrum of memory, imagination or experience. Yet these are simultaneously so specific and so collective that artists like me are left baffled by this hierophantic task. Its the definition of Art to unite opposites, the ugly and the beautiful, the great and small, the Great Work of alchemy accessible to nearly every human being in the planet, without so much as a single mystical text as a requirement. Its the visual equivalent of Tiphareth, Beauty, a reflection of the supreme truth beyond the abyss where all dualities are harmoniously conjoined in One. Art is a reflection of the Silver Star, the innermost self in pure brilliance, which is both the individual's true identity, and One with the collective Universe. Such is the incomprehensible paradox of Art while the lower world of reason is its greatest enemy. The most dangerous critic is one whose mind is monopolized by the Ruach, and refuse to acknowledge that which is beyond itself and therefore cannot grasp its magick, its a blow to the ego brain. They are slaves of reason trapped in their carefully build Tower of “why” and “because.” Donald Kuspit, a critic whose essays I've enjoyed reading has often criticized post-modernist philosophy's celebration of the banality of life. His strongest argument against it is in the criticism of works by artists which depict the great common end of all reason – death.


“Serious consciousness of destruction and death shakes the self to its depths, especially because it involves the consciousness that they are an inalienable, fundamental part of the self. Faced with its own annihilation, the self loses all sense of itself. Recognizing that it will be destroyed and die – realizing to its very depths that it is ultimately nothing – it can no longer manage its feelings and loses its mind. But if it re-cognizes and re-realizes them through art, the self can plumb the depths of destruction and death itself and the world... Art can never give it the enlightenment of Buddha, but the aesthetic experience can show the self that life is not futile, however limited.”


The question still remains, how in my lifetime, will I succeed in expressing even a quarter of my human experience? A star may go unnoticed for the Aeons, until the moment before its death, it flashes fourth its brightest light, transcending the luminescence of its entire existence. In that moment of supernova the star sacrifices itself – a sacrifice of itself, to itself, and explodes so that the farthest corners of the visible Universe may observe it. The Artist loses part of himself in every painting, every work is a small sacrifice, time taken away from experiencing humanity, to projecting human experience in a self-imposed mental or physical isolation - a sacrifice of myself, to myself. Prominent occult author Lon Milo Duquette says that while it may be true that “every enlightened person is crazy, not every crazy person is enlightened.” Enlightenment is the goal of the artist and the mystic, for losing one's self in the ocean of paradoxical insanity is a real danger for both. So as the light of a star's supernova travels across time and space, by the time it reaches us it becomes a “painting” of that star's past - the single moment in time of its most intense experience, hundreds of thousands years ago. Will we see it? Will it move us to wonder at its awe, the majesty of a star's full blast? Yes and no. The light is there to be seen by those who look for it in the vast infinite of space, for those who are not looking, the star is indifferent. It was, after all, a sacrifice of its outer self to its innermost truest self.

There are no words that can answer my rhetorical question, only actions. To embrace every experience and let my inner light guide how much makes it onto the canvas for the benefit of humanity. That said, I have nothing left but to embrace the methods of this particular facet of my true self, the chemical composition that fuels the inner core of my star and burn them even brighter than the Sun.

Facebook Art

In response to Odd's Facebook Hitler gig.

"This Facebook statement is art as it has the potential to affect how people view the world, relying on concept, rather than traditional technical skills. It's a work in progress"

Faith no More - Live

I went to the Faith no More concert in Brooklyn last night. That was the first concert where I've actually loved the band prior to watching them live, also my first FNM concert ever. Its nice to share that experience with Lisa, since she's been wanting to see them live for 16 years, and 12 years since she last had a chance and missed out on it.

The performance was better than I even imagined it would be. The stage was facing the NYC skyline and Mike Patton repeatedly said "Why the fuck are you people staring at our ugly asses, turn around and look behind you, you guys live here!" Its great to know the words and sing along to songs you've loved for years. Mike has a great stage presence with a voice that blows my mind. He is multi-talented, his face so full of character and lively expressions was he acts every lyric out of the voices in the songs. He could be an actor if he so chose. Every band member was phenomenal, though they finished a bit early, I was hoping for a few ore songs out of Angel Dust, but the ones they played were perfectly good choices.

They're pretty significant since I was really getting into their music in 08 during the course of my early spiritual enlightenment. I can't hear Epic, without thinking of the Art major, beyond the path of the Tower. To hear it live, I had to rock the fuck out to it!

I hope they come around here again.