Oh, Morning Star, Make a Path for Me- Wins an Award of Merit

I have no intention of cutting off my ear.  But this painting did give me some sympathy for  Van Goh's creative frustrations. Less of a painting and more of a pilgrimage through uncut roads, questing for an unknown ideal, rather than a vista.  By the time it was finished I couldn't tell if my love for it was born of pure loyalty to the quest or the reality of successful painting. I am so delighted the SMOFA found some merit in it.

Although it is a mystery piece, It is obviously an exposition on the hypocephalus. As the Egyptians described the hypocephalus, it was a spell or prayer to "cause heat to come under the head of the glorified being."  In other words- to begin their resurrection.  Although it initially reminds many of the Catholic halo,  scholars have more often drawn parallels to the taijitu  and ancient star maps, hence the title "Oh Morning Star, Make a Path for Me," quotes from the Egyptian belief that the king has conquered death, becoming deified in the stars, proving that path available to us.

 The taijitu is more commonly known as the yin and yang circle, the "diagram of ultimate power" of the Taoists.  The two complementary opposites I am focusing on here is the magnetic pull between the mortal (Chthonian) experience and the promise of the eternal.

 In other words the interdependence of two opposites: man and woman.  Woman being the giver of  (mortal) life, while man, particularly the Son of Man, holds mastery over the immortal sphere, priesthood.  His ultimate triumph is resurrection, particularly  as he achieves it for his wife and children.  (Which came first his child, or his desire to resurrect him?) And with fatherhood, suddenly, there is an intensity to his desire to wield the power of the priesthood- an intensity IMPOSSIBLE without family.  That intensity is what fuels the priesthood, and in partnership with motherhood,  becomes the building block of the eternities.

"Lone Man"

"Lone Man"
Now that the show is over I don't ming confessing some of the meaning behind my Lone Man Painting.
Lone Man is a metaphore about human relationships and interdependancy.

The Blueprint was designed by Architecht Steven Platt, and considering it as a canvas imediately turned the conversation to ideals, and design. The "Lone Man" is an icon about the human experience,  and the human Ideal and design.   The title is obviously taken from the text of Genesis.  Just for context-  Every day God Adds to the earth and declares it "good,"  Until-   He creates "lone Man" and declares that it  "not good" for man to be  alone, and the man falls into a "deep sleep." God solves the problem by creating Woman out of man's longing.   So begins the metaphore- an ideal, and an ideal gone awry.

 You can see  Davinci's "Vetruvian Man" in the design, again echoing the theme of ideals, exact proportions in humanity. (Interestingly enough, Vetruvious was an ancient greek architect.) He is haloed by one of two engineers stamp,  his obviously male is plated in gold,  the  female next to it empty and unacknowleged.

The philosophies of men at war with this this undepainting, represented in gold overwriting the text-  The arch bishops' crook in the center is the symbol of the religious sheparding, (a symbol stolen from the Egyptian gods.)  The Crook is burning a whole in the blueprint, particularily in the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  And out of the crook snakes the text of the catholic excomunication ceremony. (Now  listen to this poetry)-  "Let them be cursed eating and drinking, walking and sitting, speaking and holding their peace, waking and sleeping, rowing and riding, laughing and weeping, in house and in field, on water and on land. Cursed be there heads and their  tongues, their eyes and their ears, their tongues and their lips, their teeth and their throats their shoulders and their breasts, their thighs and their inwards, Let them remain accursed from the bottom of the foot to the head unless they bethink themselves and come to satisfaction"  Or something to that effect. The text is snaking out of the shepards crook and cirlcing around the whole picture.
  Also written into the Blueprint is the greek text from John-- ὅσοι δὲ ἔλαβον αὐτὸν, ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς ἐξουσίαν τέκνα θεοὺ γενέσθαι, τοῖς πιστεύουσιν εἰς τὸ ὄνομααυτοῦ,"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God" Cool.

In short, I'm drawing a parralell between the great apostacy and the ideal of celabacy,  both leading to the destruction of the human family.  It is a condemnation of the philosophies of men, in particular the Nicean Creed, and it's betrayal of the human family.