I found this space when I was exploring abandoned factories in Beijing.
Like the shamans who tried to heal by painting under me, I paint on these walls my own numinous symbols discovered in the land of the dreaming. The numinosity, or magical power, of our symbols transcends time and space.
Golden rain can be seen throughout history as the means by which the gods heal the land. Think of rainfall and a plentiful harvest as a conscious interpretation of the metaphor. Also, think back to the emaculate conception of Mary with Jesus, often represented by golden rain from the heavens. Further back brings us to the emaculate conception of the Greek Danae, impregnated by Zeus, also depicted as golden rainfall. Further back we go to Egypt with Isis, if you know that story, and the stories go on across cultures and time.
Modernity has not lost its connection with nature, but I feel we have forgotten how to perceive this connection which is ever active, constantly illuminating the Way, because the story goes on and on.
In an ambiguiously vain attempt at healing the land I trace my dreams onto the surface of wood and stone as I roll across the land, never knowing where I am or where I'm going as I learn to let go of the bank and float down the great river. Above me, a presence sits atop an eight spoked wagon wheel and I, presumptious as a child or an uninvited guest, seek to explain the unkown to the teachers I meet along the Way. As quiet as a foreigner.
-Update Aug, 2011 -
Don't paint, talk, or try to even think about mandalas in China, it can be seen as religious and their prisons aren't good places to be.
But, if you're like me you'll do it anyway. Some things are more important than following the rules :)
Fortunately, discussing exopolitics in the classroom is apparently commonplace in China, even way out west. Consequently I don't happen to know where I am at the moment. Somewhere west I'm told.
798 is an area of Beijing that used to be entirely composed of working factories. At some point the factories stopped factoring and artists began to take over the space using the old abandoned buildings as studios and eventually as galleries. Today the main features are the art galleries and souveneir shops. It's become pretty gentrified, I'd read about that online, but assumed the writers were exagerating a bit. They kind of weren't. It's unique gentrification and that might be worth seeing in its own right. And it was here that I came across the first (and only) bit of streetart in Beijing (or in all of China thus far) other than my own and other than the (very rare) tag or bomb.
This is a work of mine next to a Sakristan piece. Perhaps it's like a left/right brain switch, here the left is the more conscious side of man and the right is the less tech savy unconscious element encountered most readily in dream life.
I imagine it was the same for him when he painted here, crowds of tourists surrounded me taking pictures, none of them uttering a word, just me, smiling and attempting to say hello, making them blush and turn away, sometimes running away in giggles. Funny enough I've put up some work(s?) by Sakristan in the US, and we know some of the same people. Anyway, small world, no?
-correction, not him, but her, not he but she :D sorry! i r sometime the big idiot i have ever see
The infamous factory of art. The epicenter of Beijing's art world. . . Here we go adding a little dimension of street art or post-graffiti to the mix. About the only other streetartist (other than graffiti type) here is Sakristan. Wil have to put up images of that later. Using computers isnt as high on the priority list as painting for me :)
The unconscious, tentatively described as "subliminal consciousness," was first posited by Fredric Meyers in 1886. This discovery is considered to have revolutionized psychology as much as the discovery of radioactivity has changed phsyics.
I pasted a lot all over these trains... pitty no time for photography in the early morning & by night i was on a plane :(
Happy Trails!
Recently I found out I'm in some shows. Artwork is currently being shown in (alphabetical order) Beijing, Berlin, Israel, and probably somewhere else I forget. Anyway, I cant use much of the internet or post to blogs except through flickr so no info on this until later! Love and Kisses! -Loaf, Beijing, Summer 2011
A good friend of Kreuzberg and a favorite artist of mine. His work is omnipresent in Berlin. Here's a good summary in video format of what his work is like... I didn't notice any owls though, and his owls are among my favorite tags.
'For peaceful meditation, we need not go to the mountains and streams, when thoughts are quietened down, fire itself is cool and refreshing.' Zen master Kwaizen 1580
I read a bit up on this project. Not too much other than on their webpage. Saw the thing as an ad on a TED talks recently (or some weeks ago). Anyway, I've been wanting to do something like this for the past few years. So, good for them that they're doing it! Cool video too.
- Aufsteigende Trailer Days - Out in the country, As the days go by, More and more, If we look we see em, Flying high in the sky.
A mural done for the Atlanta Beltline which is an attempt at making Atlanta a more human-friendly environment. Currently it is a city designed more for the car.
In Europe (or, for that matter, in South America), urban growth and excess of motorized traffic have not so far resulted in completely subverting the pleasures of walking. A city of four million like Paris is still holding out the promise of civilized Lebensraum. "In Paris," writes philosopher Hannah Arendt, "a stranger feels at home because he can inhabit the city the way he lives inside his own four walls. And, just as one makes an apartment comfortable by living in it, and not merely using it for sleeping, eating, and working, one becomes comfortable in the city by strolling through it without aim or purpose, stopping off at one or another of the countless cafes that line the streets and past which the life of the city, the flow of pedestrians, moves along.
The development of New York is a parable of progress, American style, a continuous expansion and urban saturation of land, with streets leading nowhere, with no recognizable center or centers. A tracery of traffic arteries, too impractical to be considered highways, too dismal to be called streets, sums up the essential shabbiness of the cities. Although each generation of planners is planning itself off as saviors, the towns appear more unappetizing with every year. In his book 'My Hope for America,' Lyndon B. Johnson expressed the cities' destiny in a single ringing phrase: "In the next forty years," he wrote, "we must rebuild the entire urban United States."
There is no reason for thinking that the next forty years will be different in spirit from the past forty years or, for that matter, from the eight times forty years that preceded them. Johnson's truism has long gained acceptance among developers and wreckers, the men who virtually make an unmake our cities. In fact, it ought to be written into the Constitution.
- Bernard Rudofsky
"Thank you veterans, try our pumpkin spice" - This modern American City Center consists of two perpendicular highways; one of four lanes, the other two, there are two gas stations, two grocery stores, and three parking lots one of which is visible from the moon as a grey smudge on what was once an entirely dark green area.
All ages before ours believed in gods in some form or other. Only an unparalleled impoverishment in symbolism could enable us to rediscover the gods as psychic factors, which is to say, as archetypes of the unconscious. No doubt this discovery is hardly credible as yet.
The religion of future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend a personal God and avoid dogmas and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description... If there is any religion that would cope with modern scientific needs, it would be Buddhism.
For some reason or another I haven't been able to pull this up on any computer for some time. Maybe too many people were watching. Anyway, it's great, check it out! And more like it at TED. www.ted.com
With the way things are in some schools today, I'd rather be back in prison than back in school.
I taught for a time because I was asked to, and also because I was saddened by the mentally ruinous factory processes mere children were being subjected to daily. Perhaps I offered some hope during the brief time I was there. Obviously, I was not there for long as the very survival of modern educative systems, and contemporary society, depends on conformity which in turn depends on stupidity or fear.
I have problems forcing those things upon children.
Most systems of schooling I have encountered reduce humans into small parts of a grand industrial mechanization which breeds fear and violence. Thus, it is my belief that future generations (should humanity's future be in the direction of progress) will look upon current social systems of organization as barbaric and morally bankrupt. Nonetheless, the participants will be excused and forgiven with the same kind of rational we use to forgive most participants in crimes against humanity. Something like, "They didn't have a choice" or "They had to do it" or "It was the way things were back then." That the participants were driven by fear generated by a society of production and consumption will probably be too many words and syllables for most people to think about even a few hundred years from now.
I suppose the talking machines (Radio, TV, etc) will probably still exist in some way or another. As I close I wonder what's worse; the perpetuation of the myth of freedom in the minds of our young, or the incessant jabbering, flag waving, and enemy killing done by adults which protects the myth by destroying the ideal?
On a lighter note, although being around the prison-like buildings and the teachers was mentally and spiritually exhausting, often children would tell me things like; "This is the best day of my life!" or "This is the best day ever" and so on. And many of the children were so intelligent (although considered problematic by the wardens) that they were not to be bent by the system. So there's hope yet Mister Frodo.
Visit my webpage www.joaopaglione.de or follow me on Facebook to view images in larger resolution (full screen) or license them for editorial, commercial, or personal usage.
The artist currently known as LOAF, unfortunately no longer in Berlin but perhaps will return ?
Fond memories of our light painting experiments . . .
Many thanks to http://www.flickr.com/photos/eniat/ for uploading some pictures of my work. That evening began after a full day running around Manhattan, far too many drinks in Prospect Park, and a grueling 2 hour train ride in the intense heat of NY's metro system just to go from one point in Brooklyn to another. When the sun began to rise I didn't have the strength to hang around any longer just for daylight photos. One of these days I'll find another photographer to follow me around and document some of these happenings. Until that time, many thanks to those that do grab images of my work for me, without which I would often have no records for myself beyond what memory will keep.
Many thanks to : http://www.flickr.com/photos/greg_foster/ without which I would have photos of my work. It is such forms of communal organization to which I owe a debt of gratitude. So, thanks to everyone who uploads images of my work to the web.
Also, thanks to anyone & everyone involved with Living Walls and all the people of Atlanta!
Los lunes, paseo | 18:09 - 18:37
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Si te parece, quedamos allí a las 18:30. Yo iré con tiempo, dando un paseo,
ya sabes.
*18:09*
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Nuevo post , nuevo viaje
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*Lima y sus mas hermosos lugares*
Hola a todos nuevamente, después de estar abandonada la pagina por unos
meses vuelvo a retomar esta linda costumbre, los ...
Humble Heather
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*Early 19th century hand-coloured *
*engravings of heath flowers*
The vast majority of the 860+ species in the genus Erica (heaths/heather)
are endemic t...
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Y llegamos entre nieblas y divisamos el gran lago de Atitlan y subimos por
un camino con piedras pintadas de colores que dibujaban los sueños mas
profundo...
