A Thought About Meditation from Domo Geshe Rinpoche

Meditation will bring many benefits to health, better relationships and feeling more alive inside by inner expansion. Among newly increased inner senses, inner healing love is an element of the actual life process of the next stage of your evolutionary development. Not only is it helpful and exactly what you need, if you do not have it, you will not be allowed to awaken. You will have to circulate… in the human realm or realms until getting the chance again perhaps in the year forty-three billion and two! ~ Domo Geshe Rinpoche ~

meditation for love

Time for a Change and a New Look for the Blog….

In celebration of my 150th post since I began blogging in December 2010, I have decided to change my background and header image. The previous set was more organic in its composition. This time around I wanted to create a more geometric feeling, lighten the look, and add simplicity to the theme. Sometimes it is hard to make a change, but I am sure I will learn to love the new look.

To all my friends and blogging buddies, I hope you like the changes. Tell me what you think.

Below is the new look…however you will find that I have changed this look as well…Oh what the future brings.

But please be kind 🙂

Flower background

Weekly Photo Challenge: Opportunity 03

Over the years, I have been awarded several artist’s fellowships for interdisciplinary pursuits. In 2004, I was awarded my second artist residency. It was with the South Carolina State Parks’ artist residency program. It was an opportunity that I truly looked forward to participating in. I was commissioned to showcase the lovely character of Barnwell State Park, located in the midlands of SC, in exchange for a week’s stay in one of their cabins. Barnwell is a natural resource park, quiet and remote, while featuring a beautiful lake for fishing and canoeing. The solitude of the landscape was fantastic and it provided great inspiration for the project.

In the photo I am standing with one of two images I completed for the project. The finished work is included in the South Carolina State Park Artist Collection.

Barnwell State Park, South Carolina

Weekly Photo Challenge: Opportunity 02

I took this photo during a 1993 lecture and art exhibit of my latest work at Atlantic Community College in Mays Landing, NJ. The lecture was a demonstration of various digital processing elements for the creation of digital art and video art. It was a great opportunity to talk with the students and introduce them to digital art. In 1993 digital art was just beginning to grow as a valid artist medium to many, and I was happy to share my knowledge, take questions, and inspire these would-be artists.

In the photo a Commodore Amiga 1000 computer, Super Gen video mixer, and a Panasonic camera for scanning photographs. Yes, times have changed, and now artists have access to more sophisticated hardware and software.

Artist lecture at Atlantic Community College 1993

Weekly Photo Challenge: Opportunity

This photo goes back to 1990 and the Highwire Gallery’s visit to Deventer, Holland. It was part of an exchange with the artist group of Deventer. We were exhibiting new work in their gallery and staying the summer. While cruising through the small, quaint, artist town, I happened to come across a small shop that had a poster of our exhibit in the window. The poster is just to the left of the woman standing in the doorway. Throughout the town, residents and shop owners, displayed posters announcing the upcoming exhibit. Going to the Netherlands via this exchange of artists and ideas, was a fantastic opportunity, and one I will never forget.

The poster in the window, Deventer Holland

30-Day Song Challenge: Day 20 – Asks the question, what artist best captures the essence of ambient meditation for the creation of art?

Taylor Deupree

Taylor Deupree – Rusted Oak – From the CD Shoals

http://youtu.be/CUR7mFmoQsU

Taylor Deupree – Landing – From the CD Landing

http://youtu.be/Cc_uKx8NTa4

Human Mesh Dance (Taylor Deupree) – Sunken Garden

http://youtu.be/ABwD5xs_YEg

Taylor Deupree performs

Taylor Deupree (born April 30, 1971), is an American electronic musician, photographer and graphic designer. He is most known for the founding of the 12k record label, along with his work as a member of Prototype 909, his solo project as Human Mesh Dance, and his collaborations with Savvas Ysatis and Christopher Willits. In 2008, Taylor Deupree was the Président d’Honneur of the Qwartz Electronic Music Awards 5th in Paris (France).

Today while working on my latest post in “The City Series” (Urban Contemplation 07: On Either Side of that Open Door it’s the Same), I found myself listening to the deeper reflective elements of my music collection—“A Dancing Beggar, Ai Yamamoto, Lawrence English and the featured artist for this challenge Taylor Deupree. Taylor is one of my favorite ambient artist. For me his music slowly evolves and creates a suspended sense of kinetic dynamics that holds the mind still while producing a beautiful landscape for creativity.

What do you think? Although the music may be challenging for any who are unfamiliar with the genre, does it resonate with you as a possible source of creative inspiration for the production of prose and / or art?

Urban Contemplation 07: On Either Side of that Door It’s the Same

The city series….

Towards the open door….

caught in between

feeling things folding inward

there i stand

seeing things unknown

a future with no past

a past with no ending…

caught in between

magic and lost

a guiding light

a promised home

and there i stand…

with my intangible destiny

at the crossroad of life

  before…

the uncertain door….

Featured video for this post … the artist “A Dancing Beggar” and the song “Returning” from the CD “Follow the Dark as if it Were Light”.

http://youtu.be/iziXU3uV8oA

On either side of that door it's the same

The ambiguities of life are like the opening of a door. We never know for sure what we will discover on the other side.

But one thing is certain… on either side of that door it’s the same…there’s memory and hope.

What are your thoughts? When you arrive at that “uncertain door” what is your reaction? What is your hope?

Urban Contemplation: 06 – Dreams that Never Breach the Walls of Sleep

The city series….

Dreams that never breach the walls of sleep….

Urban decay a place of broken dreams

The dreams that search for the freedom from sleep….

30-Day Song Challenge: Day 19 – Asks the question what musician best captures the essence of digital music?

30-Day Song Challenge: Day 19 – Asks the question what musician best captures the essence of digital music?

The Music of Ryoji Ikeda

Ryoji Ikeda - NODE Festival

Ryoji Ikeda – Data. Matrix – Live at Sonair 2010

http://youtu.be/k3J4d4RbeWc

Ryoji Ikeda – THE TRANSFINITE at Park Avenue Armory, New York City

http://youtu.be/Y5NpIuEKtSU

“I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.” ~ John Cage

I have always had a love for electronic music since the mid 1970’s. This fascination originated with the sounds of analog space music by such artists as Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream. Over the years the evolution of electronic music has been quite innovative and exploratory, while simultaneously producing various styles, and sub-genres. I purposely have sought out, over the years, the artists that were on the edge of the new technology–believing in, and embracing the influence–as a source for my own artistic creativity.

The transition to digital technology has opened the door to a multitude of creative possibilities for musicians and visual artists.

Ryoji Ikeda, my featured artist, is an experimental musician who utilizes a multitude of sound sources to create strange but beautiful musical soundscapes.

Ryoji Ikeda (born 1966 in Gifu, Japan) is a Japanese sound artist who lives and works in Paris. Ikeda’s music is concerned primarily with sound in a variety of “raw” states, such as sine tones and noise, often using frequencies at the edges of the range of human hearing. The conclusion of his album +/- features just such a tone; of it, Ikeda says “a high frequency sound is used that the listener becomes aware of only upon its disappearance” (from the CD booklet). Rhythmically, Ikeda’s music is highly imaginative, exploiting beat patterns and, at times, using a variety of discrete tones and noise to create the semblance of a drum machine. His work also encroaches on the world of ambient music; many tracks on his albums are concerned with slowly evolving soundscapes, with little or no sense of pulse.

“If there were one style of music I wish I had the ability to produce it would be the music of Ryoji Ikeda” – Walter Smith

Ryoji Ikeda – Barbican 2011

http://youtu.be/QHUWvvYDb4c

Ryoji Ikeda – “Per Se”

http://youtu.be/wUYpLrTqzb8

Ryoji Ikeda - datatron-8k-enhan

Weekly Photo Challenge: Possibility 01

This is a very interesting challenge. The idea of conveying a possibility of something ultimately means it must change in one way or another. To find a representation of this theme, in a visual sense—is a challenge within itself, and presents many “possibilities” as well. As a visual artist, my first instinct is to explore how either my process as an artist creates various possibilities or how a “finished” piece often comes with many choices as to which one will be the final piece.

First up, the possibilities found in “A Work In Progress”.

When producing a “work in progress”, the objective is to explore various effects and allow the intuitive process to govern my decision-making. Within the parameters of this intuitive process is form, color, design and progression. In the slideshow below are only a few samples of the various “possibilities.”

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Stop by my previous post: “It Only Takes a Moment to See the Things You Left Behind” to see the final result of this work in progress.

http://wp.me/p1f97v-r9