The Book of Symbols, Day 56: Kabbalistic Tree

Day 56: Kabbalistic Tree, mixed media, 8x6 in., Otto

Perhaps the central teaching of this profound symbol is that there is a single structure that underpins all things...It is ultimately about the many levels, visible and invisible, that connect the primordial unity with the reality we experience every day.  

The Kabbalah teaches that this divine system has an order and a beauty of its own, and that by coming to know and align ourselves with it, we may promote greater harmony both within ourselves and in what is around us. 

- ARAS

The Book of Symbols, Day 40: Stone

Day 40: Stone, collage, mixed media, 7x7 in., Otto

Compared to our brief human life span, stone becomes a symbol of endurance; indeed it suggests the concept of eternity.  Yet the common stone surrounds us everywhere, and we give it little value.

- ARAS

The Book of Symbols, Day 38: Night

Day 38: Night, collage, mixed media, 7x7 in., Otto

Like a finely woven shawl, night enfolds in the interval between dusk and dawn.  Bringing silence, healing and a cool hiatus from the sun's burning heat and light, night evokes the restorative darkness and repose, the veiling of sunlike consciousness that follows upon the tumultuous splendor and striving of day.

- ARAS

The Book of Symbols, Day 27: Dew

Day 27: Dew, collage, mixed media, 6x6 in., Otto

Not merely an intellectual form of understanding, but incorporating feeling values, the "dew" alluded to psyche's capacity to freshen and reanimate the personality desiccated by unconsciousness of its soul-stuff.  The illumination of these contents, like glistening drops of dew, represents the "moisture that heralds the return of the soul."

- C.G. Jung

The Book of Symbols, Day 26: Rainbow

Day 26: Rainbow, collage, mixed media, 6x6 in., Otto

Myth has portrayed the rainbow as the highway over which pysche's supernal emissaries bring their messages to consciousness.

- ARAS

The Book of Symbols, Day 24: Thunder

Day 24: Thunder, collage, mixed media, 6x6 in., Otto

Always ambivalent, the gods of thunder and lightning could bring either death and destruction or fertility and new life to humankind and its surroundings.

- ARAS

The Book of Symbols, Day 22: Rain

Day 22: Rain, collage, mixed media, 6x6 in., Otto

The water upon which all life depends descends to earth as raindrops both gentle and torrential.

- ARAS

The Book of Symbols, Day 21: Wind

Day 21: Wind, collage, mixed media, 6x6 in., Otto

On wind we have projected the unpredictable factor that moves us and carries us, sometimes directing our course or forcing us to change course.

- ARAS

The Book of Symbols, Day 18: Air

Day 18: Air, collage, mixed media, 6x6 in., Otto

Air in motion - inhalation and exhalation, the potency of wind - captures our imagination.

- ARAS

The Book of Symbols, Day 17: Bubble

Thursday, May 11, 2011

Day 17: Bubble, collage, mixed media, 6x6 in., Otto

The bubblelike enclosure of the figure excludes all references to the world beyond and imparts a timeless, supernatural quality.

- ARAS

The Book of Symbols, Day 14: Whirlpool

Day 14: Whirlpool, collage, mixed media, 6x6 in., Otto

The vortex produced by these currents can appear to create an aperture, falling away into immeasurable depths, sucking all things into the void and then disgorging them again.

- ARAS

The Book of Symbols, Day 13: Pond

Day 13: Pond, collage, mixed media, 6x6 in., Otto

Different from an ocean or a great river, the scale of a pond can be encompassed by the human imagination, and...like us, live and die.

- ARAS

The Book of Symbols, Day 9: Comet

Day 9: Comet, prismacolor pencil, gel pen, 6x6 in., Otto

What we now know about comets is that seemingly random, they actually make cyclical returns; perhaps the changes they portend can all be said to have continuity, to be part of a larger pattern.

- ARAS

The Book of Symbols, Day 7: Crescent Moon

Day 7: Crescent Moon, collage, mixed media, 6x6 in., Otto

The crescent reminds us of the mortality of everything that begins life, the transience of everything that comes into consciousness.

 - ARAS

The Book of Symbols, Day 5: Sun II

Day 5: Sun II, collage, mixed media, 6x6 in., Otto

Seemed a more fulfilling Sun was necessary…


...so along came Sun II

The Book of Symbols, Day 4: Sun I

Day 4: Sun I, collage, mixed media, 6x6 in., Otto

Spirit and matter –
the transparency of consciousness
and the crystallation of light as focus –
coalesce in the golden disk of the sun.

- ARAS

The Book of Symbols, Day 3: Star

Day 3: Star, collage, 6x6 in., Otto

Stars tell us of the infinite,
the visionary,
of something in ourselves that is starlike,
star stuff.

- ARAS

The Book of Symbols, Day 2: Breath

Day 2: Breath, prismacolor pencil collage,6x6 in.,Otto

The Tao is the breath that never dies.  
It is Mother to all creation. 

- Tao Te Ching

Cultivating A Daily Creative Practice

All Manner of Spirals

Just had my practice practice group last night, and here is the result of my participation in the “20 expressions in 20 minutes” task.

Check out the site at Daily Creative Practice to see more.

Organize That!

Did I mention I've been (re)organizing my studio?

Yes, yes I have... 


( there are those lousy Prismacolor graphite pencils which I'm going to give away, the great Faber-Castel 9000 graphite pencils in the tin, and the absolutely fabulous Tombow Mono Professional drawing pencils in that nifty black roll-up)  

Here we have just one layer of my gel pens - in color wheel order, of course...

dry pigment in bottles from my days of making egg tempera paint from scratch...

and piles of various drawing materials through the ages.