The Art - "Golden Field"

Golden Field

approximately 8 1/4" x 5"; colored pencil on paper.


This is the first piece in my 100-part Joey's Book (AKA The Black Book) project.

Because The Black Book pieces are inspired by my dreams I'm a bit wary about going in-depth with my explanations here. I just have this idea of some psychoanalyst invading my head and ripping me apart. :P I'm sure I've loaded 'em up with enough ammo thanks to all my previous posts, so why compound my offense? My dreams are precious to me. I can deal with sharing them on this level... visually, because they pale in comparison to the actual memory. I feel that the memory is safe. Building on it with my words would endanger it and open me up in a way that I'm just not comfortable with. What I will say is that this wasn't a nightmare. This was one of those third-person perspective dreams, I viewed all the players from a great distance. And I remember not recognizing my form but knowing who I was, knowing it was me.

Anyway, I'm beat. I've been... this is very much a sketch, an experiment. I've been experimenting all day with this one. My thumb's sore, my back and neck ache and my eyes are failing me... I need sleep.


DS333, (-_-)zzZZZ

The Art - "Mountain Ring"

Mountain Ring

approximately 7" x 9"; ink on paper.


This is the third piece in my 21-part Jerry's Book (AKA The Brown Book) project.

I began this piece around the same time I started this blogging project and now that this blog is coming to an end I really wanted to complete this piece in time, because y'know how much I love synchronicity. Thankfully I did finish in time, in fact this one is hot off the presses, I got it done only a couple of hours ago. Phew!

There are two deeply personal stories interwoven with this piece... or at least with it's inspiration. This is an abstract representation of a ring, my ring, which I call the Mountain Ring. As a hard and fast rule I don't wear jewelry, or at least I didn't. I don't know... just one of those things. You know how you have an image of something in your mind? Well the concept of men with jewelry was always warped in my mind. Certainly I've seen and known men who could pull off the look... but because something is right for others doesn't necessarily mean it's right for you. The idea just never sat well with me. But I wanted a ring. I needed a ring. And sometimes you don't know the why of these things. The language of the heart is not the same spoken by the mind, so I can't really peg what it was about a ring. It could've just as easily been a necklace, no? Or a bracelet? I don't know...

The search for a ring began with the two stories I mentioned earlier. Both take place at the same time but in different places. There's a timeline of events in this plane, The Physical, and another that takes place... I don't know where, The Spiritual? It was in that space that I found something very precious to me. I found it in a time of great loneliness and in deep darkness. It is something I will carry with me for the rest of my life. I've the image of it in my mind and the feeling in my heart. It exists. And I wanted to protect it, to save it, to hold it, to honor it, etc. And that's when another story began to unfold.

I remember the first time I saw the ring in it's jewel case. I remember how right it felt. That's it! That's the one! It was exactly what I'd been looking for, exactly what I wanted. I had rock & steel in my mind; mineral & metal. They became chrysocolla and silver. It was perfect. It fit in every sense of the word. What I found I meant for others to protect. These people were extensions of myself. But it's just my nature to project in this way... it had to be symbolized. I envisioned mountains. Not men, not women, just people; people who lived in these mountains. Great mountains and great people. People of metal and rock. A hardy people. They are strength and resiliency personified. It is they who I wanted to entrust this very precious thing. The mountains and the people became the ring.

The actual ring exists as three that form one at the base. Again, I just have to mention how well everything fits. The sketch is partly inspired by kundilini yoga, specifically its chakra system. The inner most ring represented is the Ring of Claws that represents survival. Survival as differentiated from living. The Ring of Claws is scavenging... it's holding on... it's getting by... it's clinging to life as opposed to living it. The second ring is the Ring of Fire. This place is of procreation and sexual gratification. This is the street corner. This is the whores & hustlers. This is a life ruled by loins and lust. The outermost ring, the third, is the Ring of Thorns. This is a life ruled by competition. This place is of aggression and violence. Together, the three rings represent the Animal life... the life and aims we share with the animal world, the most base form of living, a non-spiritual life.

The fourth ring, that of the heart, occupies the same space as that of the Mountain Range. The second part of my ring is a square-cut piece of chrysocolla set in a "ring" of silver that sits atop the "animal" rings. The "ring" of silver is bound to the square piece of chrysocolla and looks very much like a range of mountains. The jewel in turn looks like a vaulted blue-green sky. Inside this space is where my Mountain People live. I envision a whole world all their own, safe and impenetrable. In each of the four directions, to give life to this world, I've represented the four elements; Eastern Earth, Southern Fire, Western Wind and Northern Waters. At the heart of the range is a representation of the actual jewel, offset by 45 degrees to call to mind a diamond/precious mineral. It's there that the burial ground exists; the safest place in all the worlds. This space, this world of mountains exists exactly between the Lunar and Solar powers. From this place the powers are undifferentiated and in balance. This is the place of the heart. This is the realm of spiritual growth; compassion. This metaphysical state exists beyond the three physical ones. This is one aspect of the heart; strength. Strength is what I've chosen to take away from my stories.


DS333, cryptic.

The Art - "The World Tree"

The World Tree

approximately 8 1/2" x 6 1/4"; ink on paper.


This is the twelfth piece in my 70-part David's Book (AKA The Blue Book) project.

This is one of those pieces that absolutely validates my use of the term sketch. There's a lot here that I was playing around with that I hope to revisit in the future. It exists now as a road marker, a pretty clear one at that. I have the idea of where I wanted to go, unfortunately I wasn't able to get there with this effort... close, but not quite.

Obviously I was experimenting with symmetry. I had this idea of the underworld existing much like our own. I thought I would mirror the anatomy of a tree to flesh the thought out. I fantasized of a world where people choked instead of breathed; dirt instead of air. Instead of getting lost in the rhythmic sway of branches in the breeze there is a place where people get lost in the stillness of roots encased in earth. Dirt for air and roots for branches, a world turned on its head... where people no longer mistake substance for emptiness.

I also wanted to develop this idea of the seed as source. I'd been thinking of trees as vessels. I'd envisioned a world within each trunk where the seed took the place of the Sun. I wonder what it is that sparks life and where it goes. Even tracking the ghost of that spark I felt was a meaningful endeavor. What becomes of the seed? Of it's casing? Where does it end up? How does it morph? What remains? I kept envisioning lines... strata, a smear of the original line. The written word or the drawn line taken and smeared... stretched and structuring something new, creating a new word, a new line, a new thought and so a new world.

Anyway, I'm about to get lost in thought... which means I'm precariously dancing about a pool of incoherence. Some things are better left unsaid... and if they're attempted to be spoken, or written, they should be done so lucidly. I'm about to lose my mind. ;)

Fair thee well my fellow acorns. :)


DS333, breathing and choking.

The Art - "Dragon... (Incomplete)"

Dragon... (Incomplete)

approximately 11" x 8"; ink on paper.


This is the first piece in my 70-part David's Book (AKA The Blue Book) project.

I'm almost sure I've mentioned at some point my reluctance to post any pieces that weren't complete, in fact I'm almost positive I was more direct than that. I can hear myself saying, I would never post anything incomplete. I have a problem revealing anything that's in transition. That's what I like to term anything in the works; in transition. Revealing these things ahead of time feels wrong to me for a lot of reasons. That time, that space of transition is one of extreme... influence... absorption. It's like taking something out of a vacuum. It ruins it. That space is sacred. It's private. It's a communion of sorts. It should be one-on-one till the very end. Anything else would be wrong. It's seeing the bride before the wedding. It's having sex in cage in a zoo. It just wouldn't be right. It's eating a half-baked cake. All of it speaks of spoil and ruin. I don't like it.

Unfortunately for some, being in transition means being in between life and death. That's what being incomplete is. That's what this piece is. I'm no longer working on it and never will so it's in a constant stage of... flux. It's in flux because it wants to be complete and I won't deliver that, I can't. I've posted before about losing the thread to a piece over time. It's having the idea of something at the beginning, the momentum, the energy and then losing it. Sometimes it can just be about time. You forget things over time. And sometimes it's about having the initial spark of that idea snuffed out by another. Maybe it becomes muddied by something larger. It becomes co-opted. So you lose the heart of what it was you started with. And it's not the same as evolving and growing... this is different. This isn't a positive change, at least not for what you have/had at the moment. My language and imagery for this phenomenon is tied to the language and imagery of child birth, or rather, miscarriage. It's having something and losing it. But losing it at exactly the wrong moment. But you hold on and it holds on... and you both wait for it to happen again. You have the fantasy of something, you can see it... it feels so real that you can almost touch it. But that fantasy can never materialize in this plane. You can't reach back into the past and change it. What you hold on to you save for the future, for another plane, another time.

So I've titled this piece Dragon... because the dragon, that concept, was a key instrument in it's making. But it's incomplete so I don't know if it's (something) Dragon or Dragon (something). In it's next incarnation that might be lost altogether. Who knows? And I don't reveal the Dragon... for the sake of doing something new and unexpected. I thought I never would. But I can feel this current, this push to do so.

I'm not one to make portraits. I've never really felt comfortable drawing someone because that would require drawing on so many facets of who they are. How do you cage someone in a single picture? People are far too multi-dimensional for my still images. If I were to make a genuine effort to encapsulate someone I would draw on so many mediums. It would require sound and animation. Color. It would need to be as rich an experience as possible and when it was all done it would still fall short of honoring this hypothetical phantom properly. So when I create a portrait I single something out. Something small. A particular laugh? A wrinkle. A memory. A phrase. Some one thing. And when I have that thing, I drill down further. Narrow my focus. Until it fits. Until I feel it's something I can tackle. I thought I had that with the Dragon... This is a portrait. An aspect of this person's character, someone I know. And what I mentioned before... the current, the push... is the memory of this person whispering. It's how these things sometimes work. They lay in wait, silent, for years and years until they decide to scream to let themselves be known again. The Dragon... is awakening you might say. It's time again. And something about getting it right this time around means acknowledging what went wrong in the past. So that's why I share this today. Not because I want to, but because it demands it of me.


DS333, reconciling.

The Art - "Lunar Wheel"

Lunar Wheel

approximately 7" x 7"; ink on paper.


This is the second piece in my 21-part Jerry's Book (AKA The Brown Book) project.

This is my uroboros. Something I've been meaning to do for some time. An emblem of man's first crisis; the realization that life lives on life. We kill to live. Everything is alive and is being consumed; the oldest of ideas and so requires very little elaboration.

I mentioned in an earlier post about having started work on this symbol and then having to scrap it. I knew where I wanted to go and I just wasn't headed there. This is my second attempt and I'm quite happy with it. You'll notice that this uroboros is actually backward. That's meant as a curse to any passerby who happens to lift the symbol without realizing it's power. As it is, it's working against the world motion; counterclockwise. The universal serpent is in keeping with the way of the world, not opposed to it. As a result of the flip, the swastika motifs are also perverted.

As is usually the case, I wrestle about what to expound on since I think everything is fairly obvious. It means something that the snake rests and moves atop of the swastikas. It means something that the negative space reveals a skeletal structure. It means something that the skin of the serpent is adorned with eyes of illumination. Everything means something...


DS333, focused.

The Art - "Self Portrait - Fire Gnome"

Self Portrait - Fire Gnome

approximately 5 1/4" x 8"; ink on paper.


This is the eleventh piece in my 70-part David's Book (AKA The Blue Book) project.

This self portrait is pretty much a direct response to the last one. It's no coincidence that it immediately follows it within the order of the book. I wouldn't think of creating two self portraits back to back, but I was more or less forced to do so.

While I was making my way through ...Red Face, I suppose I used a bit more force on the pen than usual, because it seems I was able to tear tiny holes within the paper that allowed ink to bleed through to the next page. There was no way I was thinking of scrapping the paper because it was marred, since they were tiny blotches I knew I could work around them and incorporate them into the next piece. But what to create next? I somehow didn't think it was right to disregard the accident... if that makes any sense. I felt that because the ink came from ...Red Face, the next piece should honor that in some way. Looking at the blemishes brought to mind sparks. Then I started to think of the way fire was instrumental to ...Red Face; if he was the fire, this next one would be the spark; an offshoot.

So the ...Fire Gnome was born, with the idea of honoring and taking cues from ...Red Face. Because the ...Gnome was a spark, I thought I'd scale down my usual image size. And since I was gonna make something humanoid, it's diminutive size led me to create something impish and gnome-like. So taking cues from ...Red Face, the entire image is pretty much self explanatory. You can see the fire, you can see the face, you can see the demon, you can see the samurai; all whispers of something greater and more refined. In regard to the rest of my sketches, this piece truly is a sketch. It was meant to be rough. Just a swath of an idea. I imagine he is an envoy of ...Red Face. Maybe one aspect of that creation? Pure anger? Probably not. Something on the order of Chaos I think. Anyway, like I said it's just a sketch... I can't say I put all that much thought into the piece, everything was pretty much written out ahead of time. I just drew what I could see.

DS333, divining.

The Art - "Self Portrait - Red Face"

Self Portrait - Red Face

approximately 8" x 10 1/2"; ink on paper.


This is the tenth piece in my 70-part David's Book (AKA The Blue Book) project. This self-portrait marks the point at which I began to gain control of the book. So far, every piece created after this one has been completed. :D

As I've said, this is a self portrait. Not the first and certainly not the last. What's funny, given all that I've said about the rest of my work, is that I don't feel all too comfortable sharing the story behind this piece. Maybe "comfortable" is too strong a word, but I'd like to keep certain things personal... and mysterious. ;) So I won't being going in-depth on this piece or any of the other self portraits I have in the works. Like everything I create, this portrait is symbolic. It's obviously not meant to mirror my physical form. :P But I did want to maintain the form of a face. So, it should be familiar in that respect. But everything's distorted. Everything's energized. Skin, flesh, hair and bone have been fueled by fire. This is violence. This is anger. I imagine this to be my Samurai Face. It's all meaningful; a collection of stories in the form of a face. My stories; my face. The Red Face.

DS333, aflame.

Explained, "Joey's Book"

Joey's Book is the final book in my three-part Books Of The Art project. If you haven't guessed or come across the info by now, you should know that I'm Joey. That's me and that's my name, nice to meet ya. ;)

Joey's Book (by the way, it feels kinda weird... and by "weird" I actually mean "douchey" to be referring to myself in the third person. :P Technically I'm not... I'm not referring to the book per se, but the title of said book. :P ) is also known as The Black Book. Like the other two books... my book's color has a direct superificial link, my book happens to be a full-size Moleskine sketch book... which is black. I have to say that I don't have any true loyalty to one type of book over any other... obviously. But I imagine I might stick to the Moleskine books in the future if only because of their interesting history with artisans of all kinds. That's immensely appealing. Maybe more appealing is the huge geek-cachet they carry within the geek/tech/web community. :P More than all of that though, I find the Moleskine books to be absolutely luxurious. But I've gone on about Moleskine before... so I'll spare you that rant. ;)

Funny enough, I recently watched Rob Zombie's remake of the classic Halloween and in it Dr. Loomis has this great little dialogue with the young Michael Myers about black's status, or lack thereof, as a color. It's a rant I've heard before (which I find somewhat annoying by the way. :P ;) ) and was actually one of the many reasons I decided to choose that color for my book. Although, the main reason I chose black is because it's so closely tied to the North. Traditionally, in a symbolic context, the North is representative of the dark... of dark energy. It's the Abyss... it's The Unconscious. It's a place of terror and personal discovery. A crossroads. The ultimate destination of The Hero.

This reference to the unconscious, however, was the main factor in my decision to choose black. The Jet North is a place of dream. I've actually mentioned The Black Book before on this blog, but by a third name... The Dream Journal.

There were so many reasons why this final book would be my own. A mixture of thoughtful design and divine serendipity. In some ways it was only by chance that my book would be the third in the series... but it wasn't by chance that I would link each book between myself and my brothers. What's interesting is how that linkage arranged itself. The first book, David's Book, is my oldest brother's book... who just so happens to be the first-born. The second book, Jerry's Book, was the second-born. And finally, I the third-born. The number three... and it's connection to me and my life is, in many ways, a profound one. Ways in which I don't know if I'll be able to fully explain, and if I could... if I should. It's curious though that it managed to appear in this fashion. That my book would be the third book. It has all the marking of the personal. Which is so apt. And why there is a reference to the Hero mythos in my decision to choose black. There's this reference to The Hero's Journey... and the left-hand path of the artist.

But more than anything, the book is tied to the idea of dream. Especially since my entire focus for the book is to document my dreams in visual form. David's Book is of fire, Jerry's of earth and mine of water. Water being another reference to dream... to the dream sea... the collective unconscious. Everything in my book is meant to be a mixture of philosophies from the previous books. At once, wild and tamed. Always in a state of flux... in between states. Not quite hot... not quite cool... not quite spontaneous and not quite planned. In my mind I imagine mist... steam. Water that's not quite itself... in transition... at it's most mutable. Smoke. Again tied to the idea of the dark... of the unconscious. I see smoke and images arising from the dark. I try to pin them down as they are... but I don't come close. My dreams come and go as they please... offering hints... and I do my best to hold onto them. I'm on the path of the beast... searching and hunting.

Another remarkable thing about my book is that I've decided to forgo my use of ink. More than that, I've decided to experiment with color. I don't know why... but it seemed appropriate. My drawings... the way they appear to me in my waking life, and the way I choose to render them... the rendering always falls short. I don't know that I've the talent... nor does there exist the medium to render them as I would like. My dreams are an even more elusive animal. There's no way I could... hold them the way I would like. So to help alleviate the situation... I thought I would use color as another point of reference, or elaboration. I try to imagine... an image being a word or phrase... and rendering them properly means being limited both by time and by vocabulary... but my decision to use color, is like adding voices to the choir. Maybe using color would help me to... get more out than is normally possible. But I don't know... it's an experiment. ;)

Anyway, that's my book... funny enough, I could still go more in depth about it... but I'm sure you've had your fill. ;) I haven't yet completed a single piece in The Black Book... which I suppose is due to a mixture of fear and a tiny bit of perfectionism rearing it's ugly little head. I haven't worked with color... so I'm worried about mucking things up; not expressing myself the way I would like. I want things to be perfect... and this uneasiness I'm feeling almost assures I'm going to fuck up, so I've just stalled. But I don't suppose that'll last long... I'll get to it quickly enough. This blog, oddly enough, I feel is helping that process along. I want to update this blog fairly regularly with pieces of my work... and if I'm coming close to having nothing to post, well that should light a fire under me to get things done. It's two sides of my OCD mind fighting against one another. :P I have a plan to post regularly which I won't let get interrupted... and I also don't want to create anything I'm horribly unhappy with... neither of these things are going to change, which just means I'm going to have to find a way to work more quickly and efficiently. I gotta operate in Hero mode... walk without fear. ;)

DS333, fearless.

Explained, "Jerry's Book"

Jerry's Book is the second book in my Books of The Art art project series. Just as the first book, David's Book, had a subtitle (The Blue Book), so too does Jerry's Book. It's also known as The Brown Book. Superficially it's so named because the cover of the Strathmore Drawing pad is brown. The first book was paired with my oldest brother... I mean to say, that specific type of sketch book was paired with my brother because it's the one I remember him using the most. Jerry though, my second oldest brother, had no real ties to one book or another. In fact, the Strathmore books were a second favorite of David's.

I gave Jerry The Brown Book because growing up it's the one color I associated him with. If only because it was a favorite of his, as far as clothing was concerned anyway. Everything about his complexion also brings the color to mind. His hair, his eyes, his skin... all brown.

Now as far as the direction for the book goes, it's very much tied to who Jerry is as a person. Jerry's Book is all concerned with rules, boundaries and mathematics. It's about defined spaces and ideas. Distinction. Discrimination. If David's Book is a counterpart to the fire principle, than Jerry's Book is of the earth. Of man. Of ego. It's not nature untamed, but controlled. It's order. It's higher thought. It's critical thinking. And it should be known that Jerry is a really sharp guy. Incredibly intelligent. Very skillful and technical. He's a mind of mathematics. He's ordered. He's very right-hand. And while Jerry never took art as seriously as David did, he still had a talent for it. But his technique, like the philosophy behind The Brown Book, was very much concerned with planned, controlled movements. It was always very technical and precise. David was impressionistic, and Jerry's realistic. I wanted to define the books as I have the people.

So every piece in Jerry's Book is planned out long ahead of time. I tend to use rulers and guides to create each symbol. I try my best to stay within the lines, within the social order of the book. Nothing about it should strike of eccentricity... or more, of the chaotic. Or in the language of social order, anarchistic. And while most of my work is already very precise and "perfect"... the pieces in The Brown Book have to be even more so. There should be no mistakes.

Now I should say that the language I've been using shouldn't be viewed as negative... or... not spiritually informed. Both books are two sides of the same coin. They personify the pair of opposites principle. Both are divine. Only clothed in different costumes. The artist or the eccentric (David) needs the community or society (Jerry) to define him, and in turn define them. There is no separating the two. They are eternally bound. And I feel, no better idea to cast upon my brothers. The are the Moon and the Sun, respectively. They are my Moon and my Sun. Heavenly bodies who forever inform my existence in this plane.

DS333, orbiting.

Explained, "David's Book"

If you've read my The Art posts, you're somewhat familiar with David's Book. For now, as far as my art projects are concerned, everything can pretty much be categorized into three distinct groups. Three books. As an homage to the great Clive Barker, I call these The Books of The Art. The original Books of The Art, of course, referring to his Quiddity Trilogy (The Great And Secret Show, Everville and ?). Anyway, the first book in my trilogy is David's Book, also known as The Blue Book.

You'd be unaware of who David is because I don't think I've talked about him on this blog. Although, I may have... I'm just too lazy to go and check right now. ;) David was my oldest brother. Was being the operative word. He died some years ago. Not too long ago, although it does feels like ages. During my high school years. Funny thing about his death... or maybe about my memory of his death... I have a steel-trapped mind when it comes to most details, but for whatever reason I can never retain the date, nor the year of his passing. It's very vague in my mind. I can never grasp it fully. I don't know why.

Anyway, I loved my brother, and I'd never... at the time, made an effort to formulate a project of some sort. Given that my brother was an amazing artist, and a great source of inspiration, I felt it only right to christen my first project under his name. Nothing I could create would ever do his work justice, but in some way I would hope he'd feel honored by the gesture.

David's Book is also known as The Blue Book because it seemed like a perfect idea to have a subtitle of some sort for the books, and seeing as how I'm obsessed with color theory and symbolism, The Blue Book seemed like a perfect option. Superficially, The Blue Book is a reference to the blue Mead 'Académie' Sketch Diaries that David loved to use most often. There were other mediums, but the memory of one specific book that's tied to him in my mind is that Mead book. In another context, the blue is supposed to represent a stillness of mind. In Navajo mythology the South is usually tied to the color blue, and the South is the point at which the setting and rising Sun are seen as equal. There's this idea of revelation... breaking through the illusion of the universal pair of opposites into transcendence. Given that my brother is no longer here, but everywhere... and no where... it seemed fitting.

As far as my direction for the project goes, David's Book is meant to be sketches and drawings created in a totally free-flowing manner. It should be symbolic of life, it should evoke spontaneity. Nothing about what it contains should be measured or quantified. I want to fall back as far as possible from using guides and rulers. Everything should be amorphous and emotional. Everything on those pages needs to be... mind. Just raw source. Raw thought. Raw emotion. Ungoverned and innocent. It should be unspoiled by critical or rational thought. I need to feel as much as a spectator as possible. I suppose that's because in some way, since it is David's book, I want to feel as though I'm channeling him. But he no longer exists as I knew him, or anyone for that matter, so he's apart of the... the unknown. He's apart of the source, the radiance... which is the place I tap into whenever I create. So I want to deliver as unfiltered an experience as possible so that in some way, I can render him, his memory and his energy on paper. I want to be a conduit. A link. My influence should be minimal. I kinda feel like I'm putting on my documentarian's hat whenever I work in David's Book.

Anyway, that's probably as far as I should go into David's Book. I feel that pretty much covers all bases. Well, save for the last two books... but I had already planned to make those separate posts all their own. ;)

DS333, blue.