Makeshift Eyes

The Misunderstanding, by Albert Camus - BETC Theatre Production

2011-09-26T10:10:00.001-07:00

An audience member who say the production through Boston.com wrote this comment:

"This was an extraordinary night of theatre. Camus's play is so dark, so full of deep dwelling into profound ideas. The art design was alluring. It was stunning to watch the actors throw so much into their roles. One of the best plays I've seen this year."

The above are some photos from one of the run-throughs before opening night. Ironically, we met a French artist and photographer installing a sculpture outside of the BCA near the Mills Gallery, and he was able to come and take more professional photos, which I am eager to post once I receive the edited versions!

Greek Masks For "The Misunderstanding"

2011-09-21T05:55:00.000-07:00

Made with Rigid Wrap and acrylic paint!

Poems That I Forgot I Wrote

2011-08-30T08:43:00.000-07:00

STONE MASS SUICIDE

A ghost sigh on the run from
A bone-built prison
Escaped with
A laughter exposed
Nude and telling through
The split second glint
In her left eye

She confessed,
"I love you as much as I can
Love a person but
You're still a person.

"I'm a little bit touched
A tad undercooked like
A half popped kernel of
Corn

"I know love only in
Seeing shadows cast
By Nothing in places of
Collective longing
Myself alone in crowds
Of robotic people
Fighting Distance
Seeking Time.

"And by the bay beyond
The people
A little boy dreams
I watch him grow old
In attempts to manifest
Painted worlds
Clay deities and
Wooden fauna
Sculpting statues of far away thoughts
That populate alien kingdoms
Which have reached their demise
With the death of planet Childhood.

"All of this in the mound he builds
Of sand
Patting gently as he gazes
At the sun path on the water
And does not speak
He listens to the singing of
The breeze and

"I know him.

"He is the fabled artist
Exhaling blue shadows
He speaks in echos of secrets
Leaked by the Divine

"His vision is Heaven
And in it resides
Only snake skins of
Love.

"This is why..."

Snapping a dry twig
With unruly, anxious fingers
Her naked feet
Pushed the rocks
Into the stream and with
Half sun-blinded eyes
She witnessed them tumble one
After another
Like a mass stone suicide.

"Nothing is ever quite
Beautiful enough
The more clear it becomes
The more exquisite the sound
Of the forming crack in a glass heart
Whining like an injured cherub
As it tries desperately to reach
What is far too fragile
For the human touch
That wants nothing but
An end to desire
That promises nothing but
Fingerprints
Left as careless badges
of a spiritual crime."

ANYMORE

I could try to save
Another day or I could call
The demi-gods and complain
"You're only half romantic
You're just an image of The Way
And I can only almost see you
Like cloudy distorted bodies
Pissing sun on a sleeping world."

I could try to scrape divine traces
From my floor but
I don't want to love
And I don't want to feel loved
Anymore

9

My promises to you were whispered
To the wind who did me a favor and
Wrote them as maps
In the veins of spring leaves.
Aging into skeletons, they never insinuated
Anything as glorious as a toothy moon smile
Through black lace canopies
Not even something so
Tiny and missable to the eye as
A snail on your walk home
In scattered thunderstorms.

You can read them every autumn,
And I hope that you will,
Should you care to find my reason
Which was something that would
Have drowned in words
You would have thought
"She left me, for letters strung
Together."

I had thought in my naivité
That it was everyone else
Who was always leaving so
I waited for you to go

And you did.

But Memory has taught me that I went first
In that moment when
My gaze strayed from yours
Gradually drifting beyond the
Horizon as you watched me

Fall in love with the world
Letting me float into it
Without you

HAIKU 4 U

I broke your record
Player; you made my heart skip
Let's call it even

I left with your things
You left with years of my life
Wasted; we're screaming

I took it harder
You took it all for granted
I felt like your slut

Said I'd wait for you
In that torrential limbo
Then the downpour ceased

Warmed by the sunshine
You wanted everything
Back; I turn away

When you locked the door
I stopped wanting to go back
Inside; you look out

I owe you nothing
You owe me five hundred bucks
A reason, at least

THIS WICKED WAY

Something drives me toward the death inside
This vibrant imagination beyond worlds
Is too beautiful, too eternal, and too fast for
My mind's eye to keep I
Pray to forget, give me gray
A vast expanse of land with no horizon
That I cannot differentiate between this planet
And space
That I cannot differentiate between body and
Spirit
That I may sleep away from beauty
That I may forget this wicked way
And decompose into the earth as
A leaf abandoned by a soaring wind

Flyer For "The Misunderstanding".

2011-08-25T11:16:00.001-07:00

This is the final version of the flyer/poster for "The Misunderstanding".

Masks For "The Misunderstanding"

2011-08-25T11:12:00.000-07:00

These are the masks we will be using for a Greek tragedy/dual mythological aspect; From left to right is the minotaur (can't really see the bull form yet without the horns and details), Icarus, Hetia (goddess of structure, hearth and home) and then on the bottom (which I clearly have not started yet) is going to be the Sphinx!

BETC: New Production!

2011-08-25T10:50:00.000-07:00

In September we will be showing "The Misunderstanding" by Albert Camus. Here is a brief plot summary from Wikipedia:

"A man who has been living overseas for many years returns home to find his sister and widowed mother are making a living by taking in lodgers and subsequently murdering them. Since neither his sister nor his mother recognize him, he becomes a lodger himself without revealing his identity."

Once again, for Boston Experimental Theatre, I am in charge of the costumes, set and music (whew!)

Here are many photos of the process so far!

This last one is a picture of yours truly getting mask forms for people's faces!

Wooden Dragon Devouring Ocean Lamp Lady: Finished!

2011-08-25T10:48:00.000-07:00

Wooden Dragon Devouring Ocean Lamp Lady: Almost Finished!

2011-08-12T16:22:00.001-07:00

The Siren - Complete!

2011-08-03T19:37:00.000-07:00

The Siren

2011-07-28T13:09:00.000-07:00

Fractals: New Earrings!

2011-07-26T10:09:00.000-07:00

Wooden Dragon Devouring Ocean Lamp Lady: Painting; progressing.

2011-07-10T16:01:00.000-07:00

Publication.

2011-07-07T11:08:00.000-07:00

Recently, some of my work was accepted into International Contemporary Artists, Volume III.

Uncertain if this is a vanity publication or not, which in retrospect it may be. But it's something.

Enlightenment Work: The Siren - Progressing

2011-07-04T22:10:00.000-07:00

The composition on the left is distracting the flow. What I will do is bring the wing that is framing the Siren's face around the sun to improve the movement in the composition. This should make the whole piece look more cohesive. Happy with the colors, need new paintbrushes for detail. Seriously Botticelli, what paintbrushes did you use?

Fractals: New Pieces

2011-07-04T21:52:00.000-07:00

Maybe Nothing Is Beautiful

2011-06-26T16:13:00.000-07:00

This Is A Great Essay.

2011-06-26T10:14:00.000-07:00

http://leopoldsegedin.com/essay_detail_art_world_today.cfm

Hours.

2011-06-26T09:15:00.000-07:00

The hours slept inside of thoughts that were meant for those moving, buried inside of the atmosphere. Death came to the ones who needed peace from themselves, peace from their secret lives that were shoved into boxes, boxes shoved into basements, basements locked and never visited. I've been alive for eternities, say the shining ones, in a chorus of flaming rays that enter the pores of the dead, unappreciated, unnoticed, cold to those who cannot dream. The children of Earth had many things to learn. It cannot be written down, it cannot be photographed. Everything is yours, take it with you. From one tiny speck of light radiates all, this is one. Existence is a massive crystal, continually growing toward the sky. The power of sound is born from the primordial frapping of the drum skin. Touch the surface, feel the history of rhythm. We understand now, say the children, what beauty means, as they begin to emanate tiny golden flakes of love, from newborn sparkling worms to ancient golden gods, they begin to understand the math behind life, not life as we know it, but what is truly living. For all things vibrate in unison with the sound of this beating, the beating of the drum, the beating of the heart. Unnoticed, the children stay as children, lost little worms, perpetually inching around a giant ball. The light goes out, everything is gone. Sadness hits. Beauty resumes.

Leave the light out for a while. We are the ball. The ball is inside of us. The ball is outside of us. The all-seeing eye watches us from above, watches us from inside, stares, burning through the layers of that which is all.

The wind is unseen, paints the trees into the sky with giant strokes of power. The moon is the iris of the dragon's eye, the serpent that devours its tail. I can see without seeing, yes, it is there, the wind, the eye, the sphere that is the earth which I could once only trust through the promises of books and pictures from machines that float in space. All I had to do was to notice the way the cracks in the ice bleed into the forest, mimicking the branches, cracking as twigs. How the snow is clouds that have fallen to the earth, like angels from heaven, up there, whispy, safe, soft, and untouchable. Here, cold, burning, bitter, like the devil, unaware of his power and majesty. Ignorant to his origins he is the generations of man tossed out of the garden.

So you and I, as children, should want to grow through observation, not how a proton and electron dance, but how the trees are inside of us, swaying like the ocean tides, like the body sways naturally to the rhythm of the drum. And we shall become eternal, in a moment, in a day, and consistently rising from our many deaths, each day, each life, brighter than the last.

Almost Finished.

2011-06-25T07:46:00.000-07:00

Aspects And Alligators: Detail Extracted (Progressing)

2011-06-21T15:32:00.001-07:00

Existentialism: A Misunderstanding

2011-06-16T08:50:00.000-07:00

(I wrote this for the BETC blog in regards to the subject matter of the next production. Edited by Lorna Noguiera)

Like most French students, I was required to read The Stranger in High School. Little did I know the text would affect my life so greatly. A year prior, I was given an English assignment to write a prose piece about a normal school day. Before I even knew what existentialism was, I had rendered the piece with every thought ending in some kind of poetic rhetoric: "I wake up at six, exhausted. School never made sense to me. I put on my eyeliner, searching for a reason as to why my heavy hand lifts itself up to the eye, the fingers intent on precision as the black line magically streaks the edge of the upper lid. I'm just going to wash this off in ten hours." Students, even the ones I cruelly misconceived as vapid automatons, servants living under the reign of parental kings and queens, complimented the honesty of my thoughts, as if, by some miracle, my every day life was actually interesting. I remember thinking, "Wow, people get it." Imagine how at home I felt the next school year with my first introduction to Camus. "Wow," I thought again, "It's an entire school of thought!" But there was something deeper in Camus' writing that some people didn't seem to understand, something we were not taught in French class. Camus himself fought against it; he was wrongly pigeon-holed into an existential and absurdist category that was mislabeled as apathetic and mistakenly linked to nihilism. This mislabeling led some to believe he espoused sociopatholgy.

Existentialism is not a philosophy that renders life meaningless, absurd, and godless. Rather, it moves the individual through the possibility that there is nothing higher to live for, unweaving the threads of objective reality to reveal that life itself is what we should be living for. The realization that we are responsible for creating our own lives leaves us abandoned, orphans to a circumstance that we are so apt to blame when things go wrong, so eager to call "god" when blessings befall us. Existentialism removes this authoritative circumstance, and gives us the power of a god. It also forms a despair and loneliness so great they become obstacles necessary to conquer. We have to move through the anguish and begin to accept responsibility. This magnificent terror removes other obstacles and we become blank slates. From blank slates we transition out of our own hell to create a personal Heaven we can ultimately inhabit and rule.

Recently I met someone who described her introduction to The Stranger as frightening. Until then, I had never thought of Camus' writing as frightening. After some thought, however, I understood that The Stranger expresses the absurd within ourselves on an exaggerated level where nothing affects our, (the protagonist's), perception of life and the world. Considering this terrifying aspect of the text, I half-formed a theory that the process of maturing into adulthood requires the deconstruction of emotion and civilized routine, a process some of us undergo on conscious levels. I say half-formed the theory because this sentiment is only the first link in a greater chain of thoughts. In a sense, existentialism and absurdism are necessary viewpoints one must experience in life to evolve intellectually and emotionally. One facet of this interpretable philosophy is the cessation of empathy in regards to certain events and people. It is this facet that creates misconceptions of existentialist philosophy. However, this natural process releases us from pain, and can replace pain with understanding.

What can be termed as the lack of emotional reaction to an event can also be viewed as acceptance. When we accept that something we wish changed cannot be changed, we let go. In Buddhist philosophy, this is the foundation the four noble truths are built upon. The four noble truths are: There is suffering, there is a cause to suffering, there is a cessation to suffering, and there is a way that can lead us to the cessation of suffering.

Emotional or mental pain arises first from conflict within ourselves. This is transferred to others in our lives as a way of externalizing the discomfort within us. We cannot bear to suffer our pain alone; we share it with others as a way to connect, a way for others to understand us. Why do we feel the need to share pain? We can only theorize. Many biologists believe that humans are herd animals. We are chemically wired, like wolves, to exist in packs. A more spiritual theory is the possibility of what Thoreau calls an "oversoul", a common belief in various religions and philosophies that we are all connected by the same force. This force can be termed "God" or what is considered to be "divine." Without this desire to communicate, loneliness arises and instead of understanding the beautiful quality and necessity of alone time, people who are unable to connect with their true selves feel lonely. If we interpret our true selves as divine, however, that intense recognition makes us feel we are no longer truly alone.

Aristotle wrote, "He who prefers solitude is either a wild beast or a god." Aristotle's sentiment rests on perception. An individual with a negative perception of the world around him who has been surrounded by painful experiences may choose solitude in attempt to free himself of a world which he views as negative. However, this choice does not truly release him from his negative perception. Such an individual may also try to ease his sense of loneliness by securing the company of another because he cannot be alone with himself. Being alone with himself in peace requires resolution of the conflict within, a conflict he may be unaware of or chooses to ignore due to the difficulty of the battle that may ensue. He does not perceive the grand rewards of fighting and winning this battle. This refusal to battle will cause a great imbalance within him, resulting in repression and lack of internal peace. Instead of contemplating himself in relation to objective reality, he considers himself separate from the world and others, believing it is others who are negative. He does not face himself and so can't understand that it is his own negative perception he is projecting on the outside world, and that he holds the power to change it.

On the other hand, another individual may also first think, "It is everyone else who is sick, who is bad, who is horrible, and I am good. I would never hurt somebody in the way that all these people have hurt me." This painful sentiment is a necessary precedent for an ultimately perceptive individual. Eventually he will consider the rational fact that the entire world and human race cannot be bad in comparison to himself, a fact borne out by the impossible odds that he or she is the only person in the world who practices morality and goodness.

A rational individual will consider deeply their relationship with others and their relationship with themselves. This individual may seek solitude to self reflect, meditate or to distance themselves from others to attain a more objective and balanced world view. According to Aristotle, an individual seeking solitude in this sense is a god. He is closer to some state of understanding which is the basis for enlightenment. The man in the first scenario, though, is a wild beast, acting solely on emotional drive and defensive animalistic instinct. In existentialist texts, both the wild beast and the god are in a common state of solitary contemplation. In this state, the individual may choose loneliness, adhering to a non-progressive being. As is exquisitely displayed in Camus' The Stranger, an individual making this choice risks engaging in what some may consider to be sociopathic or psychotic behavior, acquiring the ability to commit murder without remorse or fear of consequence. The godlike individual elects to progress past this state, attaining wisdom with the effort to know himself and his connection with the world around him. He reaches understanding, and is therefore freed from his pain.

Protagonists in both Camus' The Stranger and Satre's Nausea understand that in certain situations expressing emotion only brings more turmoil. However because these characters do analyze situations, readers deduce that these protagonists do have feelings with abnormal intensities. With these feelings, they move beyond expression; they let events unfold as they will and access a part of themselves that is beyond human. Their feelings are not necessarily expressed as anxiety, fear or illness but through metaphors. In The Stranger, for example, an exquisitely detailed metaphor of the sun is employed. This weighty metaphor causes us to ruminate upon the protagonist's relation to the sun, drawing upon its symbology in traditional mythology. It is commonly known that the sun represents that which is divine. In Camus' The Misunderstanding, the murderer Martha dreams of the ocean. These dreams express her wanting to move beyond her current state of misery and apathy to access the power that is actually within to live a happier, satisfactory life. Martha does not understand her unconscious attempt toward sublimation; she really believes that moving to the coast will make her a truly better individual. Therefore, she creates a mythology out of the sea, in the same way an individual relinquishes their power to circumstance or an external higher power out of fear or ignorance. Martha misunderstands her own behavior and the true meaning of her relationship with the ocean. In this passage of Nausea, Satre summarizes the dazzling beauty of perception induced by true feeling;

"I very much like to pick up chestnuts, old rags and especially papers. It is pleasant to me to pick them up, to close my hand on them; with a little encouragement I would carry them to my mouth the way children do. Anny went into a white rage when I picked up the corners of heavy, sumptuous papers, probably soiled by excrement. In the summer or the beginning of autumn, you can find remnants of sun-baked newspapers in the gardens, dry and fragile as dead leaves, so yellow you might think they had been washed with picric acid. In winter, some pages are pounded to pulp; crushed, stained, they return to the earth. Others quite new when covered with ice, all white, all throbbing, are like swans about to fly, but the earth has already caught them from below. They twist and tear themselves from the mud, only to be finally flattened out a little further on. It is good to pick up all that. Sometimes I simply feel them, looking at them closely; other times I tear them to hear their drawn-out crackling, or, if they are damp, I light them, not without difficulty; then I wipe my muddy hands on a wall or tree trunk." (Sartre, page 10, Nausea)

Here, the melancholic narrator finds beauty in something that is perceived by a relatively normal individual, Anny, as trash. Ironically, in existentialism and absurdism, philosophies that are reached by the relinquishing of one's ego, something profound happens; terror arises, induced by the fact that one believes one must have emotions, one must care about things all of the time. When caring stops, what happens is what Sartre calls the Nausea;

"Things are bad! Things are very bad: I have it, the filth, the Nausea. ... The Nausea is not inside me: I feel it out there in the wall, in the suspenders, everywhere around me. It makes itself one with the cafe, I am the one who is within it."

This is a reaction to depersonalization. While frightening, this depersonalization is not necessarily negative. It is the moment one is closest to understanding, closest to that which is unknown. In Buddhist philosophy this depersonalization is called Sammasati, a moment of acceptance and recognition that the individual is indeed not separate from the world around him, that all is one. To realize that we are a small part of the one is a challenge not all humans are prepared to face. Fear and confusion can result. Theoretically, this may sometimes create a breeding ground for mental illness.

With such an awareness, an individual becomes a stranger, a stranger to customs, routines, recognizing that the order civilization has instilled is absurd, and is, in essence, a game. In The Misunderstanding, two women kill and rob the tenants who stay at their Inn. To them, these acts are neither terrible, nor evil. They put strangers out of their misery, and by killing them, pull themselves out of what they deem to be a situational misery, saving money for the dream of living by the coast. The mother experiences nausea in the moment she discovers her hands as a newborn would. Her hands seem strange to her; it is as if she is connected to a higher self that suddenly realizes her physical being in connection to her victims. (This happens in The Stranger as well, when the protagonist is driven to kill the Arab). Because the mother does not explore this feeling she does not recognize it on a deeper level and does not move beyond the state of nausea. She occupies the behavior of a wild beast, rather than that of a god.

In The Plague, (a novel Camus wrote after The Stranger), Camus viewed the protagonist as the same protagonist of The Stranger. Camus transitions past the stagnancy of the narrator in The Stranger though and expresses love and caring for humanity by making the main character a doctor. This is certainly an expression of Camus himself evolving past his individual ego, past the murderer within himself. He reaches an understanding that existential anguish can be remedied by accepting this suffering and lets go, attaining a state of awareness that connects him to a source - called God, by some, the universe by others, the unknown origin of life as we know it. It is this awareness that existentialism and absurdism hope to achieve, helping us to recognize that we are all, at one point, strangers to the world, to others, and to ourselves. Relating to each other on this level, knowing that life itself is sickening, bizarre, depressing yet somehow funny, and joyful, we learn from each other to understand the capacity of our actions. We ultimately find that we'd rather witness the beauty in sun-baked newspapers than kill ourselves and what makes us human by killing one another.

New Painting in Progress.

2011-06-15T08:02:00.000-07:00

Aspects And Alligators

2011-06-07T17:29:00.000-07:00

Lifetimes

2011-05-24T20:36:00.000-07:00

Flyer for The Misunderstanding: Idea Stages

2011-05-21T18:03:00.000-07:00

Mask And Napkin - Progressing

2011-05-20T09:04:00.000-07:00

Mask And Napkin - Beginning

2011-05-17T11:58:00.001-07:00

Laying out the composition is the hardest part for me. It is important to remember that paintings from drawings are interpretations and accuracy is not necessarily best.

The Trouble With Form

2011-05-17T11:57:00.000-07:00

Wooden Dragon Devours Ocean Lamp Lady: Progressing

2011-05-13T11:43:00.000-07:00

Fractals: New Pieces

2011-05-13T10:40:00.001-07:00

Return To Nature - Necklace

Birds Of A Feather - Earrings

Queen Of The Sea - Earrings

Night In The Forest - Earrings

The Fae

2011-05-09T15:14:00.000-07:00

Seduction of the Elementals

Struggling to Become

Fractals: New Pieces

2011-05-06T08:54:00.000-07:00

I haven't got the earring parts for these yet, but they're earrings!

Buried Treasure

Queen of the Forest

What The Window Told Me: COMPLETE!

2011-05-06T07:38:00.001-07:00

Fractals: New Pieces

2011-05-02T20:59:00.001-07:00

Glamour - Pendant

Snake Charmer - Pendant

Luminescence - Earrings

This Painting is NOT Done.

2011-05-02T20:58:00.001-07:00

This Painting is DONE. Finally.

2011-05-02T20:50:00.000-07:00

Fractals: New Pieces

2011-04-26T20:56:00.001-07:00

Pan's Song - Earrings

Faery Favors - Pendant

Bound by Blood and Bone - Pendant (blood jasper and bone bead)

Fractals: New Pieces

2011-04-25T13:05:00.000-07:00

Curtains - Necklace

Woodland Treasures - Pendant

To Catch a Falling Star - Earrings

Strength - Bracelet. Done for Heidi Kepnes

Ray of Light - Earrings

What The Window Told Me: Progressing

2011-03-26T21:54:00.000-07:00

The Woman On The Hill

2011-03-26T20:06:00.000-07:00

In every crack inside the rocks I found whispers screaming, like tired tongues they almost spit, quickly stitching up their lips. I never heard them laughing.

"I do not speak of great things like love," she said, the woman made of darkness that broods upon the stones, "I do not speak of murder, passion or the way a human dresses up as if it will help them find a reason. I only talk of small things lost, early in the evening; minds before a sip of scotch, or hearts thrown into the jaws of beauty on a first date masquerade. It's these little charms that keep one searching for something more to say. And you have come because you lost your virtue at dusk; a trophy in my treasure house of human puzzle pieces. Tell me this is not what keeps your heart beating?"

In every space between the clouds I heard a sigh that exhaled days of sunless make-believe. Like a dead gaze, eyes almost burned like UV rays, quickly fade into gray - I never saw them blinking.

I spoke;

"I no longer speak of love, nor murder either, and my passion has grown into a malformed pet I keep hidden within, that I must feed with a meager supply of faith. I care no longer for pretty dresses or painting eyes with jaws that devour these hearts by you mentioned. But it is these great things, simply put, that sometimes steal the precious charms you speak of from another unsuspecting person. Not everything gone is lost. Some things are taken. And these things cannot be sought. My heart beats because I am alive, that is the only reason. I have nothing more to say."

What The Window Told Me: Painting (beginning) 30"X40"

2011-03-22T17:11:00.000-07:00

But if I don't get somewhere soon, I'm selling all my things and hitching a bus to elsewhere.

Progress.

2011-03-22T17:09:00.000-07:00

Still I wonder what keeps me going. Still I keep going.

My Etsy Store Is Up And Active!

2011-03-18T17:49:00.001-07:00

http://www.etsy.com/shop/11Fractals11

Buy my things! Buybuybuy!

Fractals: New Pieces

2011-03-18T00:11:00.000-07:00

Dusk In The City - Bracelet

Frost On The Windows - Pendant

It's Almost 2AM I'm Tired and Wondering What Compels Me To Paint This Monstrosity

2011-03-16T22:49:00.000-07:00

Malleable Petroleum

2011-03-16T19:38:00.000-07:00

On the last mini-vacay with The Explorer's Club (where we gather together for a few days of beer drinking and contemplate philosophy, life, you know, like what they do eternally in the first circle of hell) a few of us (myself not included) played music together. I decided to make a CD cover for the track. At some point I'm sure I will post the track on Soundcloud for your listening pleasure.

Woodland Creature in Mind Forest Painting - Progressing

2011-03-16T12:24:00.000-07:00

Fractals: New Pieces

2011-03-15T14:10:00.001-07:00

Rhythm Of Song - Earrings

A Moment Before Dawn - Pendant

The Cosmic Egg - Pendant

The Web We Weave - Bracelet

This Is More Like It!

2011-03-15T14:08:00.000-07:00

Bottle/Label Design - by Jeff Jacobs

2011-03-10T08:12:00.000-08:00

"Life is fast. Art is slow." - Henri Fuseli

2011-03-07T14:13:00.000-08:00

I had to use Photobooth to take these pictures. I will post better photos tomorrow evening.

2011-03-02T13:10:00.000-08:00

I found this photo on my computer. It is an old photo that served as inspiration for the metaphor of the rabbit in my story, "The Dream".

Woodland Creature In Mind Forest: Painting

2011-03-01T14:27:00.001-08:00

The Siren: Progressing

2011-02-28T16:19:00.000-08:00

Mostly still blocking, figuring out the composition/colors etc.

The Siren: Progressing

2011-02-28T13:29:00.000-08:00

This project is for a new label for The Siren, an upcoming brew by Enlightenment Ales.

This is the transfer process.

This is color blocking.

What The Window Told Me

2011-02-25T11:37:00.000-08:00

Fractals: New Pieces (incomplete)

2011-02-25T11:08:00.001-08:00

The Web We Weave

One Life

Fractals: Expressing Your Existence Through Symbolic Manifestation of the Inner Universe

2011-02-25T10:23:00.000-08:00

The aim of Fractals is to manifest Jewelry/wearable art that combines natural elements, literal representation of nature, and creative abstraction, inspired by the Universe.

The namesake was chosen through the observance of nature as an artist, and how she so gracefully connects every element by mimicking qualities/repeating patterns in her overall composition we know as the Universe.

The world/worlds within us are lush with forests of veins, our life controlled by a strong firey heart, radiating blood into our veins as the rays of the sun feed the trees, while our lungs *are* the atmosphere of our inner existence. Made up primarily of water, like the Earth, us humans move with the sea, affected naturally by the lunar phase as it affects the tides.

Every piece in Fractals attempts to remind the wearer that the outer Universe flows through us, lives inside of us; that we are but a microcosm of such grand masterpiece, which dances as a whole in exquisite fractals, much like a kaleidoscope.

The process involves letting Nature swim through me unconsciously, automatically, to inspire pieces that are evocative of spiderwebs, nests, the ocean horizon, that each charm may serve as a magickal segue (talisman) between the natural environment within and subjective perception/connection to this, and the larger, objective world around us.

Upon wearing these pieces may the wearer be instantly reminded of the beauty, power and intelligence that exists in our environment, and as a result, increase/create awareness of the power and intelligence that resonates within.

Photos from "There Is Another Court" - Jan - Feb 2011

2011-02-25T10:01:00.000-08:00

John, Moi, Harry, Sam, Vahdat, Hannah, Jared, and Lorna - Love you guys.

Drawings

2011-02-21T07:52:00.000-08:00

Woodland Creature In Mind Forest

Wooden Dragon Devours Ocean Lamp Lady

Crumpled Napkin And Mask - An Imaginative Study

Jewelry Making

2011-02-14T18:39:00.001-08:00

The Unconscious Sea

The Birth of a Forest

Enlightenment: Logo Sketches

2011-02-14T16:17:00.001-08:00

The Siren: Beginning Concept Sketches

2011-02-14T16:15:00.000-08:00

Art Hurts

2011-02-09T01:04:00.000-08:00

"Art hurts. Art urges voyages - and it is easier to stay at home." - Gwendolyn Brooks

Silence

2011-02-04T11:05:00.001-08:00

Sometimes when I’m silent
I’m picturing myself in a
Sunlit room filled with glass

With a bat

Exhausted I
Fall atop reflections
And dream in golden red

There Is Another Court: On The Set!

2011-01-31T10:44:00.000-08:00

Children

2011-01-18T11:18:00.000-08:00

How tempting it is
How fatal the blow
Of the kiss that explodes
A childhood of sorrow
And with it
Fond memories of
Starfish and sand dollars
And heroic adventures
When he was Hercules and
She was Medusa
Strong, sleek and evil

But if they breathe in slowly
They can make it their own
As the grieving tears of today
Bear resplendent gardens
Of joyous tomorrows

So a kiss is at once
A promise and betrayal
As they float in tides of forever
In a lively weariness
Of constant fascination

The Gift

2011-01-15T12:50:00.001-08:00

There is not much of her left
She is dissolving again
Into places where bodies
Have no heads

Here they scream with their
Sex and they sing dragging
Scratches upon frozen ground

She slips into
DECAY

The prettiest gown

And the twigs atop the soil
Are a choir of sorrow
As they are defeated by genocide
The result of a godly white flesh

And she can almost remember
The way the pieces of her face
Fell as broken shards would
The sharp ebony eyes descend
Trailed by the nose
And the cozy red cheeks
Black curls dropped like night
Diminishing the glow of
Scattered white teeth that
Once made a smile

And then there was nothing
Above the throat which was
Paused mid-swallow
Like a movie stopped during
A murder scene
Choking for him
All she could think of
Was SLEEP

Crumpled leaves of
Identity beneath little bare feet
That couldn't stop stomping
Disintegrate and
Tiny flecks fly away
Like small brown fairies

AND

It was a gift
Wasn't it?
WASN'T IT?
To watch them flutter
Up into a universe of
Unknown mind?

And then he gave her an apple
Like she'd won a prize

No, that was the gift
Wasn't it?
WASN'T IT?

The knowledge that
This garden is
A lie

Everything You Do

2011-01-15T12:45:00.000-08:00

Everything you do is perfect
And I turn away like a boy
Disaffected
Tying a puppy to tracks
Waiting for the train
Knowing I'll regret it
At the last minute
When reality hits hard
And
When I can't save it
I'll just say
FUCK
And walk away like
I always do

A murderer

And just like a little boy I'll
Kick a rock and wonder

Why do I love this game
So much?

Owl

2011-01-12T18:00:00.000-08:00

This is a painting/collage that I did for my father Christmas '09.

New Concept Design

2011-01-12T17:56:00.000-08:00

This is a very rough, first sketch done free-hand (without references, which I plan on using for accuracy of the body, feathers, etc.) for a new concept that will involve the image of the siren.

Who Is The One, Watching The One, Watching Me?

2011-01-12T17:51:00.000-08:00

This was done as a CD cover upon request of a past acquaintence but was never used.

Fairytale

2011-01-12T10:32:00.000-08:00

Homeless, the talking skull and the cold maiden went walking. The night sung a thousand songs of wishing, luring them into deep leaves of fatal becoming. And upon meeting the odd figure, it so happened that she became a skeleton and he began to grow an icy flesh. Abruptly stopping, they stared desperately into each other's eyes, and upon parting their lips to speak, escaping silently were a thousand wishes of song.

Enlightenment: Fin!

2011-01-12T10:07:00.000-08:00

Enlightenment: Progressing Still

2011-01-06T10:38:00.000-08:00

We decided to paint it, after all.

Apart

2011-01-05T16:09:00.000-08:00

These words cannot be said
A confession requires shame
The admittance of a beauty
I know that I am lacking

There is a perseverance
Rife in this plague of thought
It is Solitude
Breathing laboriously through
The nightmare hours
In an age when cities of sleep
Have been seized by
Cracked bottle memories
That suck up
The eyes’ sky

And the waifs of Nevertime
That toil begrudgingly in the heart
Of this metropolis
Trying restlessly to keep it beating
Once young and able
Now decrepit
Fall short as they chase
After fleeting moments
Of forgiving

And when our bodies stand
On this last part of the world
Too small for two I’ll be the one
To dive into the sweeping sea of
Forgetting
Swimming through space like
A lost fish unknown to such
Quiet depths
I will make my home in
Departure

Remembering only
That I have left all comfort
For the bitterness
of this insatiable lusting after
The hunger for
Such beauty

Set Photos From: "There Is Another Court"

2010-12-30T11:48:00.000-08:00

Check out the photos of the creation process for the set! The first picture is the shadow of the snake from the flyer (prototype).

Desire

2010-12-30T10:17:00.000-08:00

Many have never seen the animal that I had to kill. But I will tell you, it was beautiful, with tiny translucent feathers every color that the eye knows, and some colors unknown to bodily vision. And it was effervescent to the soul, like champagne which tickles the tongue and warms the senses. Its wings, when spread, were large organic mirrors which reflected the spirit of this planet, that the seer may understand what glorious paradise we live in. Entranced by its eyes; night skies constantly flickering with meteors, when the animal blinked it was like the universe breathing in, perpetually giving and taking away a vision of perfection. And when I had to blink, the moment lasted for an eternity, for I could not bear to be away from the sight of such a magestic beast. It’s collosal paws were the unquestionable authority of the gods.

And that animal knocked me to the ground with it’s cataclysmic tail, because I did not deserve to be in its presence. That such beauty would destroy me turned me red, radiating with anger. And my anger began to turn to apathy, as I became a monster in the presence of such a wild angel. The chill winds of it’s flapping wings turned me to ice as it hovered above me. As the spectrum of my heaven quickly faded to gray, I ripped out my cold dry heart and launched it at the creature. I ripped off my right arm and fashioned it into a sharp point, like an icicle, and pitched it into the animal’s chest. And the squeals that it released from the pith of its diaphragm were the cries of a primordial evil that was birthed painfully into the ether before it could infiltrate the elements. Pouring out of its wounds was a thick black tar, and in it scattered were the corpses of humans that it had conquered, their faces adorned with the smiles of fools.

You must understand that I could have stared into its eyes for one thousand years, spun like a hapless fly into it’s inescapable web. And I would have let such beauty devour me. Had I deserved it, it would have carried my little dying body, painted with the expression of a idiot, to blessed universes on the other side of Desire. But it wanted me to kill it. Because I had to understand that such a thing, though ancient, is not immortal. And I have given my heart and the hand that paints in exchange for this atrocity I’ve committed.

And now I understand how it cripples a human, this wanting of forever, this needing of nothing at all.

Enlightenment: Progressing

2010-12-27T13:26:00.001-08:00

There will definitely be more integration with the light bulb and the background, as well as a halo of light.

..*

2010-12-22T13:18:00.001-08:00

"In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing when you look at the sky at night." - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Can't Let Go: Progressing

2010-12-21T08:38:00.000-08:00

These are the angels flying to the sun.

Revisiting A Very Old Painting.

2010-12-21T08:31:00.000-08:00

Sophia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophia_(wisdom)

It is funny how I like the original, more simpler version best. It is this painting that inspired me to document the process of all paintings in this blog, as one can see that naturally, the concept of Sophia was ultimately, unconsciously and microcosmically through my perception, veiled in nature. This process, I believe is true to life. Look beyond the trees and in between the flowers to see the spirit and the origins of the physical world.

Enlightenment: Background Complete!

2010-12-21T08:28:00.000-08:00

Can't Let Go: Progressing

2010-12-18T16:46:00.000-08:00

This is the storm.

This is the dog inside of the skull.

This is the rabbit inside of the face.

This is the eye of the girl's storm. This is also the girl, getting swept away

And This Is A Mock-Up.

2010-12-18T15:08:00.000-08:00

Enlightment: Progressing

2010-12-18T14:40:00.000-08:00

The colors will change. I don't like the colors.

Enlightenment: Beginning Stages 2

2010-12-10T22:11:00.001-08:00

Enlightenment: Beginning Stages

2010-12-10T20:45:00.000-08:00

Lav

2010-12-10T20:36:00.000-08:00

I feel like fingers
Fallen from the hand
Like eyes without beauty
I am two lackluster stones

There is no “you”
To speak of
Nor a heart to remember

Beginning and
Going and
Ending alone

There once was a mother
A father, a sibling

There once was a flame

Or so I’ve been told

There were friends
There was laughter
There was warmth
In December

They called it Lav

Or

Some other word

But in this body plagued by
Terror
A dreamer is running
From nothing
And banging on the doors
Of houses

Not homes

And I recall
Strangers
In a dark land without sound
We were screaming together
On mountains of tongues
We were screaming together
But nothing would come out

But suddenly the stars
Began to move around eachother
We stared out and watched
As their light washed over the sky
And we screamed, just kept screaming
It was like the stars danced to our yearning
Inside I felt something
And I think it was that thing

It just had to be

Lav

The Very First Designs For The Play Flyer

2010-12-06T19:11:00.000-08:00

Drawn on work coasters.

Artwork For Enlightenment

2010-12-06T18:58:00.001-08:00

My friend has hired me to do the label for a beer he is brewing called, "Enlightenment". Here you will find a couple of photos playing around with ideas, and also the beginning of the decided upon design.

The Brewing of Explorer's Club IPA

2010-12-06T18:44:00.000-08:00

These are pictures of myself and friends helping a good friend of ours as he brews a beer. Brewing, like painting, sculpting, songwriting, and cooking is also an art that requires a great imagination and a lot of gusto to pursue. This is an IPA (we looove IPA!) brewed with grapefruits (we looove grapefruits!).

Vegging...

Making it...

And making it...

And making it...

Prosecco break!

Making it...

Grapefruits...

Cool people...

Hops!

Flyer: Great Pumpkin Fest: 2009/2010

2010-12-02T07:33:00.001-08:00

I Remember Halloween!

2010-11-27T10:23:00.000-08:00

This year I was a snake. My makeup looks much better in the last picture (I did this before Halloween) than the other ones, as on Halloween I had to be ready in an hour to bartend for The Great Pumpkin Fest. I didn't have a lot of time to paint.

These are the glasses I made.

This is the CBC crowd, on our way to work and play :)

Birth Of The Set For "There Is Another Court."

2010-11-18T23:03:00.000-08:00

As I have implied in previous posts, I am the art director for this psychological/symbolic play about JonBenet Ramsey. More information about this play can be found at Boston Experimental Theatre's website: www.bostonexperimentaltheatre.com

Here is the first picture documented of the set, which will be a surreal forest; an escape in the mind of the main character, Jolie, but also a place where many fears lie among the unknown.

As a note, this production will also include Sophia Perennis's (Elizabeth Jacobs, Larissa Glasser of Boston's Hekseri and Spoorloos) first live performance.

Back Design of Flyer for "There Is Another Court"

2010-11-17T22:04:00.001-08:00

Nothing Happened

2010-09-23T15:34:00.000-07:00

One night sacrificed to drunk dreams
Too high to appreciate any tenderness
Too royally fucked by the ashes of a
Smoking lie
Colored aggressively by
Circumstance with shabby shades of misery
Dressed in the frayed rags of
Childhood longing
Too sick in the disease of us;
Wasted beings of a glorious excess
To care about
or notice
The sly creeping in of
A burglar sun

I was choking on the sands of time
Wedged in the middle of
Your hourglass fantasy
With an epidemic distaste for you;
The bullet in my heart
That should have killed me

The exit wound
Bled
Red fantasies of raping you

I hated you

I wanted to

You never came and
And even here
We were both so
Gone

I loved and lost you
In the small hours before dawn
When nothing happens

There Is Another Court: An Evening with JonBenet Ramsey

2010-09-21T18:02:00.000-07:00

Flyer design by Elizabeth Jacobs (me!)

I am also the production artist for this play. Please visit this website for more information.

http://bostonexperimentaltheatre.com

Swallowing The Rock.

2010-08-17T16:57:00.000-07:00

Hello readers,

To avoid going insane in my lack of understanding of everything, I created a new blog:

http://swallowingtherock.blogspot.com/

You might find it cute, funny, stupid. In any case, it's meant to make you laugh.

2010-08-15T11:07:00.000-07:00

Bound in dusk
This fence made of eyes
Embraces the breath
Exhaled from above

I am compelled to dissolve
Into the ghoulish grins
That are woven like lace
From a blackening sky and
Silhouettes of leaves
Their souls move in shadows
Through stained glass windows
Suspended invisible among
Lofty branches

I feel without understanding
My inner vision is not inner
Rather, whispered prose
Recited subversively
Through the silent orchestra
Of night

Uninvited,
The words slither
Into the senses
Poisoning me with
The ideas of God

Makeshift Eyes

The Misunderstanding, by Albert Camus - BETC Theatre Production

Greek Masks For "The Misunderstanding"

Poems That I Forgot I Wrote

Flyer For "The Misunderstanding".

Masks For "The Misunderstanding"

BETC: New Production!

Wooden Dragon Devouring Ocean Lamp Lady: Finished!

Wooden Dragon Devouring Ocean Lamp Lady: Almost Finished!

The Siren - Complete!

The Siren

Fractals: New Earrings!

Wooden Dragon Devouring Ocean Lamp Lady: Painting; progressing.

Publication.

Enlightenment Work: The Siren - Progressing

Fractals: New Pieces

Maybe Nothing Is Beautiful

This Is A Great Essay.

Hours.

Almost Finished.

Aspects And Alligators: Detail Extracted (Progressing)

Existentialism: A Misunderstanding

New Painting in Progress.

Aspects And Alligators

Lifetimes

Flyer for The Misunderstanding: Idea Stages

Mask And Napkin - Progressing

Mask And Napkin - Beginning

The Trouble With Form

Wooden Dragon Devours Ocean Lamp Lady: Progressing

Fractals: New Pieces

The Fae

Fractals: New Pieces

What The Window Told Me: COMPLETE!

Fractals: New Pieces

This Painting is NOT Done.

This Painting is DONE. Finally.

Fractals: New Pieces

Fractals: New Pieces

What The Window Told Me: Progressing

The Woman On The Hill

What The Window Told Me: Painting (beginning) 30"X40"

Progress.

My Etsy Store Is Up And Active!

Fractals: New Pieces

It's Almost 2AM I'm Tired and Wondering What Compels Me To Paint This Monstrosity

Malleable Petroleum

Woodland Creature in Mind Forest Painting - Progressing

Fractals: New Pieces

This Is More Like It!

Bottle/Label Design - by Jeff Jacobs

"Life is fast. Art is slow." - Henri Fuseli

Woodland Creature In Mind Forest: Painting

The Siren: Progressing

The Siren: Progressing

What The Window Told Me

Fractals: New Pieces (incomplete)

Fractals: Expressing Your Existence Through Symbolic Manifestation of the Inner Universe

Photos from "There Is Another Court" - Jan - Feb 2011

Drawings

Jewelry Making

Enlightenment: Logo Sketches

The Siren: Beginning Concept Sketches

Art Hurts

Silence

There Is Another Court: On The Set!

Children

The Gift

Everything You Do

Owl

New Concept Design

Who Is The One, Watching The One, Watching Me?

Fairytale

Enlightenment: Fin!

Enlightenment: Progressing Still

Apart

Set Photos From: "There Is Another Court"

Desire

Enlightenment: Progressing

*.*.*

..*