Velvet Strangers

(Framed 16x20”)

About piece: A few months ago I was contacted by a potential client who was
potentially interested in having me create for her, through my own artistic perception, a
nightmare which had plagued her some 15 years. The dream was her as a child walking
through an empty hospital, low/moderate lighting, and there were these sheets hanging all
around her. She recalls this as being a frightening dream which left her with an uneasy
feeling and unexplainable fear. At least that is the Reader’s Digest version. With respect
to this person’s anonymity and confidence I will leave my description as it is.

This was a dream job for someone like me, someone who spends such a great deal of his
time exploring the subconscious and attempting to give testimony to the subconscious
because I an one in that I believe within our subconscious is a guiding mythology rising
to our surface of consciousness. Seeing the truth as it exists within us is of the utmost
importance I feel. We have this mind, this brain, this sense organ that tells us it is in
control and that is a bit frightening to us because we would like to be able to say “I am in
control of me”. And to a large degree, we are. But we cannot deny these factors that exist
below the surface of our waking ego. We may call these aspects our: shadow, our
demons, our darkness, our unconscious, our mysterious, our mythology, and so on and so
forth, but the idea is understood. We know that there is a world below the surface. We
know that although we might ‘choose’ to be an Algebra professor but we may discover
that we’re more naturally more of an Art professor. So I pull our attention to the
unconscious, to the subconscious, and I beckon us to see the potentials and to see the
story taking place. Don’t wait for someone to video tape you drunk or the mumbles
coming from the dreamer… choose to take an active conscious approach to your being.
See the liberating whole, the wider and deeper, the more liberating the experience!

Unfortunately the client who originally commissioned the piece ended up pulling out in
the end. But it was a good thing because by that time, I really didn’t want to part with the
piece just yet. I realized that while I had been focusing these archetypal elements on my
canvas, in my mind/heart, I began to feel the fear that I imagined my client must’ve felt.
Either way, it was personal for me. And as irony or synchronicity would hold, upon
completion of the piece I would find myself walking down a hospital hallway and sitting
at a window – watching the sun set… feeling this dynamic sense of ‘awe’… and so I
thought to myself, “this is life, this is now”. And I saw things that I had been
overlooking, the family before my eyes. And I suddenly missed everything a great deal. I
saw the potential I had attempted to sweep under the rug or push it into a closet. It was
too much to deal with. I often wondered how far I must have to go.

Description: The piece begins with the eyes… haunting, nearly vacant, but with a hint
of curiosity in them. They want to know the story before them. But they’re tired at the
same time. They’ve seen so many stories before and she’s traveled so many oceans just to
discover one wild goose chase after another. All she found was oasis in everything that
even seemed to point the way home, the way there. Frustrated, but curious, she witnesses
the unraveling story that is all around her.

Her eyes pour down so often that she could literally use her tears as a sort of crutch for
her and all those that she softly but firmly displaces. The eyebrows are wild and strong,
bold and moving, nearly overly exaggerated and moving in their own directions.
Everything on her is alive, moving, and meshing. All of her craves its own form, its own
contribute to the whole. She’s got an open mind but two heavy thorns to bare, one from
her Catholic question and the second from her mother. They cover her sense off smell;
obstruct the roses she walks by as we always do on our busy traffic days.

In the place of her third eye is a roman number two. What is the Gemini
connection/connotation? I myself can only speculate that is the third eye’s loud
acknowledgment of the duality within, she’s literally got a stranger inside her. Her
stranger may wear fine velvet but that is only to win over her neutral sensitive side. This
spells the downfall; it literally runs into the webs that eventually engulf the entire piece. It
grips her for reasons she knows not why. What is this sticky web-like fabric? What is its
nature?

Rising above the numeric II is posed a wordless book with two closed eyes forming the
bottom of the book. The eyes are peaceful, not completely asleep, but lost in meditation.
The eyes are integrating, like the higher self, that which is coming from this source of
knowledge which transcends all language, even written. Its existence is mere symbolic of
knowledge itself. In the center of the book exists a hover orb with an eye looking at a
castle in the distance of the right upper-corner. The orb is symbolic of the observing and
assisting photons in every story. They too are part of the whole, the entire meshing and
melting experience. The orb is place as to serve as another symbol of the third eye, again,
intelligence and integration is focal.

Bursting from the book of knowledge is a pulsating wave of energy/light in the naked
form of a spectrum. This symbolized the beauty and potentially integrated surging and
even bursting its way up and out our crown chakras. Behind the spectrum is a night sky
fading into dawn, resting upon two castles, one posted on each side of the book. The
castles are fiery symbols of fear itself, the dark palace. The palace may be a familiar
space – but it must be integrated and actualized. Clean the flow. The dark palaces can be
thought of as the shadow as an archetype itself. They, the dark palaces, rest upon a triad
of cocoon-like tunnels with breathing holes for our growth inside. There are some clouds
in the sky, not only beautiful and nature elements, they are symbolic of mind’s mental
activity, as is the darkness itself.

Rippling from the eyes and off the side of the face is a series of archaic thick sheet
structures. They are cracked with time and from the weather. Beaten and often bruised,
they could use some cleaning. These represent the obstacles of he unknown that plagues
us, and to each of us, our own. As the sheets come spiraling outward they fold back into
itself, eventually rapping her entirely. These are her rivers, the densest of all her dreams,
thoughts, passions, and all other mental/emotional activity. But these walls are empty and
it is evident that there is much to explore, many more scars and tattoos are down the line
and they are waiting. I would love to see this dream in a few years if it were to be giving
just a little bit of water and some sunlight…

There are two archetypal drama masks which represent the drama and tragedy aspect of
the game, the story, this ride, our life. Melting near the bottoms are the fragments of a
life, the shadow elements of our personality, and the motion of this oceanic experience.
One of the masks wears a ring which distinguishes it from the other. A line connects
them. It is a line of light and darkness, you might think of it as the soul or one’s lifeline.

Near the bottom, peeking out from behind the sheet is a cell-like structure which
replicates itself and forms a sort of grid system of life. It can be thought of as the matrix,
but with waking conscious acknowledgement of what is taking place predominantly, and
that is ‘her’ and ‘her velvet stranger’.

At the bottom of the canvas, in the right-corner, is a group of three little creature whom
have come to witness in the acknowledgement of ‘her’ and ‘her stranger’, as it is being
told in this moment through her nightmare – through her unfolding self narrative. Who is
she? Who is she behind the ‘her’ that she hides from ‘them’. And who is this stranger and
how can she make peace with it? If peace can be made, if communication can be made,
then she will hear the voice of the dream – she will hear the melody behind the
symbolism. The dream can come full circle. The dream can give testimony. And she can
let go and so she becomes lighter than ever before. She rises in her consciousness. Love
and forgiveness are familiar family and her bold exterior no longer need apply. It’s all
been dropped. The choice is before her, to take a leap into the unknown and explore her
inner self or she can deny the path before her. Even the synchronous events she can
choose to deny, shutting her eyes to… or she can turn and face the unknown. Enter it
with love and vulnerability, see what it has to offer, bring back the truth and salvation.
Life is fleeting; there is NO OTHER/BETTER TIME THAN THE NOW!