Passage
About the Art
The inspiration for the forty-eight drawings of From Seed to Universe arrived half a lifetime ago in a dream, accompanied by the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Above my head, a swirling spiral galaxy (an ancient symbol of the life process) gathered in thousands of stars from far away. As the galaxy turned, vague and subliminal passages from a luminous musical composition expanded into an audible stream that drew me into its current. When I recognized the music on a recording a few days later, I knew that I had to decipher the dream’s message. I had no idea what I was getting myself into
In the years that followed, the dream and the mysterious music associated with it, Bach’s Chaconne from the Partita in D Minor for solo violin, grew to become inseparable, interior guides. Their invisible but insistent presence always directed me to the depths as I explored the world through the complementary disciplines of art and music studies, a professional healing arts practice, and extensive readings in Eastern and indigenous arts and philosophies. Gradually, I began to understand that the reciprocal conversation between my two inner companions—one visual and the other musical—contained a common theme. But the key that would translate the meaning of this dialogue into a new artistic language remained hidden.
It wasn’t until the dream’s subconscious galaxy imprint unexpectedly reappeared in a new form that the subject for this series of drawings came into focus. On an autumn walk in 1980, six years after my dream, I picked up a fallen horse chestnut seed and in my sketch book I made the following note:
When I found the shiny brown horse chestnut seed with the
vague imprint of a spiral galaxy on the side where it attached to the husk,
I knew that its story held a special significance. It seemed to me that
this miniature galaxy, delicate and almost humorous, was more
than just a reminder that the same growth patterns appear
in large and small worlds. It was also a clue to the
creative secrets that live in the seed forms of all life.
Like the many musical variations of Bach’s composition, each drawing of From Seed to Universe grows out of the one preceding it, while opening the way to the next. Images flow into focus and dissolve again into components of creative energy. Circular design undercurrents reflect the combined influence of ancient visual symbols and studies of order and interconnectedness: the Tree of Life, the Spiral, the Mandala, and Sacred Geometry.
Throughout the entire series, a subtle mathematical rhythm constantly rearranges the structural threads of visible and invisible worlds. But like fractals, each drawing’s individual composition always retains a relationship to a larger, collective form.
All drawings in the collection are 20 1/8” x 20 1/4”, rendered in mixed media (liquid acrylic, colored pencil, and archival pen) on 100% rag paper.
The Tree of Life
The Tree of Life is an ancient symbol that has appeared throughout world art, mythology and religion for thousands of years. It represents the creative forces of the universe and the interconnectedness of all life.
THE SPIRAL
The spiral and its many variants (the helix, the intertwining double helix, and the vortex pattern) represent the invisible creative principle that is alive and continually at work in the universe, in both microscopic and macroscopic worlds.
The Mandala
The term “Mandala” comes from the ancient Sanskrit word for circle. Its design is usually based on a concentric motif that suggests the many-layered dimensions of the Cosmos. Mandalas appear in the art of many cultures and always symbolize wholeness, unity, completion, cycles of creation and dissolution, as well as cosmic or psychic order. Visual Mandalas are often employed as portals to meditative or altered states of consciousness.
Sacred Geometry
Sacred Geometry refers to the invisible mathematical and geometrical principles that underlie all visible forms in nature, and serve as keys to understanding the structure of the Cosmos.