Silenced wisdom

As usual, I'm not sure what this represents. It's another oil pastel on paper. The week so far has been full, again as usual. I got no sleep this past Monday night, what with driving 30 minutes away to get on a bus at 2:00 a.m. that left its destination at 11:00 p.m. the night before. We got into Washington, D.C. around 9:00 a.m. for the national day to rally and lobby for the restoration of habeas corpus. The bus I went on was sponsored by the ACLU. Very well organized by the regional director. For the remainder of this week, I've been very busy with a variety of tasks. This drawing might be the result of all that squirreling around.

Attention - deficit

I did this drawing some time in year 2005, amongst a large group of drawings that came out probably from what was going on internally while I was taking various homeopathic remedies, sequentially. The homeopath was driving himself to find the right remedy to at least give me some relief, while hoping that he would find the remedy that would be close as possible to the sweet spot of core healing.
The drawing could represent that need for and the getting of the shared attention that a newborn human is programmed to require. That's how bonding with care-givers occurs. With deficient or absent attention, the required level of various hormones, especially oxytocin, and pyshological and psychic phenomena do not develop, impairing the ability of the resulting adult to develop healthy relationships, and imparing functioning in many other ways.
It's possible that red triangular shape with the lines across could represent a womb or a vagina - some kind of birthing may be going on. Notice that the heads appear to be speaking, while the head on the far right is wthin something looking like the ear's semi-circular canals. As for the eye, it seems connected to some kind of pupa sack, with a couple of eggs nearby.
When I'm drawing, I don't think. It works best that way, for many people engaged in some kind or creative production, I would guess. This drawing appears early in my Ph.D. dissertation.

Finding the one sure spot deep enough to bear the weight

This photograph shows a bank building on a spot that's deep enough to bear the weight of a building that height. It gives a physical representation of how it feels to have a secure footing psychologically and psychically even when all around seems like shifting sand. Finding that sweet spot of security, resilience and persistence can be really difficult and scary when you're lacking that early infant shared attention necessary for healthy human development. While difficult, it's not impossible to find a zone of a feeling of security, contrary to the dogma of thinking in evolutionary psychology. (And here you thought it was a phallic symbol - tsk! tsk! - my goal is to reframe and re-interpret metaphors and symbols so as to overturn the oppression of patriarchy).

Eye and I streaming

Created over 2-3 days around 5/8/07. This is yet another drawing with an eye as the focus. I don't think about balancing while I'm drawing, but somehow the picture ends up with blues and greens at the top and bottom and yellows, orange, and reds at left and right. Why the eye is looking towards the left I have no conscious idea. I'm not sure if the feeling of the picture is peaceful or tumultuous. Perhaps it's both, like life. Again in oil pastels and felt pen, on bristol paper.

Fire/dragon fly traffic light at night

Created 5/22/07. I felt in a dreamlike waking state, a bit restless so to settle down, I decided to draw. This is the result. I did have the idea of some kind of street light, but no other ideas while drawing. It seems like the heads could be of people lost in a fog, searching for some kind of direction. Sounds familiar. Notice the sequence of the lights. What does it mean? Afterwards I thought the sequence reminded me of the ridiculous and manipulative terror alerts a while back Funny how they don't do them so much anymore, unless it's because I'm not paying attention to the media outlets where they do remain.

Oranges

To be honest, this picture looks better scanned than in the real life version.
I'm not really satisfied with the texture of the oil pastel markings, but I do like the colors. I stayed focused on reds, oranges and yellows, which is unusual for me, since I tend to like to swim around in blues, purples and greens. I'm still trying to figure out what's being represented here.

Flower mouth at sea

I'm getting to really like working/playing with images and this blog. This kind of practice is what I've been wanting to do for a really long time - combination of images and text not involving too much reading.

The background for this drawing was inspired by an artist-photographer who installed an upside-down photo of an ocean scene. It made a deep impression on me.