I spent the evening observing and photographing this beautiful sight in an open space from just blocks my home. What I observed [...]]]>

I spent the evening observing and photographing this beautiful sight in an open space from just blocks my home. What I observed was the penumbra, or shadow of earth slowly moving across the moon.  The moon got dark and then reddish. Because the sunlight acts like a prism and only the red light is bent into the shadow on the moon, we get the reddish hues. The sunrises and sunsets are reflected onto the the moon’s surface.

The moon is called a “supermoon” because it’s closes to Earth (perigee) and it appears larger in diameter. “Supermoons” occur 4-6 times a year,

There are 3 types of lunar eclipses: Total, partial and penumbral. The lunar eclipse happens during a FULL MOON. Because the moon’s orbit is slightly inclined to Earth, most full moons are not aligned properly, and so we don’t get an eclipse during our monthly full moons. Lunar eclipses happen about twice a year, but they are not TOTAL, not always at night, which this one was. They say that we’ll not see another TOTAL lunar eclipse until 2033. There have been only five since 1900.

October 8, 2014 was the second of the tetrad of Blood Moons. The first Blood Moon happened April 15, 2014, the third was April 4, 2015, and the final was Sept 27, 2015.

I created several Arborglyph solarplate monoprints inspired by the various supermoons. Image sizes are 6″x 6″.  Some people claim “magic” happens during these special occurrences. The imagery in these monoprints has a mysterious, magical quality. Is it a bird, a plane, a helicopter, or a creature floating near the moon? 

Arborglyph (1 symbol 34) Blood Moon
© 2014. Linda C Everson SOLD

Arborglyph (1 symbol 34) Blue Moon.
© 2014 Linda C Everson

A Blue Moon is the second full moon in a solar calendar month. The moon really isn’t blue, but you often hear the phrase “Once in a Blue Moon”, indicating something that rarely happens. Even more rare is a real blue moon when atmospheric conditions such as smoke and dust from fires or volcanoes give the moon a bluish hue. 

Arborglyph: (1 symbol 31) Antlers, Ode to the Forests © 2013 Linda C Everson, All Rights Reserved

In the last few weeks 12+ fires have been raging in Colorado. Homes and forests have burned, humans and wildlife have been hurt, displaced, or killed. The spectacular flames illuminate our landscape. See colorful photos and [...]]]>

Arborglyph: (1 symbol 31) Antlers, Ode to the Forests © 2013 Linda C Everson, All Rights Reserved

In the last few weeks 12+ fires have been raging in Colorado. Homes and forests have burned, humans and wildlife have been hurt, displaced, or killed. The spectacular flames illuminate our landscape. See colorful photos and videos of past wildfires.

My monoprint – Arborglyph: (1 symbol 31) Antlers, Ode to the Forest is an ODE to Colorado fires in nature. We  hope that all the wildlife (DEER included) find REFUGE somewhere. The black branching slash through the art represents both ANTLERS and a PATHWAY. According to Shamanic Journey… “The set of antlers grown by the male deer are antennae that connect it to higher energies.”  Because deer antlers can grow back, a DEER can be a symbol of life REGENERATION. May those beautiful forests regenerate quickly.

The DEER family includes various elk, moose, caribou, reindeer, mule, wapiti… & more.

DEER are often associated with gentleness, grace, innocence, sensitivity, intuition, vigilance and regeneration. In CHINA, a deer is the symbol of  longevity and wealth.

May the deer (and all other living beings) in the Colorado fires have longevity … and survive the fires.

Because very little land was good for farming in Japan, wars over land [...]]]>

Because very little land was good for farming in Japan, wars over land ownership influenced the rise of the Samurai.  In the feudal system, Samurai or “those who serve” were subject to a lord or daimyo, and were very devoted in their support. 

Bushido or “The Way of the Warrior” was an  important unwritten code of conduct for the Samurai. Seven Virtues of the Bushido Code were: Rectitude, Courage, Benevolence, Respect , Honesty, Honor, and Loyalty. Freedom from fear, duty, discipline, morality, self sacrifice, and sometimes vengeance were also common traits of the Samurai. Many of these codes are still practiced today in modern martial arts.

The Samurai used lots of different swords. The Katana sword was a curved blade sword. In my Arborglyph monoprint below, I used an aspen tree bark marking that vaguely resembles a Samurai figure with the Katana sword. You also see seven circular shapes that could represent the Seven Virtues of the Bushido Code. Text in the background reiterates the various attributes of the Samurai and their codes.

The Seven Samurai, a classic 1954 Japanese movie by Akira Kurosawa, was a favorite of mine in college and it influenced not only my artwork, but endless other famous movies and Spaghetti Westerns. Again… the number Seven!

Arborglyph: (1 symbol SAM) Samurai II © 2006 Linda C Everson

Arborglyph: (1 symbol P) The Life of Pi, [...]]]>

Arborglyph: (1 symbol P) The Life of Pi, © 2005 Linda C Everson

Just a FEW WORDS in my artwork that convey all the THOUGHTS, FEELINGS, AND VISUAL IMAGES that I got from that incredible Life of Pi story are:  sink, ship, swells, shelter, sunshine, sharks, selfish, sacred, sacrifice, security, religion, reality, reason, routine, passage, predator, protect, fear, fish, fight, hope, horizon, zebra, zoo, alpha, omega, animal, instinct, illusions, illumination, meerkats, map, world, wet, waves, wind, weary, wish, will, deprivation, danger, delirium, determination, dignity, dolphins, death, darkness, think, threaten, territory, trials, tiger, teamwork, taming, and … TAMING THE TIGER!

The multiple levels of humor and seriousness, life and death, animal instinct and spirituality, god and man, fear and wonder, reality and illusion, self-determination and guidance; are all explored in the book and the movie. You can read or watch Life of Pi many times, questioning, wondering, and gaining more insight.

For a humorous example, the hero, Picene Patel was named after a swimming pool (picene) and in grade school was constantly ridiculed over his name… ‘Pissing Patel’. Cleverly, he changed his name to Pi, a mathematical symbol, which shows you how bright he really was in a challenging situation. His curiosity often got him into major trouble, but also enlightened him with the best attributes of three religions. His beliefs in both multiple gods/one god provided strength for him while stranded at sea for an eternity. Like the Pi symbol whose decimal representation never ends, his lifeboat experience goes on and on…

My use of the Arborglyph – P symbols in my monoprint is reminiscent of both Pi’s name and also the CHI RHO CROSS. I wanted to convey both a sense of mystery and a spiritual element. Interestingly, the Chi Rho Cross was supposedly used by Constantine in a major battle over territory and helped him accomplish a difficult win over his enemy. Another account “credits his victory to divine intervention”. In the Life of Pi, Pi (Picene) is also faced with major hurdles to survive in a small territory that both he and his enemy (Richard Parker the tiger) want to claim. Was it self will power or divine intervention that helped Pi survive? While Constantine saw his Chi Rho symbol in the sky, Pi also saw wonders of the almighty maker through the beauty of the sea and the sky, which was superbly portrayed in the Ang Lee movie. The turquoise waters and the rust colored tiger stripes were gorgeous! It’s a beautiful story told in many ways… a book, a movie, a piece of artwork.

I’m currently an invited artist in Binary Inventions: Art and Culture in the Digital Age, in conjunction with a UND Art Department conference on the same subject. The show is at Third Street Gallery in Grand Forks – Oct 5 – 26, 2012.

[...]]]>

I’m currently an invited artist in Binary Inventions: Art and Culture in the Digital Age, in conjunction with a UND Art Department conference on the same subject. The show is at Third Street Gallery in Grand Forks – Oct 5 – 26, 2012.

Arborglyphs: (1 symbol 30) Code, © 2012, Linda C Everson.

The title Binary Inventions intrigued me. My digital print with solarplate – Arborglyph: (1 symbol 30) Code, contains hints of various codes; plus/minus as in my Arborglyph symbol, binary code (0110100), genetic code, Morse code, and Braille code. They are all forms of messaging or communication. Code is “a rule for converting a piece of information into another form or representation”.

A binary system involves only two choices: 0 or 1, yes or no, true or false, on or off switch in electronics, and plus or minus. Despite how simple this all sounds, very complicated things happen because of codes. For instance, it was recently discovered that the human genome has 4 million on/off switches that tell our genes what to do. Also, the use of the computer and the internet has changed our lives immensely in the last years. We can send messages globally in seconds. And we can record photographs and videos digitally instead of on film. In terms of size, the aspen clone, Pando, is believed to be the world’s most massive organism. The aspen’s form of reproduction is cloning (by genetic code). And aspen tree bark markings are the impetus for my Arborglyph images.

Code often lies below the surface where we can’t see it; as in computer language, electronic switches, or genetics. Code is found in nature and in man-made entities. It can be common knowledge or secret. Code is everywhere!

BINARY CODE: Binary is a two-digit numerical system in which computers store data and compute functions. Computers use the binary system because digital switches inside the computer can only be set to  ON or OFF, which are represented by 1 or 0. In computer science, a code is considered as an algorithm which uniquely represents symbols from a source alphabet by encoded strings. ASCII uses a 7 bit binary code to represent text within a computer… 0100101  0111010

GENETIC CODE: The genetic code is based on sets of nucleoside base pairs called “codons”. Codons transcribe and translate genetic traits from DNA to RNA and RNA to proteins. New findings reveal that the human genome has 4 million + on/off switches that tell our genes what to do.

MORSE CODE: Morse Code transmits text by a series of on/off tones, lights, or clicks to commute a message.

BRAILLE CODE: Braille is a binary encoding scheme that represents the characters of writing for the blind that is done in a series of 6 dots.

I was in Egypt a few years [...]]]>

I was in Egypt a few years ago and visited the Egyptian Museum, the pyramids, and other famous sites of anquities that are so valuable. One can only hope that Egypt, it’s people, and its famous sites will not be harmed too badly. 

All eyes are on Egypt these days and although it is difficult, journalists are recording the events as they unfold. They hopefully have all-seeing eyes. 

Arbor-Hieroglyph: The Third Eye I. © 2007, Linda C. Everson

This reminds me of the many eye hieroglyphics that I saw so often while there. I use aspen tree eye images in many of my Arborglyph monoprints, and recently began a new series which included tree eyes, hieroglyphics and of course The Eye of Horus, which is said to have protective and healing powers.  Let’s hope that during these protests in Egypt, there will be a protective eye over everyone there.

Detail

Tell Dan

I visited Israel recently and saw layer upon layer of many different civilizations and religions that inhabited the land. While there I explored Tell Dan in northern Israel and also climbed the tell at Beit She’an to view the excavations below. Archaeology has always been interesting to me.

Beit [...]]]>

Tell Dan

I visited Israel recently and saw layer upon layer of many different civilizations and religions that inhabited the land. While there I explored Tell Dan in northern Israel and also climbed the tell at Beit She’an to view the excavations below. Archaeology has always been interesting to me.

Beit She'an with tell in background

A perfect accompaniment on the trip was The Source by James Michener. It’s a fictitious historical novel about  Tell Makor in northern Israel, where  archaeologists dig through multiple layers of the tell or mound and uncover 10,000 years of civilization. Each layer in the tell unearths artifacts from a previous period in time, and the story then reverts back to that time.

What is particularly interesting in The Source is the evolution of religion and “god”. It starts with Stone Age man and the first glimpses of spirituality; then proceeds with the fertility goddess Astarte and the fertility god/s Baal, describing in detail the various sacrifices and monoliths.  The Cananite deity El eventually evolved into El Shaddai, and then into Yahweh (YHWH), the Hebrew god of Moses and possibly his ancestors. Monotheism (one god) starkly contrasted with the polytheistic (multiple gods) of the Greeks and Romans in later years. 

One of my Arborglyph monoprints is called All Seeing Yahweh. For many Jewish people, the name Yahweh should never be spoken. Therefore, the Tetragrammaton or four  letters YHWH often replaces the name Yahweh.  However it’s possible that:

Hebrew scripts write it as four consonants, rendered in Roman letters as YHWH, due to the fact that most alphabets, prior the Greek alphabet, did not display vowels, and required that vowels be mentally pronounced in the proper places.

And although the name Yahweh should not be spoken, the Jewish Encyclopedia states that The Old Testament had 6,823 references to Yahweh.

Arborglyph: (1 symbol IY) All Seeing Yahweh © 2005. Linda C. Everson. All rights reserved.

Yahweh was a strong, demanding ‘god’ to the Hebrews. The meaning of the word Yahweh has been interpreted as “to be”, or according to WordIQ many scholars believe it means “He Brings into Existence Whatever Exists”. This coincides with a timelessness about ‘gods’ existence. Which gets back to the novel The Source and its prevailing theme of many gods and religions throughout the centuries in Israel.

My Arborglyph monoprint, All Seeing Yahweh has several images with an IY symbol and also contains several ‘tree eyes’; hence the All Seeing title. The “all-seeing eye” has been associated with several other religions or cultures… The “Eye of Horus” in Egypt, the “Eye of the World” in Buddhism and the Christian Trinity.  

The “all-seeing eye of God” is also analagous to the “Eye of Providence” which generally depicts an eye that is sometimes surrounded by a triangle. This “Eye of Providence” is on the Great Seal of the United States and is also a Free Masonry symbol. The eye icon is a powerful image in many cultures and in countless artworks.

Arborglyph: (1 symbol SAM) Samurai © 2006 Linda C. Everson

From August 27 – Sept 19, 2010, one of my Arborglyph monoprints is in an international exhibit called StrassenKunst at Artspace Gallery in Richmond, VA. The theme of the exhibit is artwork INSPIRED by graffiti with 59 artworks chosen. There are photos of [...]]]>

Arborglyph: (1 symbol SAM) Samurai © 2006 Linda C. Everson

From August 27 – Sept 19, 2010, one of my Arborglyph monoprints is in an international exhibit called StrassenKunst at Artspace Gallery in Richmond, VA. The theme of the exhibit is artwork INSPIRED by graffiti with 59 artworks chosen. There are photos of graffiti, paintings with graffiti images, jewelry and sculpture scratched with graffiti-like symbols, and so on.

Graffiti art isn’t just street art, nor is it always gang related. While graffiti today is often thought of as destructive and a form of vandalism, it has helped arhaeologists decipher interesting cultural practices and has brought history to a forefront.

The first graffiti art was created over 30,000 years ago at Lauscaux caves, and a few summers ago I visited that wonderful site. I have a penchant for cave art, rock art, petroglyphs, and pictograms, and those sites are inspiration for my Arborglyph monoprints. My graffiti inspiration is the from the markings on aspen tree bark in Colorado by humans, animals, or nature’s own scarring.  In the American west, many trees were first engraved by the Basque and Hispanic shephards and the term Arborglyph (tree with a glyph) was born.

Apparently, the term “graffiti” came from the Italian term “graffiato” which means “scratched”. Graffiti generally means any writing on a public place, and it has been done over the centuries by the Greeks, Romans, Mayans, Vikings, and Celtics, to name a few. I was in Pompeii this summer, and the archaeologists had unearthed some interesting graffiti on walls there. In China, Mao Zedong was known for publicizing everything, including a 4000 character graffiti slogan on a wall.  Throughout history man has yearned to “make a mark”.

Although their are many controversaries over some artists such as Bansky from England, graffiti has become more accepted in some fine art circles.  Artists such as Keith Haring and Jean-Michael Basquiat  did graffiti in subway stations and in the streets. Later they both became famous by showing in fine art galleries in the early 1980’s, and numerous videos were made of their lives and art. Interestingly, Basquiat in his early graffiti years left his “tag” SAMO in many places. The symbol I use in my art title in the StrassenKunst exhibit is SAM. I wouldn’t claim that I use “tags” in my artwork, but I do use symbols in the titles that are my own “alphabet”.

 A “tag” is the most basic writing of an artist’s name, it is simply a handstyle. A graffiti writer’s tag is his or her personalized signature. Tagging is often the example given when opponents of graffiti refer to any acts of handstyle graffiti writing (it is by far the most common form of graffiti). Tags can contain subtle and sometimes cryptic messages, and might incorporate the artist’s crew initials or other letters.

Subsequently there are many graffiti INSPIRED artists and art exhibits today. I personally do not condone defacing public property with art. However, photographing graffiti art (on trees) has proven to be an interesting subject matter for me.