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Centaurs in Diamonds, Beauties with Hooves, Jungle Spirits from my sketchbook

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Congratulations

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Latest pages from the sketchbook.

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A painting in my sketchbook.
inspired by an image on an old book from the 70s at the Recycle Center.
Gatherings. A place and time where people congregate with common Interest. Positive interest. Negative Interest. Concerts, Political Rallies, Graduations, Birth, Prom, coming out, circumcision, coming of age......
Mobs? Public Execution. Court Trials,
Pop Culture
Rotting Culture
Handshakes
Hugging
Sex
Sports
Funerals
Baptism
Marathon
Rat Race
Rite of Passage.

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Sketchbook March 16th 2008
The top image is a page from my sketchbook. The painting includes an image by Photographer Stefan Falke. It is of a Laura Anderson Barbara costume, worn by the the Brooklyn Jumbies for her exhibit "Jumbie Camp!" Sept 2007. Credit where credit is due. I have a link to Stefan's site and the Brooklyn Jumbies on my Artists links list.
I included X-Mas trees to the image both playing on the word (mas) and also the idea of X-mas as a strange ritual. I'm also interested in how objects can hold visual similarities, while their purpose or meaning can be so different. And in addition, how two things from completely different backgrounds, can be connected if traced far back enough. I also posted a couple old images I found online, one from the Dogon tribe in Africa.

Ancient Art

( Top image is from my sketchbook.)

Ancient cave paintings are more beautiful than anything i could ever imagine. Years ago, I visited the caves at Saint Cirq du Bugue, Dordogne France. We drove up a winding road on the hill past walls of rock. The road came to a dead end where two stone houses jutted out of the rock. I remember an old man who lived in one of these shelters lead us around the back of the house and down into a cave with a flash light....just like he would go into the basement for some wood. At first it was hard to make put anything. It was just scratches on the walls of this musty dark hole in the ground. But then i switched my train of thought and suddenly symbols began to jump out at me. A man with a large belly and even larger phallus leaning over something....Two or three lines made up his face but his expression was breathtaking. It felt as if leaving that cave would disrupt the threads of time and we would emerge in another time and place. For me, being in these caves is like being in a Cathedral.
The top image is a painting out of my sketch book that was inspired by the carvings on the oldest walls.

When i think of ancient art....i am fascinated by which of it is ceremonial such as for hunting or sex, and which images are drawn simply because the artist can do no less.

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Sketchbook March 11th 2008
Exploring the idea of a charged object and human spirit. Where has it been, what is its purpose? Has it become something else because of its purpose in the past? Will it be something different when found and put to new use? What makes it a totem, or a ritual object? This charge that resides in an inanimate object.......will it lose its "magic" over time? How much time must pass before an object earns the title "Artifact"?