Monday, December 22, 2008

Happy Solstice!

The official winter solstice was on Sunday Dec. 21 at 7:04 am EST. I wasn't able to post for official winter solstice because I was on the road, returning home from the Vermont Studio Center.
The drive from Vermont to central New York was a long and harrowing one. A huge storm covered the entire length of the trip so driving was slow.

However, I made the trip into a meditation on the Solstice. It was a perfect solstice day: dark and snowy and surrounded by my family. The solstice doesn't need to be celebrated on just one day. After all it isn't a coincidence that many religions have holidays surrounding the solstice. I think we can all agree that there is more to these holidays than commercialism and mass consumption. But what is the winter solstice?

In very basic terms the winter solstice is when the sun reaches the most angular distance on the opposite side of the equatorial plane of the hemisphere you are observing from. As a result, those of us in the northern hemisphere experience the shortest day of the year. The actual solstice lasts for an instant, but it also signals the beginning of the winter season. Primitive man would celebrate the birth of the sun or the return of light to the earth at this time. It is a time of celebrations of joy and abundance to coax the return of light and energy from the sun.

It begins to become clear how this basic astronomical event has evolved into more commonly celebrated holidays. Think: birth of the sun(son), etc. But if we strip back some and look at the teachings that the original celebration offered we get tools for getting through the dark and cold winter months: lighting fires, gathering together and sharing food and entertainment. These activities help to raise spirits, ease depression, and prepare our bodies for the change in daylight. These holidays shouldn't be limited only to gift-giving or focusing on material things, but instead on gathering together, being creative, and giving thanks for the abundance in our lives. It is important to remember that abundance doesn't need to be measured only in material things. The winter solstice can be celebrated from the time of the official solstice all the way through New Year's Day.

I hope you all get a chance to celebrate the return of the light in your own special ways. Remember to be creative and gather together in warmth and light. What will you do to celebrate the season this year?

DoAn
(Moon Phase: waning crescent )
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DoAn Art is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions for the purposes of DoAn Art must be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law. 

All artwork and text © Copyright 2005-2011 DoAn Art (Antony Galbraith) unless indicated otherwise. All Rights Reserved. Any downloading, copying or use of images on this website is strictly prohibited without express written consent by Antony Galbraith.

Friday, December 12, 2008

The Final Week

I am entering the final week here at the Vermont Studio Center. I will have much to process and share with you when I return. There will be some exciting new work and insights into my work coming soon. Once I get the images home and scanned I will be able to post them and discuss them. In the meantime, here is a picture of the Gihon River that runs through Johnson, VT where the Vermont Studio Center is located. I took this picture during a snow storm on my way from the studio to dinner.

DoAn
(Moon Phase: Full Moon)
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DoAn Art is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions for the purposes of DoAn Art must be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law. 

All artwork and text © Copyright 2005-2011 DoAn Art (Antony Galbraith) unless indicated otherwise. All Rights Reserved. Any downloading, copying or use of images on this website is strictly prohibited without express written consent by Antony Galbraith.

Monday, December 01, 2008

Defining My Mission

One of the benefits of being at a painting residency, besides having ample time to work on my art, is that I have the freedom from distractions to ponder on why I paint what I paint. Of course, I had a general idea already, but I never really tried to articulate a coherent reason for what I do. This first week at the residency got me really thinking about my art and why I do it.

I have had a long history with art, starting out as a child. I was fascinated with animals and nature. I remember as an adolescent spending days and days of my summer exploring the outdoors and painting watercolors of birds and animals. Writing also started to interest me then and I wrote and illustrated stories about animals and fantasy worlds that curious children could access through strange means: like a hole in the ground, a secret door in an attic or through a hidden cave.

My undergraduate and graduate years ended up being devoted to writing. As a philosophy major I found myself interested in the idea of writing moral fiction. I started graduate school with the goal that I would write fiction focusing on issues of morality. I wanted to write fiction that taught lessons and contributed something beneficial to society. This led me to fairy tale literature and to the fascinating world of cultural history, subversion of authority, oppression, gender issues and mythology.

Midway through graduate school the need to paint resurfaced. This need has grown more insistent with each passing year. Writing still has a place in my life, but it holds second place to visual art. Writing often holds a framework for my art, but visual art is true expression for me.

I feel like I have come nearly full circle in relation to my art. I started out fascinated by nature and drawing birds and animals. I was curious about exploring other worlds, those secret worlds that were often just out of reach from the world we knew. Then I went off in other directions for a while exploring other traditions or forms of art like fashion design, sewing, ceramics, jewelry making, digital art, and Asian brush art, to name a few. Only to return again to nature and my curiosity of exploring other worlds.

In Buddhism there was a teaching that said when you start out you see that a Mountain is a Mountain, then you observe that a Mountain is not a Mountain, but in the end you learn that a Mountain is a Mountain again. I have returned to artwork about nature, but it is through a different way of seeing and being in the world.

Myth has become an important influence, as is the current situation with human society and the natural world. I believe reconnecting both to myth and the cycles and rhythms of the natural world are keys to a healthy society and planet. Understanding that there are realms of being that are beyond our collectively accepted reality is also important for our well-being. I think having lost touch with this knowledge has left us wandering around in the dark, clumsily destroying nearly everything in our path, fumbling in search of a light with which to see again.

I understand the purpose of my art is to explore myth and nature and the interplay of the two. I hope to revitalize myth and create an interest in a renewed relationship to myth and the natural world. Through the use of research, observation, vision-work and meditation I create my art. I am not interested in illustrating myth, nor do I want to simply replicate or attempt to restore the myth to some non-existent original. Rather I try to connect to the living essence of a myth and paint from that source.

I don’t believe that there is a true original version of a particular mythic archetype. I think that a myth forms and evolves from archetypal matrices, which are then built and constructed with symbols of a particular culture and the natural world. I find most “restored” myths empty and drained of life. A true enlivening of a myth comes from tapping into the universal source and is ignited by imagination and fueled by symbolism.

I focus primarily on Celtic and pre-Celtic mythology, mainly due to an ancestral connection, but I believe I will eventually explore myths of other cultures in my work. When I work on a piece, I meditate on or follow a vision influenced by a particular mythic figure for symbol. I often use a natural object like a rock, tree, ripples on water, rust on metal, etc. as a vehicle to tap into the energy or consciousness related to the myth.

The first result is usually an abstract piece--which reflects energy over form. Often the myth still speaks strongly to me, so I develop another piece focusing more on symbolism, (personal, cultural and universal symbols) this work is usually more representational.

As my art continues to develop, I hope that my skills and ability will be sufficient to share my discoveries of the world of myth and teach of the necessities of a balanced relationship with nature. I believe ultimately that the artist’s role is to provide a service, to guide and to teach something about the world we live in or could be living in. That is my hope and wish for the art that I bring into the world.

DoAn

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DoAn Art is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions for the purposes of DoAn Art must be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law. 


All artwork and text © Copyright 2005-2011 DoAn Art (Antony Galbraith) unless indicated otherwise. All Rights Reserved. Any downloading, copying or use of images on this website is strictly prohibited without express written consent by Antony Galbraith.

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