Chalace
Inversion or mutation of Aum symbol
Horizontal line has turned vertical
Aum mutation and fissure
Middle pages of journal ~ alchemical egg mirrored
Lines have mutated as lyricalThese drawings are from my 1990/1991 journal. They are here because of a conversation I had with Aliey Ball who posted images from one of her installations, called Stigmata that included a bloody horizontal fissure across a wall. The horizontal line that I spoke of, which divided earth and sky or what is above from what is below in my artwork in this period, changed into a vertical line that divided the page. There were many mutations until I finally discovered I was drawing a form and repeated it over and over again, until someone told me that it was the symbol of AUM. I became at that time obsessed with egg and chalice shapes, but, after doing numerous paintings and drawings moved onto images that included text. Twenty years ago is a long time. I look at the drawings in my journal and only vaguely remember what I was thinking about. I remember being incredibly interested in the alchemical process ~ the making of art ~ the materials appeared to exemplify it. I was particularly drawn to the alchemists' saying 'Tell no-one and then say, it is finished'! I'm not sure how I feel about being drawn into the past, the eternal return of our lives ~ I find it somewhat disconcerting mainly because I have feelings about the time, but cannot fix on one thing that creates the emotion. Time to get back into the present moment.
Thank you Julie for satisfying my whim and delving back twenty years!
ReplyDeleteYour lovely drawings appear as fragments from an extensive journey. From the whole, with it's first fissure, to the void made substantial, solid.
The two egg halves are after the event, seen loaded with dynamic energy and depth. Finally the Kandinsky-esque figures dance in the vibrations. The chalice as vessel bursting its banks like the Jungian circle penetrated by the snake, destruction of the whole as a prelude to expansive change. It must have been quite a time Julie!
Aum is said to have been the first manifestation onto the void, marking the beginning of time. If pronounced correctly every sound possible by the human voice is mouthed with Aum. Furthermore Aum is located at the crown chakra and represented by white light, which contains all colour. Pretty powerful stuff.
Ah it's made me reminisce that twenty years ago I lived on a farm in Hampshire, working as a shepherd. Seriously. I had a crook and a flock of 1200+. I was engaged to be married to the farmers son, who was later tragically killed in a motorcycle accident. A life time ago.
Aliey, All your observations so relevant. It was indeed a time of turmoil for me, many changes. I found it fascinating that I was making the AUM symbol whilst unknowing of its significance. Yes, as you say, powerful stuff. But your story is fascinating ~ and yet, you as shepherd is not surprising to me ~ how sad that your lover was killed so tragically! Is the stigmata in your work the scar that remains?
ReplyDeleteIn hindsight I think perhaps Stigmata was about that loss, though at the time I thought it was about the Earth's suffering. Maybe it was both.
ReplyDeleteYou must have a healthy tap into the collective conscious to be conjuring Aum with out meaning to!
I think the fact that you thought it was the 'Earth's suffering' is very telling, for, as shepherd, you would have associated yourself with the soil and things grazing on growth from it. Strange about the Aum for it is only in the past year or so that I have been consciously meditating. Thanks for this discussion, it has been interesting and revealing.
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