I have always viewed my thesis project as the culmination of my undergraduate experience. The most important things I have discovered as a Rutgers student, besides becoming an art student, are my eclectic spirituality and my involvement in the local Ar nDraiocht Fein Druid grove, the Grove of the Other Gods. This group and my continually evolving world view have been my support all through college, while practicing art has been a way of exploring these new ideas. So, my thesis will be about synthesis: the synthesis of my art and spirituality; the synthesis of elder symbols and my personal iconography; the synthesis of the painted image with other media; the synthesis of ideas, customs, and gods from various cultures into my personal world view.
The first of these syntheses I wish to explain is my personal world view, which has a pluralist philosophy. This is explained by the founder of Ar nDraiocht Fein, Isaac Bonewits, in his book Real Energy. Bonewits describes his ideas of dueling paradigms; dualism, polarism, and pluralism. Dualism, the worldview of Christianity and science, categorizes the world into two halves with a brick wall between them: true/false, right/wrong, good/evil. Polarism, the view of Tao, seeks to balance everything with its opposite. Pluralism, the view of ancient and modern Paganism, accepts that the world is, “ complex and multifaceted, with simple answers being treated only as shorthand for complicated issues,” (Bonewits, 10). Instead of trying to force things into artificial, man-made categories, I can say, “Huh, that's interesting, lets see how it fits in with everything else I've learned,”Bonewits, 11). Into my personal worldview, I have fit spiritual entities and ideas from Celtic, Norse, Greek, Native American, and Hindu cultures. The symbols that come with these cultural elements have also worked their way into my life and my art.
I have blended the symbols and language of the cultures I am interested in with my symbols and those of ADF Druidry. My mental library includes animal symbolism, geometric signs and diagrams, language, and text. By text I mean different writing systems such as Ogham (Celtic writing) Runes (Norse), Hieroglyphs (Egyptian), Greek, and Sanskrit (Hindu). In past works, my strongest and most reoccurring icon has been the horse, which spans many different cultures and represents may different things including fertility, status, physical power, freedom, sovereignty, travel, speed, and even death. To me, it is a messenger and guide from the spiritual realms. I would like to create a more definite language for the rest of my symbols to use in my thesis paintings and possible prints. This will take a great deal of introspection, possibly to the level of Matthew Mullican, who is obsessed with categorizing and defining his levels of reality, and the objects in them. However, I do not feel as though my symbolism should be fixed, but fluid and flexible. That goes for media as well as images.
My personal visual language extends beyond painted images and symbols and into the materials I use. My interest in representative materials came from the German artist Joseph Beuys as well as ancient ritual tools and African art. Beuys had his own history and mythology of being rescued by natives after a plane crash, and the materials he used thereafter related back to that story. His works almost always included fat and/or felt, which the natives had wrapped him in to keep him warm. For example, his installation “The Pack” included a group of sleds emerging from a Volkswagen bus, each carrying, “felt for warmth, fat for nourishment, and a flashlight to find the way,” (Fineberg, 235). In the past, I have experimented with putting wire, tin foil, sewing, beadwork, and paper onto the canvas. I will continue experimenting with new materials such as stained glass, mirrors, and “proper” embroidery. I would like to try and assign them loose meanings, and synthesize as many of them as will work into a cohesive whole. The mixed media I would like to investigate will also play with the physical planes of the canvas. Some materials will be behind the canvas, with holes cut to reveal them. Some materials will be fused into the canvas, some on the surface, and some in front. The synthesis of very different materials is a parallel to my synthesis of ideas and symbols. The levels in which they reside on the canvas may reflect introspection, levels of consciousness, or even a gateway between the physical and spiritual realms. If it is the latter, one side of the canvas may be the physical realm, and the other side the spiritual, and the canvas or hole in the canvas the gate.
But what should I write about with this visual language? I choose its main source. I would like to create work about my experiences in Grove of the other Gods. While I am not a medium, I would like to think that as an artist, I play a similar role. Hilma af Klint, one of the first abstract painters, was a spiritualist medium who ran her own séance group called “The Five”. During their sessions, Klint would take notes and sketches, then would later transfer these messages from the spirits onto canvas. I would like to do something similar with Grove of the Other Gods' rituals; translate the messages we get. The most recent ritual was Samhain (Halloween, October 31st). The next two before the spring exhibition are Yule (Winter Solstice December 21st), and Imbolc (Candle mass for Catholics, February 2nd). All of these elements will be synthesized into my painting to produce a coherent, and probably over-the-top whole. I will use an invented visual language of symbols and materials to convey my experiences in Druidic ritual.
Annotated Bibliography
Bain, George. Celtic Art, The Methods of Construction. New York, NY: Dover
Publications Inc., 1973.
This book gives instructions on the construction of Celtic knot work and lettering. This will be useful as I may include some Celt inspired stylization in my paintings.
2009
2006.
Books, 2007.
Real Energy by Isaac and Phaedra Bonewits expounds and unites both scientific and mystic theories and applications of energy. The book was written under the eyes of physicists Dr. York Dobyns of the “Physics Police” and Dr. Bill Seligman.
Damh the Bard. "The Hills They Are Hollow.". Caer Bryn Music, 2003.
Damh the Bard is a Druid musician and storyteller. This particular song is about some of the more beautiful (and fanciful) aspects of the path. Also, has the line "Some people don't understand when I say, these are the things I believe," which could not be more true.
De Zegher, Catherine, Hendel Teicher, and et al. 3 X Abstraction: New Methods
of Drawing by Hilma af Klint, Emma Kunz, and Agnes Martin. New Haven, CT:
Yale University press, 2005.
Ellison, Robert Lee. The Solitary Druid, Walking the Path of Wisdom and Spirit. New York, NY: Citadel Press, 2005.
Both Isaac Bonewits and Rev. Robert Lee (Skip) Ellison write on the subject of modern Druidry. Whereas Bonewits’s work is an historical documentary, the tone of Ellison’s book is more instructional. Because of this, the two books compliment each other.
Fineberg, Jonathan. Art Since 1940, Strategies of Being. 2nd. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000. Print.
Jonathan Fineberg’s book is a detailed record of major artists and movements from the Abstract Expressionists up to the present day. It includes several artists whose work is influential to mine, including Jackson Pollock, Joseph Beuys, Lee Mullican, Max Ernst, Rene Magritte, and Matthew Barney.
Gardner, Helen. Art Through the Ages. 12th. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2005.
Gardner’s Art through the Ages is a major chronicle of art history. The specific chapters under examination for this project include information about the art of ancient cultures around the globe and early medieval European art. I am interested in how these ancient cultures used their art object during religious ceremonies, not just as art in and of itself, but also as important tools and offerings.
Kandinsky, Wassily, and M.T.H. Sadler. Concerning the Spiritual in Art. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications Inc., 1977.
My main interest in this work is in Kandinsky’s theory of how colors produce a dual reaction in people, in both the aesthetic and spiritual levels.
Annotated Images
The White Horse of Uffington
The white horse of Uffington is one of many chalk figures found carved into the hills of the British Isles. They are a few of the remaining ancient Celtic monuments.
Navajo creating a sand painting
Navajo sand paintings were originally meant to be done as temporary pieces for specific rituals. The Navajo word for these works literally means, “place where the gods come and go,”(Ben, 1). They were meat to be invitations to the spirits, to be destroyed after the ritual was over. Today, however, to preserve their culture, the Navajo are making permanent ones, but changing the patterns somewhat so that their ritual secrets are not revealed.
“Horse Startled by a Lion” by George Stubbs
This painting represents the level of realism I aim for when rendering animals (most of the time). The horse in this painting also shows strong emotion and energy.
“How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hair”, by Joseph Beuys
This performance was generally about how useless it is to explain art, and how it should appeal directly to the irrational side of our minds. In it he covers himself in certain materials for no other reason than their personal meaning to him. Each represents part of the message he is trying to convey. For example, he had two of these materials tied to his shoes, steel to represent hard reason, and felt to represent spiritual warmth.
“The Pack” by Joseph Beuys
This installation by Beuys was about survival. Each of the 20 sleds emerging from the Volkswagen bus carries felt for warmth, fat for nutrition, and a flashlight to find the way. (Fineberg, 235). Each material had a specific meaning which conveyed the overall truth of the piece.
“Canyon” by Robert Rauschenberg
The surface of “Canyon” has many layers of images on it. I am interested in how Rauschenberg juxtaposed paint over newspaper and family photographs, and his exploration of space in front of the canvas by the bird, and below the canvas, by the pillow.
From the series S.U.W./Swan, by Hilma af Klint
This painting was derived from one of Klint’s séance sessions with her group, The Five. I am intrigued by her (or her spirit guide’s) use of animal imagery in the midst of a great deal of abstraction.
“Group 10, Altar builder No 1” by Hilma af Klint
This is another painting from Klint’s séance notebooks. This time, the image is completely geometric with an emphasis on expressive colors.
“Untitled 2009” “Untitled” 2008 and “Untitled 2007” by Jack Parra
These automatic drawings by Jack Parra were done as ritual offering to Brighid, the Celtic goddess of inspiration, during our Imbolc rituals of the last three years. This is a similar process to what Hilma af Klint does, and what I would like to do in the upcoming rituals.
