Ordinary Aura

goof off

Alan and I did a alot of goofing off this weekend. For those of you interested in Xerox transfers... we highly recommend this stuff.

heads with auras

trio

Alan and I worked on these this past weekend... half way done.
Based on the "flaming skull" and its similarity to the above image and the way spiritual auras are represented... these panels also contain cut elements, depth and filling with transparent substances...

"knees"

heavy metal in progress

hole

if the oval gets repeated as a frame or as a "peep hole"... are their recurring shapes other than this that we can focus on? My borders are like this, Adam's "City" will perhaps have the wall to look through, Alan has work in progress that utilizes blank shapes... BLANK, OPEN, PENETRATING< DEEP

tree pattern

Alan and I talked about the prospect of printing wallpaper... professionally or screenprinted when we arrive in G.R... or, stencils/stamps for clean wall pattern application. Any ideas or starts to this, please post.

uthman genealogy

Genealogies, I think in our artisitc context could easily extend beyond familial relations and be more about linkages among people and ideas.

genealogy

more fra

another painting by fra angelico
thinking about horror still
and repitition
and decoration
and my sunday lunch-
unexpected tripe in the soup

rock over london
rock over greensboro

one name rose

id al-adha

talismen

chosen

the word

minbar

Postcard?

this is the image from chris
it reminds me of the palace record, days in the wake

wilke the cat

victim 1

Thinking of that aspect of touching in order to "find". Here, the image is seemingly specific, but un-named, isn't that the way Barb?
{Painted like how I imagine Seth's "appearing text"/Spirit writing}

I would like there to be a few of these kinds of abstractions dispersed among the 18 x 24 paintings... in repetition and reference to other pieces and imagery throughout the show. A reinforcer perhaps.

ufo

lineage II

westworld

tent and crown

current paintings

Jered-

These are a few of the 24" x 18"... I hope to see some of yours soon.

cursed more

new portraits

why?

hey all. as i have been reading the blog, talking with adam, thinking through the "inventory", and imagining where this all might be going (the show and also beyond), i am continually brought to the question, "why?". convinced that this show and this group is important, i nonetheless ask, "why are we doing this?"

i think that this is a very valid, if not critical, question and one that deserves consideration as we prepare for the show. i would really like to hear your thoughts our purpose. here are a few other related questions that could inform our conversation:

why should Christians produce a collaborative show?
how is this show different from others?
does this show have a distinct purpose?
why are you personally interested in this project?

i am opening these questions to everyone, and welcome your thoughts- briefly or at length. i'm interested to hear your responses, and i think that this will help us solidify the vision, cohesion, and execution of the show.

briefly, i would start off by saying that i think we should recognize that we have been given faith and a creative voice by grace (ti 3:5) and with purpose (ep 8-10). also, we know that all things exist for the glory of God (co 1:16). therefore, this should not be a self-serving interprise (however that translates).

secondly, we should remember that we were made to exist in community (jn 13:35) but also to live in the world (mt 5:14) (both purposeful and related). actually, i believe that the community we develop may be the most important and influential (is that important?) aspect of our project. i am suggesting that we keep in mind our potential for community offline, and subsequent influence, as we proceed with the project and as mentioned, beyond. whatever that could be. i know that adam, jered, chris, and i have been talking about this since iowa and wondering what may come of our relationships and shared interests/vision.

with all that in mind, i think that gathering the group prior to september, even in small, separate groups, would be great on many levels. i also think that the motivations and purposes that surface in this dialogue could inform the structure and plans ahead. again, i believe that this project and group are important and have great potential for the show and in the future. love to hear your thoughts...

from chris 3

from chris 2

from chris 1

blood wedding?

Adam-

Do you know Rachel Finan with UICA's X Performance Group?  They are  
working on a large theatrical production of Blood Wedding that will run  
two weekends in September.  It will be during the Ordinary Aura show.   
Like all of our Visual Arts shows this coming season, the work will  
need to be primarily 2-d with any 3-d works on the perimeter of the  
room.  In recent discussions with Rachel, she has some things in mind  
regarding set design for the production.  She has asked me what they  
would be able to do based upon the work that will be up.  Of course I  
had to tell her that there is no way of knowing  right now since the  
works are still be developed and we won't know how the space will be  
laid out until we can see the actual work.  I did tell her that she  
should communicate to us what her wishes were, and we could keep them  
in mind when we lay out the space.

Tentative checklist

As Adam's email circulates requesting of us a list of works and statements, etc. for the UICA's contractual agreements, I wondered if we could revisit the idea of outlining where we are so far...

What do we have so far? And, what do we need?

I The Cloud of Witnesses- the portraits I have been working on are in full swing. The first 30 are showing in Raleigh at the moment and I start the next batch today.

II Adam's "City of Heaven"- cardboard/mixed-media installation at the Heartland

III Barb's small paintings on panels. BArb is heading to NYC for 2.5 weeks to be in the Drawing Marathon at the NY Studio School and is bound to produce drawings that could accompany this show and appear in the

IV Book? IS this happening at all? I have been accumulating scraps and sketchbook pages and photographs... This blog is itself becoming a tome.

V Alan's incredible photographs from Uganda and Turkey.

VI Seth's TextTree projections

VII Seth's Spirit Writing projections

VIII Floor drawing? Based on Seth's proposal of a map of the City of Heaven or something else...

IX Kevin's Omniscient Camera from Times Square

What esle do we have??????

What do we need?

I Design for the postcard... ASAP! This needs to go out soon, believe it or not.

II SOUND??

Anything else?

I think it would be good at this point to talk a little about our vision for the space. I know it seems impossible to start arranging work and I don't think we should try, but getting more images of work in progress might help us all to fuel our work and relate it to what the others are doing. I can not help but think in terms of installation when dealing with a collaborative show... The space is large enough that we won't need to make everything mesh Martha Stewart style, but for cohesiveness and clarity, I think we should strive for distinct dialogue/connections among the work.

holy city of the future

I've had this idea in the back of my head for the past couple of days; it might be interesting, but I can't tell yet. It came from looking at this image, another shaker drawing, of the Holy City.

Obviously, this is a detailed map, with a key that is, irritatingly, not included with any version I've found so far. The neat thing is, this City apparently exists in the air, or in the heavens, directly above the Shaker settlements of Hancock and Edgefield. Hancock was then much smaller than this, but the text that accompanies the drawing apparently prophesies that Hancock will grow until it merges with Edgefield, and then the new mega-settlement will be a perfect earthly replica of the Holy City, directly beneath it.

So I've been looking at the floor plan of the Monroe Gallery, one of the first things posted to this blog. What I'd really like to do is to take this floor plan, reproduce it, and re-label it with the aspects it will have in the future, when it becomes the eventual Holy City (or Holy Gallery). This would be an enterprise in fiction; it would be a fake key to the grounds. We could maybe paint lines into the floor of the gallery and number the various areas, if that's allowed, so that if people are standing in the door they know they're standing in the Gate of Forgiveness or whatever.

I haven't mentioned it yet in this blog, because it doesn't really seem relevant, but for a long time I've been fascinated by old science fiction pulp imagery, the kind has this now-naive-seeming enthusiasm for the future as a place in which humans will have been alchemically transmuted into something better, war will have been cured like a disease, and so forth. So when I was thinking about this faux future Holy City, I immediately started to think in terms of sf pulp imagery; cherubs with jetpacks on, heavenly paradises consisting of revolutionary new labor-saving devices, and so forth. This doesn't follow so clearly out of everything else we've been talking about in this blog, I know; I'm just mentioning it.

I suppose I could justify it by framing the use of sf tropes as transformation of current everyday materials; cars are made better by becoming flying cars, dishwashers become sentient, we ourselves become functionally immortal, impervious to disease. But whatever.

I've also thought about using it in conjunction with the spirit writing thing, so that labels for the various parts would be writing themselves.

spirit letter

Another experiment, this one based on Shaker "spirit letters," composed of writing in an unknown alphabet -- the alphabet of angels, maybe.

Spirit writing

I wanted to get at an idea of a text writing itself in real time; I also wanted the text to be almost recognizable, which it isn't here. If I continue with this, I'd need to make it more nearly Roman alphabet-like. Right now each letter is a random collection of individual strokes.

I also thought of combining this with other shapes, so that the spirit writing is filling in particular patterns. At some point I'll try to scan in the source images I'm using.