Super Sigils!

As I mentioned in my last post, this is something which has been a constantly evolving project that began as a somewhat simple design and has grown increasingly complex. Over the course of manipulating words on the computer while concurrently researching Buddhist mandalas I decided to create some word mandalas and experiment with different degrees of rotation. The first one I made was the word LOVE. After making dozens of these with the words I’d used in Body Language, I spun full sentences and then sentences within words. They could be considered Super Sigils but I prefer to call them “Suggestalas.”
I'll be posting some color versions in the near future...

I’m currently printing Suggestala posters and t-shirts and am undergoing plans to extend into a whole line of products. I’m also taking commissions for personalized Suggestalas and you can have a name, affirmation, quote, poem or song customized into any language. Pricing differs based on word count and print size.













































































This pyramid is the companion piece to the "Body Language" prototype with the original 66 words.

Body Language

This is a project I’ve been working on extensively for the last eleven months or so. It’s constantly evolving, with no end in sight. I’ve displayed it in various venues and have received some great feedback. Now I think it’s finally ready for an online presentation.

Essentially it’s a collection of positively charged words arranged in the form of a female figure, ultimately designed to be a reflection of the Divine Feminine. When time and personal energy allows, I’d like to create a male figure and possibly even versions which represent specific archetypes.

To give credit where credit is due, I’d like to note that the pose I used was greatly inspired by the Sacred Mirrors series by Alex Grey.

http://www.cosm.org/

It's important that I also delve a little bit into the background of my process to give this project some context. It all began when I did some research on the power of sigils and repeated affirmations. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the term sigil, it’s a ‘magical’ device which is frequently used in occult rituals, often times worn as a talisman or placed in and around an alter or shrine. In effect, it’s a symbol containing a message of one’s conscious desires and aspirations, which is directed at the subconscious mind.

Since the subconscious mind absorbs and interprets surroundings through the analysis and recognition of symbolic shapes and patterns, a sigil is meant to be put up somewhere you will see it on a regular basis like a mirror or fridge door. The purpose of this is that through repeated exposure to this intentionally simplified symbol one can more readily manifest their desires. However, there is a catch... for a sigil to be most effective it must be forgotten. To put it another way, first you specify the desire and charge it with intent, then let it go. This can be done by designing numerous sigils, putting them away somewhere for a couple weeks (out of sight, out of mind) and then take them back out once their individual meanings have escaped your conscious mind. Some sigil makers even destroy them in order to fully let go and allow the magic to run its course. Detachment is crucial.

For a more in depth summary of sigils and sigil construction check this out...

http://home.comcast.net/~max555/book/Sigils.html

So after playing around with sigils for a little while I decided to take one word and manipulate it into a pattern. That word was PEACE. While drawing it in my sketchbook one day I noticed that from a certain angle the words formed what looked like eyes. So in continuing with this thread the natural development was to turn it into a face and then incorporate a variety of words into a full body.

With that to springboard from I took to the task of creating a prototype with 66 words.

The most current version contains 161 words.

For a closer look to see the words I've used, here are some details of the head, hands, torso and legs.

I've also created a color version and have included the seven chakra system. Printed an earlier version at nearly life size (6' x 4') on a vinyl sheet and it looks absolutely stunning. I'm hoping to print it to fit the side of a building someday...

For easy reference, here's a list of the words I'ved used so far.

Transmutation

A series I'm working on which I may develop into a narrative. Mainly just playing around with color and texture, fast and loose. It begins with a figure awakening in a strange realm of chaotic energy. He quickly becomes aware of a shadowy aura emanating from his body and it doesn't take much longer for him to realize he can control it by focusing and manipulating the white light densely coiled and spiraling within him. That's as much as I have so far, not sure what's next...

Centurypede

This is a sketch for a painting I'll eventually get around to which was inspired by the book Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. In it the main character Billy Pilgrim becomes "unstuck in time" and experiences past and future events out of sequence over the course of the novel. At one point he is kidnapped by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore and exhibited in their exoplanetary zoo. The Tralfamadorians just so happen to see things in four dimensions and as such have already witnessed every instant of their lives. They believe in predestination and say they cannot choose to change anything about their fates, but only choose to concentrate upon any moment of their lives.

So to elucidate upon this further, a human life as seen in the fourth dimension would seem like a centipede of countless arms and legs stretched out from birth to death. Every moment and movement captured as fragments densely crisscrossing and interacting with countless other human centipedes. The concept is impossible to grasp in its entirety so for this image I simplified it into a collection of faces that begin from the fetus at the tail end and gradually grow older, finally culminating with a grimacing skull. The swirled ripple around the fetus and portal in the eye of the skull are a linked vortex, representing the continually repeating process of reincarnation.

Dream Dragon

Started this one on the train and it took me a couple days to finish it up. Like my last post, I didn't really have any sort of formulated image in mind to start with and I just kept adding to it until it covered two full pages of my sketchbook. Dragons... always a solid subject :-}

Road Sketch

Went on a road trip to Ottawa a couple weeks ago and drew this on the way back. Been drawing a lot more with colored pens lately rather than pencilling in first like I normally do. Start with a few lines and see where it takes me. A purely additive process that I really enjoy. After I drew this I realized it's kind of how I felt during my time over there. Like I had some sort of strange parasite clinging to my brain and feeding me negative thoughts of self pity and exclusion. It did a lot of good to release it onto the page and reflect on its meaning. Gotta do what I can to fight back against that little green monster that creeps up from time to time.

War & Peace

This is something I made about 2 years ago for a school project with a war and peace theme. The first version was made with gouache and markers but I cleaned it up in Illustrator just in the last year or so. As it would seem, peace is just the time between wars considering that the course of human history is riddled with slaughter and and built on bloodshed. This was the reason for the hourglass which is constantly being flipped and the process repeated. The top half contains a white dove, symbol of peace and love in many cultures and traditions and is garnished with the the olive branches that are also found on the flag of the United Nations. Above the dove is the Flower of Life, sacred geometrical symbol and universal icon of creation. The emblems along the outer edges are Metatron's cube, the template that delineates the five Platonic solids.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flower_of_life

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metatron%27s_Cube#Metatron.27s_Cube

The dove slowly dissolves into the lower half and into the open hatch of a black tank teetering on the precipice of a cascading oil wave. In each of the corners spin the gears of war, powered at their core by the ruthless greed of the industrial military complex, personified by a snake coiled around a bomb. Standing as pillars on either end of the hourglass are DNA strands containing humanity's potential for passionate love as well as destructive violence. Set behind it all sits the source of all life on this planet, the radiant inferno that is the Sun.

Death & Rebirth finalized

Here's the colored version of an older post.

Fetal Fractal

I stippled this originally in my sketchbook and afterwards manipulated it in Photoshop, duplicating it many times and inverting the black on white background to white with black background so that it would have the appearance of stars and swirling galaxies.  Inspired by the star child at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey, it represents the evolution of mankind from terrestrial dweller to galactic being.  I also wanted to show the connectedness of all things and the spiraling fetuses are linked in a quad pack by their umbilical cords.  From their foreheads, fractals spring forth containing twenty more fetuses in accordance with the Fibonacci sequence (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8) and each is complete with it's own miniature fractal pattern.  Ultimately this piece embodies the unfolding act of co-creation echoing throughout space and time onwards into infinity.  A friend of mine jokingly mentioned that I should turn this into a wallpaper and put it up in a fertility clinic.

Goddess of the Harvest

This piece is my tribute to the Greek goddess, Demeter.  In Greek mythology she was the most generous of the great Olympian goddesses.  Beloved for her service to mankind, she gave the gift of the harvest as reward for cultivation of the soil. Also known as the Roman goddess Ceres, Demeter was credited with teaching humans how to grow, preserve, and prepare grain.

She was the only Greek goddess involved on a day-to-day basis in the lives of the common folk.  While others occasionally "dabbled" in human affairs when it suited their personal interests, or came to the aid of "special" mortals they favored, Demeter was truly the nurturer of mankind.

Demeter was also the only Greek goddess who could truly empathize with the human experience of suffering and grief, having experienced it fully herself.

Seen here, she is dancing over a newly seeded crop, bestowing the land with fertility for a bountiful harvest.

Text lifted from www.goddessgift.com

Guardian Angel

This was one of the first pieces I drew in this style and it was during a trip with my parents to Las Vegas last September. The idea came to me after I was playing around with drawing from a single continuous line. Although this image consists of many broken lines, I was aiming for that fluidity of one line interwoven over itself to create form. Contained infinity operating on many levels...