RED-  I saw the play "Red" last night at the Royal MB Theatre Centre in Winnipeg, second last night of the play and i had to see it.  I felt for some weeks that there was some reason that i had to go---and in retrospect i'm glad that i did.  The story follows a moment in time of the famous and self-taught American abstract artist Mark Rothko (1903-1970) and the dialogue he has about art and life with his assistant Ken.  Beautifully played by actor Oliver Becker the play takes place in the artists studio during a time in 1958 when the Seagrams company completed their corporate HQ and commissioned him to make some paintings for the buildings luxury restaurant the Four Seasons.   Rothko was uneasy about making the paintings for the enjoyment of wealthy diners- people who may not 'see' or even try to make an attempt to connect to work he felt transcended the mundane.   As a visual artist i could totally relate.  The writing was clever and astute zeroing in many of the philosophical aspects of making art that changes or otherwise impacts people's psyche.  The play was a demonstration of Rothko's ego and his integrity, his ambition but also his authentic nature playing out.  

I think i understood the reasons for his anguish and frustration much as i am today with why more people cant see the truth in art & architecture--the sacred, the etheric, as most embrace materialism and that region of space is dead, simple and transitory.  Why do people mope upon the ground when they could live in the heavens?  No, i liked the play, the powerful and robust but also honest dialogue.  Really well done.

"If our titles recall the known myths of antiquity, we have used them again because they are the eternal symbols upon which we must fall back to express basic psychological ideas."  Mark Rothko

FOR SALE- "The New World", 48" X 36"X 2", acrylic on canvas.  This extraordinary piece came together so easily, no struggle, no paint overs, adds or deletions..it was an amazing piece to work on which came together like this 'flow'expereince.  I recall my gymnastics career where at some points the move or motion was 'perfect' in certain routines and similarly The New World came together all at once in this beautiful meant-to-be moment.  I was just the hand that was guided by something else- no doubt.  This piece has attracted lodes of attention (on Facebook and at the show) and i cant help but feel that others can feel the power that guided my hand in this piece.  Its the centre piece of the new exhibition and may be seen at Gary Green's shop Framing & Art Centre #6-200 Meadowood.    

Recent pictures from my gala opening of THE NEW WORLD which goes till January 2013 at Framing and Arts Centre #6-200 Meadowood in Winnipeg.  The exhibit features new works and has created some strong buzz- i'm very proud of the new pieces which received positive reviews.   

 Owner of Framing & Art Centre -Gary Green (left) and sponsor of THE NEW WORLD exhibition is one heck of a nice guy, amazing knowledge base of fine art, spirituality and probably one of the wisest guys i know!

 Here i am seen with Andre Thibeault (left), retired Marketing Executive from Bombardier and CN Rail, talk about character! This guy is amazing...the type of guy who would go somewhere and know everyone by the end of the night!

It was great to see Gerry Matte at my show with his wife Lydia, Gerry is an old friend from the 'hood' (Fort Rouge) and is a finance guy who owns his own insurance and financial planning services firm in Winnipeg.  He bought one of my pieces! Thanks Gerry! 

The Opening gala of THE NEW WORLD exhibition of my new work was fun and well attended.  Great to have friends Jarrett Lobley Musician & MD (left) & Rand Smith- Owner of River City Herbals -seen in middle- come out.  Its always important and appreciated to have family & friends come out and support their local artists.  

Some of my dear Freemasonic Brothers from Templum Sion Lodge of Freemasons- a Lodge i had founded a few years back which celebrates knowledge and personal development.   Seen from left are Jonathan Tkachuk, myself, Dan Garroni and Jason Gren.     

Ah, my dear friend Cheryl Janzen, terrific gal whom i'm also happy she was able to make time to swing by and visit the show.   

A shot of some of the ladies from the show, left to right- Jillian Gren, Cheryl Janzen, Lisa Thibeault (my significant other), her mom Celeste, Cre8ery Gallery Director and friend Jordan Miller and Brenda Thibeault.  Thank you for your support all!    

THE NEW WORLD exhibition starts this Friday Nov 9th at 8 PM- 10 PM @ #6-200 Framing & Art   Centre and continues to January 2013.  Thank you to my sponsor Mr. Garry Green who's a great patron of my work and a personal friend.

THE NEW WORLD Is an exhibition of new abstract pieces born of ideas and inspirations from ancient philosophers such as Hermes, Plato and Proclus, Shamans, Freemasons and Nobel Prize winning Chemists- Kary Mullis (Dancing Naked in the Mind Field- thanks for the book Rand!), Anthropologists- Gary Granzberg & Jeremy Naydler (Shamanic Wisdom in the Pyramid Texts-the Mystical Tradition of Ancient Egypt), Quantum Physicists and Systems Theorists like Irvin Laszlo and Neurosurgeon’s Eben Alexander (Proof of Heaven- A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife) and counter-cultural authors such as Daniel Pinchbeck (Breaking Open the Head and 2012- The Return of Quetzacoatl) who have all wondered, experienced and speculated.  Such leaders in science and spirituality have conceived that we ourselves, our world and the metaverse are so much more than we can imagine.  This vast new [and old] scientific and spiritual knowledge presents itself at a curious time of great social change, religious fundamentalism, potential environmental collapse, economic, financial and political upheaval curiously at a time of a “2012” mythos which ancient Mayans defined as a new time of revolutionary change.  What to make of these opportunities, challenges, paradoxes and predictions?  Perhaps we have to take pause and wonder that each of us has a responsibility in seeing with new eyes.  What constitutes being human and being conscious? What is reality, life or death? At the root, what Divine Creative or Intelligent Force surrounds us and permeates us?  If we dare to open our eyes, our hearts and minds, what will we see? And how will what we find change us?  THE NEW WORLD suggests we must all expereince a personal gnosis to come into direct contact with the “numinous” as Psychologist Carl Jung called it, the transcendental essence of all that is.  THE NEW WORLD won’t about come as result of waiting or wishing but rather by active intention to understand, dialogue, and expereince in a new and fundamentally different way.

I hope those who are interested can come on the gala opening, i also hope those who miss the opening come at some point (before the exhibition ends in January 2013) to take in visuals and ideas that cause them to think, seek and open.    

"Real vision is the ability to see the invisible."  Jonathan Swift

NEW piece- "The Hidden Beauty, Motion & Evolution of the Great Mother" 40"H X 30"W acrylic on canvas.  Selling for 375.00 and on public display at the Concordia Hospital.  10% of sale proceeds goes to the Hospitals Foundation.  Contact Ms. Leanne Juer for purchase at ljuer2@concordiahospital.mb.ca

I have been designing various pieces over the years that represents the power and mystery of the feminine power of the great "Mother" Gaia or perhaps known in other cultures as Sophia- the bestower of secrets and sacred knowledge.  I painted this piece in various shades of green to reflect nature and the undulations are the dance of the feminine or even the serpent, a long time cross-cultural symbol of life, creation and knowledge.  We find the double helix symbol of two intertwined serpents and Anthropologist Jeremy Narby writes in his fantastic book: The Cosmic Serpent-DNA and the Origins of Knowledge that the serpent "makes light of the sexes, and of the opposition of contraries; it is female and male too, a twin to itself, like so many of the important creator gods who are always in their first representation, cosmic serpents...Thus, the visible snake appears as merely the brief incarnation of a Great Invisible Serpent, which is casual and timeless, a master of the vital principle and of all the forces of nature.  It is a primary old god found at the beginning of all cosmogonies, before monotheism and reason toppled it."  The enormous serpent Typhon in Greek mythology is incarnation of the earth forces and the child of the earth goddess Gaia.  To South American Shamans the great anaconda Ronin surrounds the entire earth conceived as a giant disc that swims in the great waters.  The Taoists represented the caduceus with the yin-yang which symbolizes the coiling of two -serpentine and complimentary forms into a single androgynous principle.   From India to the Mediterranean the symbols of serpents entwined about a central axis represented the art of healing and even today the caduceus remains a prominent symbol in Western medicine.   The piece represents many things in many ways- the mythological serpent, the feminine spiritual and hidden power of the Earth, light & darkness and the constantly evolving biological mechanisms found within nature.        

"Wisdom" 24" X 24" acrylic on canvas.  SOLD-  this piece was sold to a discriminating client of deep spiritual belief who took to the painting immediately.   Wisdom is a piece that speaks to the interior nature of spiritual and objective knowledge which i believe permeates many "fields" of space.  Dr. Ervin Laszlo in his amazing book Science and the Akashic Field-an Integral Theory of Everything  speaks of a vast fundamental meta-universal field of energy and knowledge that is highly coherent and integrated much like a vast living organism.  "A cosmic field that underlies and links all things in the world is a perennial intuition, present in traditional cosmologies and metaphysics.  The ancients knew that space is not empty: it is the origin and the memory of all things that exist or have ever existed." The image is elegant, with depth, motion, and a notion that all portions of elements are 'connected'.








    

NEW PIECE "Luminous Mystery" 18" X 18" acrylic on canvas and for sale ($250.00) and on public display at the Concordia Hospital.  10% of sale proceeds goes to the Hospitals Foundation.  Contact Ms. Leanne Juer for purchase at ljuer2@concordiahospital.mb.ca

I really like this piece, it was difficult to see the piece leave my living room wall where many fresh new pieces display after coming down from the studio. Its always terribly heart wrenching to see them leave- like a parent seeing their child leave the nest.  There's a primitive visceral feel to this piece, something ancient yet something modern, a futuristic hieroglyphic.  Its related in style to an earlier piece i did- "Equinox", similiar but different.  I also have a large canvas that i'm currently working on that is similiar in style that i have on the go in the studio.  I've been working on pieces like "Luminous Mystery" all summer that are lighter in colour, have a 'summer feel' and full of playful positive energetic light.  If you see this piece up close it is heavily textured, course, with many paint layers  so it contains a certain depth, a certain character.              

The Phenomena of 2012

I have been struck by the eloquence and brilliance of author Daniel Pinchbeck in his 2012: The Return of Quetzacoatl which has successfully embraced so many diverse ideas, indeed while conventional media and the public dwell on 2012 as the date of the 'end of the world' i think we have to take a deep breath and take a lead from Pinchbeck and his researches.  We do know that the ancients, regardless of the culture, shared a common idea of cyclic not linear time, that the natural world and our universe follow cycles from birth, youth, maturity, to death/sleep, and renewal (it has its correspondence in our seasons- of spring, summer, fall, winter and spring once more, to cosmological cycles of the birth, life, collapse and explosive rebirths of universes, and even has correspondence in Freemasonic ritual/structure).  Today, we do see potential collapse or impending change applicable to all sectors of our current civilization- economic and political changes, significant environmental changes, indeed the signs are upon us this current civilization can't sustain itself as it has without dire consequences.  At the same time of impending collapse and revolutionary change, we find a dawning new consciousness sprouting globally that is counter-cultural to what has existed by way of new technology, science, culture (ie: in integral and transpersonal art which celebrates knowledge, beauty and the sacred that is counter to the empty, materialist, pessimistic art movements of the 20th century), economic models that offers us humanity a shift in a positive direction to a new age of freedom and liberation.  It is curious to find that correspondent to what is happening in the world today we have sacred writings that indicate or point towards coming changes.  The ancients predicted successive ages of change as the Mayans predicted a new dawning Fifth Age set to begin on or about Dec 21st 2012.  Astrologers have long known of the Platonic year (a time period of approximately 25,800 years) and each Platonic year was divided into twelve periods of 2,150 years with the new age of Aquarius begin on or about the end of the 20th century.  Mayans and astrologers alike knew and expected change with each successive cycle passing and beginning.  It should be pointed out that NO new age comes 'cleanly after a definitive period-for example the transition between the Picean era (the current era we are leaving) and the Aquarian age (which we are entering is expected to take almost 200 years give or take.  Rather than getting wrapped up in holocaust scenarios practiced by dogmatic or obsolete religious models informing us of an forever impending apocalypse or Anti-Christ that never seems to come i believe reason and logic should prevail and rather than asking ourselves how and when we think the world will end, we should rather be spending our time influencing and working with how it will change.  Curious that the Aquarian Age is said to be a period defined by 'brotherhood' (a coming together of humanity) and communication (interesting to note how the internet and social networking is currently evolving) as well as pronounced feminism (unlike the Picean Age which among other things was defined by Patriarchal domination) and spirituality.  As Pinchbeck writes: "..the only way we can avoid or mitigate the likely effects of imminent cataclysm is through rapid evolution of collective intelligence."  As he further states: [American scientist/inventor] "Buckminster Fuller liked to say that you do not change a system by criticizing it: If you really want to change things, you find ways to make the old model obsolete."  The real message of 2012 is that change will always be around us, but how can we rationally, intelligently and collectively deal with these changes in a positive and beneficial way?  My own contribution as an independent person is to deliver a message through my transpersonal art and personally practice leaving a smaller footprint on the world- water harvesting, home gardening, using less gas/electricity through conservation, insulating my home, using energy saving devices etc.  The great lesson of 2012, i believe, is to help facilitate beneficial and intelligent improvement in your community ("Think globally act locally"), change your consciousness and be aware of the qualities inside of you and all around you to try to do better and be better.  I am reminded of the Gnostic wisdom of the Nag Hammadi Scrolls "Gospel of Thomas"(still considered heretical writings by the Catholic Church) in which the apostle Thomas asks Jesus when will the Kingdom of Heaven come down to earth?   Jesus enigmatically answers "what you ask for is already here and all around you but men do not see it." In other words, the Kingdom is already here but it is what we see, or perhaps don't see, that must be changed [our consciousness] or improved.  The "Kingdom of God" will not come down to earth by some external influence that is to be waited for or anticipated, it is to be fostered and built by our own collective action here and now.  I believe enlightened Gnostics knew this as much as Mayans and other spiritually influenced cultures and people around the planet but it is time that humanity woke up, matured and take responsibility for what it is and should be, begin to work towards building a paradise on earth together.





      

This is a shot from my 2009 exhibition at the cre8ery gallery run by Ms. Jordan Miller.  Seen here with Tim Freeman (right).  We both serve on the board of LIGHT (www.lightwinnipeg.org/) a charitable Canadian organization which fosters growth, learning and change in individuals and communities.