"The Golden Bough" exhibited May 2010 Suite 106

"The Golden Bough" 2010 Shown at Suite 106 May Exhibit


So I made mistake. I had laid a loose piece of canvas on the floor of my studio and began pouring my secret clear ingredient along with paint until too much had been put on at once and it leaked off the canvas to the floor. Sh#$! Then I thought "leave it" so I did. 3 days later when it cured it came right up. And there we have "Breaking Chance" 2010. The idea that the paint was perceived separate of the canvas was overwhelming and new to me.


"Breaking Chance" 2010

So I went a step , a BIG STEP further and proceeded to pour 6 gallons of the secret stuff directly on the floor and paint in it as though the floor was the canvas. All the while crossing my fingers that this giant blob on the floor would actually pull up eventually. And so it did, not without a minor set back or two. The original top didn't make it. But other than that, success!! With the help of my devastatingly handsome hero, Joey Thate, and friend and artist Megan Cosby, we attached this blob directly to the wall with adhesive and pins as added support. It has since been rolled up like a carpet, laid on the floor like a carpet , etc and is strong as ever. This experiment will continue in the future. A grant would be nice since this is not cheap! Here in the progress. Enjoy...


The blob curing on the studio's floor


another angle--


Detail of Dancers in gray and Passions in red



the final installment 13' x 8'


Once the piece cured, the dancing figures became so much more alive and within this organic womb, so to speak, became their little universe. A heaven to attain to, a hell to get lost in, a birthing womb into this world and the temptations (the red dancers) right along side representing our passions and desires. I found this world created could not have been anything but free of any "box" -- canvas being the traditional captor. The limitless movement of this little universe translates into how we can perceive our own. So, at the opening, I still had no name for this. In talking with friend and fellow exhibitor, Jay Antablian, he spoke of "The Golden Bough" myth written by Sir James Frazer. And it all came together. Here it is...

The Golden Bough attempts to define the shared elements of religious belief. Its thesis is that old religions were fertility cults that revolved around the worship of, and periodic sacrificeof, a sacred king.

This king was the incarnation of a dying and reviving god, a solar deity who underwent a mystic marriage to a goddess of the Earth, who died at the harvest, and was reincarnated in the spring. Frazer claims that this legend is central to almost all of the world's mythologies.

"When I first put pen to paper to write The Golden Bough I had no conception of the magnitude of the voyage on which I was embarking; I thought only to explain a single rule of an ancient Italian priesthood." (Aftermath p vi)The germ for Frazer's thesis was the pre-Roman priest-king at the fane of Nemi, who was murdered ritually by his successor:

The book's title was taken from an incident in the Aeneid, illustrated by the British artist Joseph Mallord William Turner: Aeneas and the Sibylpresent the golden bough to the gatekeeper of Hades in order to gain admission.