Media: Digital image
Size: 6212 x 6212 pixels (20.7" square at 300 dpi)
Date: 2018
Note: In a number of traditional cultures there is the idea that certain materials still around date back to the original primoridal material of which the earth was first made. In ancient China jade was such a material but in other cultures in was turquoise or lapis lazuli.
Media: Digital image
Size: 7776 x 7776 pixels (25.92" at 300 dpi)
Date: 2018
Note: I have become interested in fractals, not as the product of mathemalical operations but as a kind of organic process where one draws self similar forms at different scales. Like the patterns formed in a mud flat dries it is a quality of order that can be held in the mind and brought out on the page with the same sense of natural beauty.
Title: Realm of Fractal Beauty, Detail #1
Media: Digital image
Size: 7776 x 7776 pixels (25.92" at 300 dpi)
Date: 2018
Title: Realm of Fractal Beauty, Detail #2
Media: Digital image
Size: 7776 x 7776 pixels (25.92" at 300 dpi)
Date: 2018
Media: Digital image
Size: 7776 x 7776 pixels (25.92" at 300 dpi)
Date: 2018
Media: Digital image
Size: 9000 x 9000 pixels (30" square at 300 dpi)
Date: 2018
There is a tendancy to see a mandala as representing the whole cosmos, but it also represents the individual as microcosmos -- as above, so below. In Tantric Buddhism there as a form of Buddha called Virochana and out of every pore of his body there is a ray of light, and at the end of every ray of light there sits another Buddha. These kinds of ideas of the micro and macro and of wholeness at every scale are some of the multivalent association I have in mind.
Media: Digital image
Size: 9000 x 9000 pixels (30" square at 300 dpi)
Date: 2018
Media: Digital image
Size: 9000 x 9000 pixels (30" square at 300 dpi)
Date: 2018
Note: I like the idea that as things grow and unfold their parts contain within them the seeds of the whole. I can only take this idea so far with my current computer power and printer but my hope is that the images in this series feel if we could zoom in in their forms they would unfold in ever deeper layers of natural beauty.
Title: Expansive Ream of Summer Fruit
Media: Digital image
Size: 9000 x 9000 pixels (30" square at 300 dpi)
Date: 2018
Title: The Deciduous Forest in Spring
Media: Digital image
Size: 8400 x 8400 pixels (28" square at 300 dpi)
Date: 2018
Title: Tidal Pool Annemonies
Media: Digital image
Size: 8400 x 8400 pixels (28" square at 300 dpi)
Date: 2018
Title: Calling the Earth to Witness (on beauty's right to exist)
Media: Digital image
Size: 9000 x 9000 pixels (30" square at 300 dpi)
Date: 2018
Late stage capitalism cannot measure the value of beauty, only the commodites it can extract by carving up what beauty is made of. The earth bears witness to the right of beauty to exist, and makes it clear through heat and storm that where there is no beauty there is no life worthy of the name.
Title: Realm of Magical Lavender Carpets
Media: Digital image
Size: 9000 x 9000 pixels (30" square at 300 dpi)
Date: 2018
Title: Realm of the Magic Carpets
Media: Digital image
Size: 9000 x 9000 pixels (30" square at 300 dpi)
Date: 2018
Media: Digital image
Size: 7800 x 7800 pixels (26" square at 300 dpi)
Date: 2018
Media: Digital image
Size: 7800 x 7800 pixels (26" square at 300 dpi)
Date: 2018
Media: Digital image
Size: 7800 x 7800 pixels (26" square at 300 dpi)
Date: 2018
The works in this series began life as as fourteen ink line drawing in a 2007 sketch book. For the previous 7 years I had been working to find a freehand approach to drawing that might balance out the kind of measured mechanical drafting and rendering skills I was already comfortable with. I wanted to be able to draw, fluidly and spontaneously, the kinds of shapes that feel organic or fractal in character; shapes such as one finds in nature like patterns of oxidation, cloud forms, or animal pelt markings. In 2007 I had an initial breakthrough. I created an underlay of concentric circles and radiating lines and used those to provide a kind of organizing structure for the kinds of shapes and patterns I had been developing. These then sat another seven years, until 2014, when I began filling scans of the drawings with color using Photoshop. I ended up creating hundreds of color variations (examples can be seen here) and used some of the best on craft items like coasters, pendants and small prints to have something afordable to sell at local craft fairs. This past year I thought of modifying the designs to fill out the squares, innitially just to have some new coasters designs. I first placed the images inside larger and darker copies of themselves to fill out the squares like the first example below. These were fairly simple but before long I was trying new things like back ground patterns out of small versions of themselves and then layering these patterns into the various parts of the mandalas and then experimenting with varying degrees of transparency. To date all my prints have been made at home on the rediculously named Canon "Pixma Pro 9000 Mark II" 8 color ink jet printer. Its maximum print size is 13 x 19 but my long term plan is to issue larger signed and numbered limited edition prints. New designs are ongoing but I would like to settle on a set few favorites and order a few proofs from different printers and on different papers this spring.