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mythfits β Diamond Spinner
Published: 2007-08-17 23:33:01 +0000 UTC; Views: 884; Favourites: 10; Downloads: 0
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Description
August 2007PS2 & Wacom, Digital Painting
submitted to EliteArtists mini contest
"man is an animal suspended in webs of significance that he himself has spun." β anthropologist, Clifford Geertz
Each of us is a spider weaving a web that will catch a unique experience of this life. We weave strands of meaning that bring us into relationship with our world. Through our arts, our music, and our words, we give significance to ideas, moments, people, places, and things. We give significance to our selves. We bring them into the light and within our reach. But most of life passes through the strands of the web like wind and fog, unnoticed and invisible. And like the spidersβ own web, our vast constructions, elaborate ideologies and endless beliefs, are all easily swept away by the natural unfolding of timeless mystery. Still, we continue to weave. Where there is destruction, we produce new meaning, where there is despair, new hope.
It is a kind of "dark safari"- little creatures out hunting for their own essence; producing artful strands of symbols and signs to try and capture means and meaning to sustain, inspire, and illuminate the journey. Each must weave his web alone, and yet we draw from the stories captured in the webs of others.
The vajra that is integrated into this spider is an important Hindu and Tibetan ritual tool of contemplation. It finds its origins in a weapon of war, and its conclusion in a symbol of indestructible truth- the lightning bolt of illumination. It is sometimes said that the vajra joins essential reality (the space between the strands of the web), with perceptual reality (the strands we weave). From source to satori, we are on safari for life. The hunt, with all its death and ferocity, produces the flowering beauty of being.
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Comments: 8
As much as I enjoy the drawing, I am even more inspired by your writing. Most artists seem to just add a few statistical comments to their work, and it breathes of fresh air to read a description that enhances the art.
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Thank you. I choose to treat my art a mindful meditation on ideas and themes that will elevate and expand my conciousness. Somewhere along the line we seem to have inherited a cultural expectation that art must not communicate directly. I do not find that words close the system or the possibilities. Instead, words are but one more color in an artist's palette.
I'd love to see more engaged dialogue on DA. It feels like a missed opportunity. I suspect that we would benefit from a bit less mutual adoration and a bit more artful interpersonal exploration. That said, I'm just happy to be able to share my passions with other passionate people.
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Could you elaborate what you mean by "artful interpersonal exploration," and maybe give some examples? I think we're on the same wavelength, except I don't fully grasp what you mean by that phrase.
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I just replied to your dazzling new image "Entrance," here: [link]
I tried to engage with your art. I spent some time meditating on it, feeling it, thinking about it and what you said. In this time, I was brought into deeper relationship with you through your artful expression. I then reflected my discovery back to you.
In regular communication, this is often called "reflective listening."
You could now come back to me with any further thoughts. Perhaps I have not understood you at all. This would only deepen our opportunities to connect. Perhaps my misunderstanding will provide you with further insight into who I am. Perhaps I have understood you, and my reflection will spark further thoughts in both of us.
If the simple things in life unfold when we really attend to them, it's dazzling to imagine how more extraordinary creations, works of art such as your own, might unfold as we give them attention.
Of course, the obvious challenge is that making a connection takes time, but what are we doing here anyway?
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Thank you Hera. I've enjoyed your gallery as well. I appreciate the interesting themes that you explore in images such as "don't" and "keep dreaming."
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