Harmonics

Visual Harmonics I,  copr William Cook, 2013

Recently realized that the kind of sounds in this clip are what I hear in my head when I'm making art.  I first began to hear these sounds in 1977, and from then til now is what I've been trying to reflect--a visual expression of a series of sounds.

This piece is created on a heavily textured piece of paper that I made.  The severe wrinkling is a result of the drying process that I don't get how to prevent yet.  Maybe I'll catch on, but maybe not.  I like the fact that it's not a perfect sheet.

Those lines are ink.  I'm very happy to report that it's the sizing of the pulp that makes this possible--a fact that eluded me for 25 years as I searched for the perfect paper to draw on.

Warning:  the visual part of the clip is so inane that you might end up barking, or picking someones pockets--so don't watch, it's like they are controlling the horizontal [and the vertical] like in the "Outer Limits".

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Me And The Monkey

Solar Disc, detail

Solar Disc, cWm Cook 2012 

One of the main things about my work it seems is the complex textures.  The surfaces I make have to withstand a lot of abuse.  The neat thing about these internet presentations is that you can blow up the images and really see these surfaces.  I began this piece 12 years ago [or so], and stuck it in a drawer unfinished.  Posted it last week originally with that diatribe (now gone).  

After a week of observation I decided to deepen and even the background tones so that all the stylus work showed up better.  Now you can see it.  Before any of the tonal layers, a pointed stylus was used to impress texture into the thick paper.  Finally the addition of my beloved spots took over--in many different colors.  OK maybe there are too many, but I love the process of splattering up a perfectly good drawing.  

This is actually a detail also.  The original is 20X26.  About half the real estate was cropped out.  More of the same--you get the idea.  As for the mood of the piece, I wanted it to have more pizzazz, but I don't think a meditation piece needs to be flamboyant--if meditation is meant to quiet the monkey so to speak.  For now I'll let this stand.  Try staring at it for a couple minutes and let me know what happens.  

Devotee:  Master you left your key inside, 
but you're looking for it out here.  Why is that?

Master:  Better light.  

Kyudo telling a Sufi story

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Thoth in the Halls of Amenti

Free was I from the Halls of Amenti

bound not by death to the circle of life.

Far to the stars I journeyed until

space and time became as nothing. 

Then having drunk deep of the cup of Wisdom,

I looked into the hearts of men and there found I

greater mysteries and was glad.

For only in the search for Truth could my soul

be stilled and the flame within me quenched.

Thoth, 11,000 BC

  

Vertical Horizontal, copr 1992 

The above are details of this piece, which is more about sound than visuality.
If you sit quietly for an hour or so you will begin to hear these.
I don't know if they are horizontal sounds or vertical--
probably doesn't matter.  





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White Noise: Misguided Youth

Six Four Twelve Horizontal, 9'X12, mixed media


Accidental Marks, enough to fill up a sheet, no guidance, visual white noise, art that creates itself--I'm in like.   I used to make these back in the late seventies because all the art crap would leave my mind, as I put the radio in my head between two stations and just let loose.

Actually the radio thing came from those summer vacations when I was a kid.  I would take the radio to bed and try to find distant stations late at night--faint evidence of life out there.  As I realized that all those stations playing at the same time would blend into a sort of static later called white noise, I began to prefer the static since it included everything all going on at once.  These Horizontals represent this odd sound,  all just naturally proceeding along, perceivable only through consciousness.

Just finished this one about an hour ago.  I've been revisiting the Horizontal  from time to time over the years just to check the progress.  I'm relieved to report that I'm still here in a manner of speaking.  


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The Flower Of Life--What's so Sacred

Twelve Fifteen Twelve Flower,  duo-tone ink with pastel washes, copr 2012

Most of the people I know glaze over if I even bring it up.  So it's a cute pattern.  Big deal.  Yawn.  They don't understand that this is the essential geometric pattern for all matter, consciousness, light, time, space, all the religions--everything in the universe.  It is found all over the world, from ancient cultures in art and architecture.  It contains all five Platonic solids which are the basis for all  the elements in the periodic table.  It has had a profound effect upon history as secret societies guard its secrets to where any amount of suppression and violence is deemed alright.   The layout of Washington DC follows this pattern precisely.    And science is still discovering the relevance contained in this pattern.  Talk about aesthetics, I can think of nothing more beautiful.  This video is a cartoon that spells much of this out rather clearly.  Enjoy.   

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Geometrical Contemplations

Five Fourteen Twelve Flower, ink with pastel wash, copr 2012

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Enso Rising In Cyberfunk

Enso Rising With Sidebar And Scroll, 12X16", mxed media on panel, 4/22/11

Yesterday I was showing this piece for the first time to my son, and having quite a fun time enumerating all the stuff in it.  Meanwhile my new follower, mixed media artist Sharmon Davidson, has the most brilliant idea of listing "ingredients"right in the blog.  Perfect!

Ingredients:  red part of a chocolate bar wrapper,  black lace, nylon window screen, white wedding frufru (four layers), Rich Art 'poster' paint, Crayola Washable, acrylic craft paint, un-tinted tint base No. 3, Elmer's glueall, spackling powder, sanded grout, tile mortar, sheer toilet paper (the cheap kind from hell).

Again, you cannot see the really cool thing going on here--some of the areas of glaze are so thick (visually) that you see all the way down to the bottom layers, past the splatter, and the cement, and color strokes, the embedded piece of window screen--and so forth.  Maybe if I showed a detail you could get some sense of it.

Enso Rising With Sidebar And Scroll, detail.

The enso is serious business.  It's part of Japanese calligraphy, and is thought to reflect the complete state of the maker's character.  If so I'm probably sunk for a start.  It carries a lot of mystic Zen vibe, and often is accompanied by that crazy Japanese script and red stamps that are just cool and no one knows why.  I mean people get this stuff tatooed on their necks.  I mean, huh?  I don't know what that's all about.  Anyway, I like ensos, serious or not.  They're like mandalas.  Very mysterious.   In a former life I was a sign painter, made ensos in my sleep.

Never done with enso.  

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The Great Amen

Meditation Field 1, "17 X 23", 1998 (or so), inquire here for print.

 It is truly amazing to think that everything we see here in the macrocosm is the sum total of countless numbers of little events occurring in the microcosm.  Those aforementioned sounds coming out of the void in stunning order. 

Ah yes but is it intelligent? 

I don't know but it seems to me that the resulting universe has developed itself to the point where it can know itself. 

The word conscious comes from the Latin con, the ability to, and scius (scire—know), knowledge.  Consciousness—that' characterizes us—mankind.  The ability of the universe to perceive itself —human consciousness is the evolutoonary target.  The target is too tiny, yet it os so specific for it not to have been intended all along.  We're talking about all development through time—numberless sound-like events all thumping along in in perfect order in anticipation of eventually perceiving itself.   Of course it was all intentional from the start! 

So anywhere you look, what are you actually seeing, all that macrocosm, all that microcosm?  What might it really look like?  Talk about plein air, and painting what you see!

And who is it making the little sound? and doing all the intending? 

    "The Amen, the faithful Witness and true, the Source of God's creation..." 

     Revelations 3:14

That creative intentionality surrounds us like a dense infinite soup, endlessly breathing its ubiquitous word Amen (aum, om, amin, hummm), closer to us than air.  No wonder there are artists echoing the creative intentionality always, it's in our souls. 
Wm