Miracle Work, May day, and Surrealism

     I'm getting excited for the shows I have coming up and, strangely,  I'm fairly satisfied with my progress. I'm trying to get better about taking progress shots so i can provide some education on my process. I hope to do demonstrations in the future showcasing techniques of both ceramics and painting. I have been rewriting my statements lately and trying to figure out who i am as an artist. A continual process for me. I really get sick sometimes of having to do this, but i have begun to really realize the importance of doing it, Of explaining why i decide to be a wacko artist. At this point there's really no going back anyway. Its like the first time you take psilocybin, mescaline, or LSD. I remember thinking a few years later that "They" are right about one thing. Once you take that stuff it changes you forever. You never go back if you have a clean realization. And its all for the better. Ya Dig? So that's how i feel as an artist. Iv had this realization. The facade of American material happiness and its nostalgic revisions of history have crumbled. I cant go back to it because it simply doesn't exist for me. So i focus on the trip I'm currently on. The Artist complex.
     What am I passionate about at the roots? Freedom, equality, and justice. Three separate trips in a way, because what i have discovered so far is that you need to experience freedom directly before you can know what it is. This is the first stepping stone in my opinion. Ram Daas, who is a big inspiration to me, speaks about how he felt he needed to get free. It was the force pulling at him most and consequently he did not get involved as much in social and political demonstrations in the 1960's because his main goal was getting free spiritually and mentally. The rebel part of my brain said what a pussy, but the inner mind contemplated this for a while. I began to realize the implications of this. How can you know any three of these things without knowing what freedom is? For if you think the current situation is freedom, you must feel like there is equality and justice and are satisfied with those judgements. On the other hand if you experience radical freedom from social, mental, and even biological restraints you will begin to question the way the world is set up for you know deep inside that this American dream is not free, or equal, or just. Ram Daas' revolution was one of spiritual and philosophical nature that has provided countless miracles, not those of turning water into wine, but the miracles of self realization and the experience of connection to a bigger picture. The miracles are what help make the world more equal and just because they give the gift of freedom. MLK, Malcom X, Che, Ghandi, Rivera, and Galileo all share this common thread. They birthed miracles of philosophy, action, art, and science, and are the rebels later hailed as genius. A pattern that emerges quite often. Many many more have had this experience and create their own miracles, but its the ones that give us that universal connection that end up being remembered and hailed as a great performer. This is because the connection is so deep that any amount of medial controversy or government control to create a stigmatism fails. Bob Marley, Augusto Sandino, Cesar Chavez. All of these people have been maimed by history and the media yet their support grows and thrives like a cleansing wildfire in dry over grown forest.
     My current work revolves around the concept of getting free spiritually, and retaining your love of yourself and the culture you come from. Seeing yourself and your environment as inherently beautiful. The problems it presents are the ones to focus our energy on moving forward. Where are we in relation to this cosmic realization, This mystic encounter with the one truth. This earth we are on is our mother, our goddess, our sustenance. What we do to it, we do to ourselves. The natural dictator of things is a direct representation of how the universe works, the laws of physics, chemistry, and the laws of biological life. Science and spiritual thought must come together as a team in order for our species to realize and enact the miracle we were made to perform. Alex grey said in an interview, "Our concept of god must evolve." And i agree. Evolving to a universal understanding of the laws of nature and how we fit into the picture, not how we can make the picture fit our image. The truth is what needs to be said. The mystic encounter with the divine reality of things. How our earth is set up to care for our needs through natural medicine, food to eat, forms to appreciate, and energy to create. So spiritual yet so goddamn Scientific. All signs point that way. It is the American dream and inflated ego that disguise this path and make it seem idealistic and un realistic. If hell can be a reality, so can heaven.
     Today is May Day, a commemoration celebration of may1, 1886 when unions across this country went on strike demanding fair and equal rights. Its a celebration of organize labor worldwide, and yet most Americans haven't the slightest clue of its significance with regards to their countries history and thier current situation. All of them enjoy the benefits of the blood spilled to get here and then many turn around and condemn what it is all about. Slaves criticizing the free willing again. Slaves that say, "hey master i want to be even more of a slave to your will." "Please fuck me more! I can take it." The importance of organized labor and unions is a miracle that allowed us the freedom to say NO, Fucker! Im only working 8 hours a day because i have a family to care for and a body that needs to sleep. And i need to eat so you better pay me what im worth as a human being and not as a tool to use at your whim. The achievement of another freedom that brings equality and justice closer to the front of the big picture. Stand in solidarity with unions if you are not part of one yourself. Thank them for their efforts to keep you free. They honestly do more work to keep us free than the military does. Im not about to criticize a serviceman for his beliefs, but union workers deserve as much respect and thanks as any soldier does.
     In closing i just want to touch on surrealism a bit. Since one of the main foundations for my work comes out of this movement, it has been appearing again and again in reviews and in my own writings.  Its a common misconception across educated "Elite" and the common art enthusiast that surrealism is fantasy. It is idiosyncratic in composition, content, and nature and therefore is only pure entertainment and silliness. I believed this for a long time until a great teacher of mine Sir David Coker turned me on to the truth. What is surrealism. Well, lets go back to the beginning of the movement. Surrealism first appeared in the world in 1917  coined by Guillaume Apollinaire, taken over by Andre Breton as the name of the movement he launched in 1924 with "Manifeste de Surréalisme." Taken up in English at first in the French form; the anglicized version is from 1931. It comes  from the French surréalisme (from sur- "beyond" + réalisme "realism")
We can now get a better picture of the intentions of the surrealist movement. The images they were depicting were not only real, they were beyond real. The reality of life and its juxtapositions fail in comparison to the reality that is beyond the physical realm. It enters the realm of psychology(which early surrealists were deeply interested in) and the inner workings of the mind, which eventually opened doors to the divine infinite experience. The surrealists translated this experience through their images and then were interpreted by western conventional thinkers to be imaginative fantasy without much of a basis in reality. This is a wrong interpretation. I work from the original intention of the surrealists and strive to create images that are beyond real. Images that are so real that the construction of the ego is shattered for a moment. Whether welcomed or not. Whether subconsciously or consciously. This is entirely up to the observer. And ill leave yall with some observation of your own. Progress shots of the current work im doing. Check out the previous posts for a good look at them in process!

     Peace Brothers and Sisters!