UNTITLED

SUNDAY NIGHT'S PAINTING

FRIDAY NIGHT

I did this oil pastel last night and afterwards Miguel and Leela came and we had Cherry Garcia ice cream and watched "There Will Be Blood". It's a long and painful movie that left me cold and bored; I could not feel anything for any of the characters. I really hate that kind of movie and I wish I'd followed my hunch; it's such a waste of time.

2ND ASSIGNMENT

This is my triangular vase ready to be fired. The black stuff is called engobe and is just clay. When it gets a clear glaze on it will become a shiny dark blue.

MAGIC FROM AFRICA

Sunday and Monday we had a visit, here in Santa Cruz, of one of Guinea's most accomplished dancers, Alseny Yansané. I missed his Sunday morning class, but his wife took him to see me in the afternoon. Afterwards we joined the players at the beach in a cold March wind and bright sun.
Monday night Alseny taught class. He is a mighty dancer and he inspired the whole group to out-do themselves. He finished the class with a solo with such incredibly fast footwork that he was virtually flying. And he didn't stop dancing; the drummers played Dununba, the strong men's dance, and Alseny showed his graceful strength in some acrobatic moves. I was too taken by what I saw to bother with taking photos, but instead I have these pictures from the garden:







Oh! I love my garden so! There is nothing like the light spring rain to make it sparkle.

HOMMAGE A PICASSO

I watched a movie about Picasso the other night. He painted picture after picture and most of the time you saw just the picture growing into existence. It was inspiring to see the resoluteness with which he went at it. I tried to apply the same swift determination to a painting - and this is what came out.

MASK

WHAT IS THIS?

I don't know what to call this painting. Any suggestions?

THOUGHTS ABOUT STRUCTURE

I’d say that the ultimate point of contention between different beliefs is about the character of the primal energy. Modern physics have proven that the material world is structured of ‘particles’, which are really energies, and the aim of physicists is to pinpoint the basic energy that they believe is underlying all aspects of reality.

Some holds that life is meaningless and absurd futility, but apart from such nihilists, most philosophies and religions teach that a spiritual power is the source and animator of the universe.

If we want to see a dichotomy in these views, it is between spirit-energy and mechanical energy. But in truth they are two sides of one coin. Spirit-energy is free-moving creative energy and mechanical energy is the energy bound in the structures of creation. These two are one because all structure is contained within the Great Spirit.

Is structure absolute or does a primal energy exist outside and independent of any structure? Maybe the question cannot be answered, but I believe that only the Spirit that transcends structure is absolute. Spirit contains the dichotomy between spirit-energy and mechanical energy.

When you build a tower you put one brick on top of another, layer by layer, till the top. In the same way everything is build up of small parts. And just as the tower would not stand solid if there were not solidity in every brick, so, a being could not have a mind if there were not the qualities of mind in every particle.

In the mind with its contents - sensations, emotions, awareness and consciousness - structure is the expression of the Spirit.
The one thing that may be beyond structure is love. Not the love that is fueled by lust, but a love that opens the way to affirmation of all thing’s unity in the Spirit and manifests itself as a blissful force.
Bliss is absense of structure.
That is worth a prayer: to be a conduct for that kind of love.

We live in the grossest mechanical structures build of molecules, but our true nature is spiritual and spans as far as we can sense and imagine the universe and into the gossamer of dreams and to the very center of the source of all structure.
There is such overwhelming richness in just one moment of this universe that one must be in awe of its power and adore its beauty.

Through every living being the Great Spirit senses itself from a different point and embodies itself in relative movement and stillness, unfolding the playground of time-space.

In time-space we have four-dimensional structures that are within the grasp of our senses. What are the structures of the remaining seven dimensions? Can we also sense them and are they as necessary to our being as time and space. Are they the dimensions in which we exist in death, when we have left time and space?

NEW PAINTING

I decided to use softer colors this time, but then I had to add, as finishing strokes, the strong lemon yellow and the orange to accentuate the softness.
The fun and the challenge of this kind of painting is for me to create a diversity of forms that are interconnected, so the eye is led along a path of contrast and surprise, where everything still seems to belong.
This "belonging" is of course a purely subjective feeling. I start on impulse and stop while the going is good. Then I stare at the picture; I feel something more is needed, but I have to wait until an idea pop up. Then I act on it and then wait again. Sometimes ideas come fast sometimes slowly. The trick is to keep the timing, keep the head cool and the heart warm.

FIRE PITT

Monday we did the firing of the animals and the beads we have made. Here are some pictures from the process:

Ready to be cooked

The empty pitt

Mike and Dylan

Kevin preparing to catch loose scales from his fish

Kathryn placing the animals in the pitt

Covered with wood

Lighting the fire

it's coming along

The results of my efforts were revealed today.

TODAY'S PICTURE

Peter came by today and gave me a letter of reference praising me as a model tenant. I guess I'll need that. It's ironic that I have no credit rating because I pay my bills straight up and never borrow money. In order to have credit rating you have to be in debt and pay it off.
What a system!

NIGHTLY FUN

Last night I was creative and inspired and I felt good about the result. That doesn't happen too often!
Tonight I had drum class with Abby, Brie and Michelle. I'm throwing some difficult stuff at them, but they are really eager to learn, and doing good.

MORE SCHOOL

This is Andres and Kevin, the boy I noticed the first day in school. He is a serious sagger as you can see. He is making the fish in the second picture and I think he is talented.
As the days go by I begin to relate to my class mates and they are all very friendly, and so is Kathryn, the teacher (OK!), who praises my work. I think some of the others are doing better. My turtle is more a feat of engineering than of art, but I'm learning!

BAD NEWS

This morning I was told that I have to move. I have been given ample time - till June first - but it doesn't change the fact that I must leave my abode of 15 years with all that I have invested in it over the years.
My two house mates just swapped rooms and Leela only finished painting her new room a couple of days ago and hasn't even moved her things in yet.
The rent has been low in exchange for some care taking of house and garden and it's not easy to find affordable places in this town.
It's a challenge to keep the faith, but change is the law and I have to show that I'm not attached (though I'm afraid that I am). So, wish me luck, and it might be for the better.

SCHOOL

Here is the turtle and the two pots I did last Friday.


I sit next to Mike and I really like the gorilla he is making.
I'm so glad I pulled the finger out and started this class. It was just what I needed.

COLOR PENCILS

I'm very happy with my life at the moment with ceramics class, drum class and painting the days are pleasantly varied without being stressfull.
This picture was inspired by a small sketch af a corner of a Tibetan thanka that I once made, but it evolved into something very different.

TURTLEMANIA

I have been to ceramics class a couple of times more and I really like it. Our current asignment is to make an animal. I chose a turtle and had the rough form finished in today's class. This is the picture I'm working from; next class I'll take pictures of my sculpture to show you.

NEW COLORS

I could not resist this box of pastels that was on sale for only $9:

Here is my first drawing with pastel:

OIL PASTEL

"A peep at a parallel universe" was painted in 2000 and I like it better today than I did then.

DRAWING

I did this one in Costa Rica.

2nd DAY IN SCHOOL

I wasn’t that happy about the second school day. I guess it was my own fault because I had lunch in the sun and chatted with Liz, the assistant.
The assignment was to make a teapot with a theme, but I missed out about the teapot because I was late, and my team decided for Outer Space as theme and they decided on a design and I just sat there like a brute beast. Julian was the one who had the idea and the design and he more or less did the whole thing, and when I saw the other teams’ teapots, I thought ours looked like it was made for a doll’s house. I had made a small extra UFO and a moon that both didn’t have anything to do with the teapot but looked more like two cookies.
Well, see for yourself:


The teacher says “OK!” after every sentence, or is it “OK?” These OK’s are still rattling round in my head, OK!
Clean your tools, OK!
Here is clean-up after class:


On the home front, Eric, at his studies and Leela at her computer:

FIRST DAY BACK IN SCHOOL

Monday was the first day of the spring semester and I took my first ceramics class. It was a clear and warm day in Santa Cruz, the air was balmy and fresh and I left early to find parking, not knowing how much trafic there might be; I don’t want to be rushed.
There were thousand of young and younger people everywhere around the college. I was a bit nervous, but it also felt good to be there and be starting a new adventure. I find my class room and settle in; first there is one boy, while the rest is girls, then, just before class begins, a whole groupe of boys arrive. The one who was there first is a lanky latino guy with a long horsey face, but not bad looking. His black eyes are bright and lively and a catch them checking me out a couple of times.
We each get a lump of clay and have to sculpt a bird in flight. At the same time the teacher talks endlessly – more than an hour straight – and in great detail about what is expected of us.
“Expectations is the partner of disappointment,” she writes on the blackboard. (I hope we will not disappoint her).
She warns us: we mustn’t think we can just take the class without attending and doing the work! And cellphones, they must be turned off, OK! They disturb other people, OK! You are no longer present here when you talk to someone who is in another place. So, turn them off, OK!
I concentrate on my bird. For some reason I have the impression that it has to come flying towards the one who looks at it like it’s half out of the wall. It’s looking ackward but I don’t know how to do it differenly, so I push on without listening too much to the stream of rules and their reasons.
My neighbor is a beautiful dark haired girl. She shows me a strange little lumpy figure that makes me feel less bad about my own, but when it’s finished it reminds me of the golden Pre-colombian frogs that I saw in the museeum in Costa Rica; its primitive strength have a childish charm.
After an hour and a half we put all of our works together on a table and the result is an impressive variety of forms and ideas. Then we are dismissed and I go and get a woucher for clay and a toolkit.
It looks like it’s going to be fun.

LOSAR

Losar is the Tibetan New Year, same as the Chinese, and I went to Vajrapani Retreat Center’s celebration today. They had prepared a fabulous lunch:


Chotak was there on one of his first outings from the hospital. He looked years older but otherwise he was unchanged. When we got to the telling of stories from the early days with Lama Yeshe, Chotak got going, mostly telling stories about himself. Fantastic things always happens to him, like in Kopan he saw a huge bird, a garuda or a phoenix, I guess. And in Solo Khumbu, when he meditated, a jeti (bigfoot) came to him in his cave and he chased it away with a mudra (ritual gesture) and a power word. Many times he has been on the edge between life and death, usually brought there by his wild living, and every time he miraculously bounces back. It isn’t longer ago than last October since he was apparently braindead in a respirator, and there is still a part of his skull on ice, waiting to be put back on.

TWO YEARS

A few days ago my other blog was eradicated, gone!
A good teaching in detachment!
The circumstances were puzzling: a couple of hours after I discovered that the blog was gone I tried to access it again and a Japanese blogger had taken my URL, which guaranteed him more than 5000 hits per day - the first few days at least.
This coincided with the two years anniversary of this blog.
I have somewhat neglected it lately, but I will try to concentrate on it now.
Here is my latest painting in oilpastel.

MORE PAINTING

I'm really fired up about painting at the moment.
Here is my latest - finished today.

COSTA RICA

So, I have been slow at posting because I was traveling - two weeks in Costa Rica visiting with Fut, a friend from the good old sixties, and his wife Cruzita. Fut is a gourmet cook, and with this coming so soon after Christmas I am seriously in need of dieting! Here are some pictures from the trip:

My best butterfly picture.

Volcáno Poás

A pre-Colombian golden frog

Three boys at the market

Lake Arenal

Leaving Costa Rica

Hwy 152 - just before landing in San Jose, CA