mixed media

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Prognostication

21st-century Ecosystem

If you’ve read some of my earlier blog posts, then you may know that I decided to take 52 of these postcard-size collages and turn them into a deck of fortunetelling cards. It seemed the logical thing to do, since the number of people really interested in looking at artwork seemed infinitessimely smaller than the number of people interested in my providing them with some kind of insight into their worlds. The Art Fortunetelling was my way of saying “ok”.

As I may have mentioned earlier, it was way easier for me to find some meaning in the cards than to try and put some meaning in them intentionally. Again, seems logical, if we get talking about art as a subconscious rather than a conscious carrier of meaning. In fact, it seemed to make so much sense that I decided it was time to make a second deck.

And considering that we are in a sort of transition stage – Will we be moving to Foça in September? Or will I just be going up to teach a couple of classes, and coming back down to Bodrum until we can get our act together and finally head (a bit) north? Will I even have students sign up for the classes? Will I get involved in something else even more new and interesting? How will our garden grow?

As soon as I finish up here I will probably go ‘throw the I Ching’ (or as the web site says, ‘toss coin virtually’), but in the meantime, I could go for some interpretation.

Let us say (for sake of argument, and so I can show off my newest collages) that I picked (without looking) the card “Lust”as my first card, my present subconscious, Lust

and then I chose (this time looking at all my choices of cards) the card “Mom” Mom

to go with it.

I might interpret that as consciously trying to step back and look at a situation with multiple aspects/possibilities in a cooly detached way, seeing the beauty of all the possibilities, while beneath this was a seething mess of desire and fear of the unknown.

How lucky I might (or might not) feel when this turned up as my card of the future, Burning Down the House

“Burning Down the House” –

As I like to remind people who turn up “The Death Card”,

in the metaphorical world of fortunetelling, this is not necessarily a bad thing…

 

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Oleanders

The oleanders by the side of our house/apt have just started to bloom! It’s late, I know, but we don’ get so much sun on us (a Good Thing for an Aegean summer), and our oleanders are probably not looked after as well as they should be. We only have a few – just enough for some color and shade.

We’ve got the kind with ‘single’ flowers – in white

Zakkumda Kus Detayi 2 (Bird in Oleander Detail 2)

and then we’ve got the kind with ‘double’ flowers – in pink.

Bird with pink oleander

I’ve been waiting for them to come out to do some more painting – but the Princesses are still taking up space in my ‘outdoor studio’ and the so-called ‘construction ban’ apparently hasn’t started (at least no one’s told the builders next door – and they’re almost done, so let them finish – please, lord…)

This means I should be in the ‘indoor studio’ working on some more ‘water drawings’.

For more paintings of oleanders, have a look at these mixed-media pieces from my exhibit at the now-defunct Ayna Gallery from a few years back.