'view master' the final consequence , so far, of the 'reaching out' is in the so-called self-portrait, 'view master'... I am in a space suit standing on a easel platform doing a rendering of the same scene rendered in the mural - in and among the rings particles of a gas giant planet... one thing to note, in regards to these murals, is that except for the first one, in which the image came first and was refined by the theme/title, all were derived visually from the theme/title - that is, from the abstract idea to the visual concrete... it was also not a conscious choice that these murals progressed from the initial one to this one in the order in which they did - which, in effect reflected a growing resoluting to the initial conflictings involving loneliness and reaching out... now, one might note that the figure is small in comparison to the vastness of the space scene... yet, at the same time, observe that the figure is in control of his course of action... thus the figure size is not to diminish the human's importance, but to conjoin it to the immensity of space... this is further recognised thru the theme/title itself - a 'master' is one who is in control of things... note, too, that the scene is as if the VIEWER is also among the ring particles - and thus is sharing, tho in a subordinate role, the adventure of being out there... now, as to such things as the number of major and minor rocks, there is nothing significant - they are where they are for the sake of the drama, for I never had consciously considered their numericalness as worthy of thought... if I subconsciously posed a particular set of numbers, I've not noticed it, and would only consider it as a sort of serendipity... had, however, it consciously occurred to me, then yes, I would have added such symbolism as that to a great degree [which would have elevated the work to a higher level of precision and forethinking - in other words, a greater and more masterpiece of a rendering]... do I regret not having thought such - no... it was not part of the intention of the conception... in this case, beyond the theme/title and the visual, I was not interested - the work as stated was more than sufficient for me at the time...

'line of sight' taking the reaching idea and making it blatent resulted in the unfinished mural, 'line of sight' [it is still in its blue stage, having never bothered to color the work, tho now find it attractive in its own right, like a blue pen/ink work only in acrylics]... it is a rendering wherein the desert is on the left side, a wall of rock isolating it and becoming a clift overlooking a floating sea-village, with extensive marina... deep offshore, in the far background, is a floating space launch pad, this time with a shuttle type vehicle lifting off in front of the rising sun... rich in detail all over the canvas, I found it, as said, delightful in this, its primal state...

'leap frog' taking this sense of life to the next level, or stage as it were, I showed a possible end to the reaching - tho this meant, actually, further reaching... 'leap frog' was the only mural actually commissioned, tho it was according to my peculiar criteria... they wanted a sea-ish view, since they lived in the Capes, yet from my particular vantagepoint... the 'frog', of course, you don't see - the 'frog' of course is in the mind... and, while it is not clear in this poor photo, that is a space launch station in the distance... this not only allows the 'leap' across the vast space of waters, but the next 'leap' into the vaster space of the sky - and the implied beyond, the 'space' itself... there is also that first leap - of the viewer into the rendering...

"Curse of Loneliness"

'curse of loneliness' border="0" /> for myself, one of the best ways to do this showing is thru the use of "Visioneer Windows"(c)(R), picture window sized murals with a vision of possibilities in them... I first had thought of this as if from one's habitat into another world, as a way of extending the room in which is hung the work... in most respects, this still rings true... but I have also noted that the use of metaphoric relationships in a 'grande landscape' mode allows me more in the way of abstracr contemplation wherein the vista shown becomes almost secondary to the theme/title... my fist foray into doing these murals is like that, after a fashion... called 'the curse of loneliness', it is the only 'pure' landscape I have done, and its relationship to the pro-human stance is directly thru the theme/titling - an expression of a negative that re-affirms the implied opposite, a strong positive... the act of the tree'reaching out' to the world beyond is an act of hope... it was a therapy work, done at a time I was being overwhelmed with a sense of isolation, and trying to break free of that depressing feeling... note, tho, that despite the depressingness that the work evolved from, it is not a depressing rendering... I discovered, somewhat to my astonishment, that my sense of life, my wisdom of life, is so fixed that even when I am down in the dumps [and everyone is at one time or another, sometimes several times], my work reflects what is indeed the most important - life affirmation... that is why, despite all the blue in the work [a reflection of my painting technique of glazing a la Max Parrish], the tree is vividly green leaved and a tan/brown trunk...

"seed" a consequence of this sense of organics, recognising as I mentioned regarding 'cornered stone' the implication of something further, is the notion in another thematically related work, 'seed'... here, the growth factor is in 'spreading the civilization', so to speak, by extending the habitat to new areas... this is not only in regards to the buildings themselves, but with regard to the land - note that this scene is of a terraformed craterland, obviously another world, obviously a look to the future... this yet another aspect of my renderings, my sense of life, my wisdom of life - that there are two ways to view the world... one is looking to the past - nostalgia... the other is looking to the future... one is a retreat from living... the other is an affirmation of living... I say this because biologically there are only two choices to make - grow or die... this tallies in with Rand's observation on the purpose of Art - to show, for its own sake, what the artist considers to be important - a visualization of values, '...the experience of being in a world or universe wherein those values have been successfully achieved'... as she also added, 'Art ...is a metaphysical mirror of the person's soul,' in which '...what should be reflected is in the nature of a salute.'...

'roots' as a variation on the same general idea, consider another work, 'roots', which also depicts a cityscape cliffside... but note - the angle of perception has shifted from looking down to looking up... looking down is an appropriate way of 'cornering' something, to help contain or hold something... looking up, on the other hand, is a personification of how plants grow, from the roots upwards to the sky... roots also grow from the ground, or clinging to the side of something, like a trunk or a stump, establishing a firm foundation...

'cornered stone' when whimsy is removed from consideration, and more thoughtful theme/titles are worked on, a deeper level shows, one in which a multitude of layers can be peeled back, like the layers of an onion, whether directly or implied... as an example, consider 'cornered stone', perhaps the most conceptually developed of abstract-to-concrete... doing a double take on words, playing with the hidden 'cornerstone', as well as the word, 'cornered', a curved wall of canyon is taken as backdrop, with a canyon city on the curving side... the most obvious of the lot is taking the wildness of the canyon and 'cornering it', that is, taming it - to some extent at least, to put it to civilized use... again, it obviously is a 'pro-human' stance, a recognition that altering a world is NOT the same as destroying it, only changing it - and the implied recognition that change is natural... the implied 'cornerstone' alluded to in the theme/title, also implies that this is an opening gambit to a human structured changing, instead of the haphazard nature changing that is a consequence of the dynamics of the world of reality...

'AUgmentation' this one goes further with the whimsicalness, wherein the title not only does the 'golden egg' notion, but uses the whole word itself as to pointing out a shift to the visual - that it is a CHICKEN laying a gold egg... but, of course, the 'augmentation' comes from the artist, who has made the egg gold, this being implied by the paint can on which the chicken is sitting, the implication being that 'man' adds to the improvement of the world around him - not just visually but in value... note that each of these examples, despite being cliche riddened, and on perhaps the whimsical side, make moral statements, as do all renderings... the universe in each is sharp and clear, no blurring ambiguities here... nor, for that matter, will you find that in any of my works... clarity is the hallmark of rationality... note, too, that the colors are not muddled, but very defined, vibrant, and pure... note that the viewpoint in each is positive, life enhancing - there is no sense of temporal decay in any of the works... note also that in the whimsy, there is no frivolousness, that there is definite purposefulness in each of the examples, a sense of goal directiveness...

"bug Off" this again shows the difference a sense of life has to presentation... not only that, but a flippant remark is being turned into more than a 'cute' piece - if one looks closely at the work... consider - the bug, a leafhopper, is the only truly life-sized object in the work... the leaf is almost life-sized, depending on what kind of plant is presumed [and there is no such plant, as I use that as a prop, a background, just as literature uses real events as backdrop for the story involved]... the rest, however, surrealistically shrinks, such that the brick concourse on which the potted plant sits is most definitely NOT life-sized... why? well, one could take it as a matter of perspective, wherein the bug is 'in your face', as it were, being life-sized, which takes the phrase and right there gives it both the literal and the figurative meanings... note, too, however, that the bug is leaping to the side, not at the viewer, nor away from the viewer, but to the right, implying another phrase, 'the right way to go'... there is also a sense of exhuberance at the bug leaping, a brightly colored zest for life, sort of reversing the connotation of the title phrase from negative to positive...

"timeless piece" in dealing with understanding renderings, it is best, like in literature, to give examples... while most of my figure works are yet to be rendered, there are, however, a number of examples to cover the other aspects... to begin with, i suppose it is instructive to look at the mundane, the outrightly cliche ridden... the first question that would be asked then is - if knowing these were mundane, why bother doing them? all i can say is that while i knew they were cliche ridden, i still found them to be of interest because the end results were MY interpretations of the cliches... they were the 'ordinary', as seen thru MY sense of life, MY understanding of metaphoric relationships... some, like 'timeless piece', is more of an exercise in technique, my attempt at a trompe l'oeil - and the only real thing going for it is the brightness of the leather fob, and the bright round metal case... nothing fancy, just plain and durable - which elevates the blank face to something more, a statement of solidity, of the positive, of the enduring, a far cry from the usual presentations which tend to laud emptiness, banality, and superficiality...

MORAL STATEMENTS AND RENDERINGS

it is my impression that those who claim that one cannot show much if anything of morals in a rendering, say such because they do not have a clear understanding of just what constitutes moral statements, other than thru literature... it is very instructive, therefore, to remember that ethics or morals is the science of VALUES... i know i've said this more than once, but it bears repeating - because most persons have a confused understanding of just morals or ethics consists of... VALUES are what a person seeks to gain and/or keep... they are acquired thru choices... but the only values really worth seeking are VIABLE values... when i gave that list of alternative things to look for in assessing a rendering, those were value expressions, and the answering of which of the alternatives expresses the morals involved - and these are indeed applicable to ANY rendering, including still-lifes... in fact, historically, still-lifes were the most profoundly expressed renderings involving morals, wherein the symbolisms were often very blatent, even if the morals expressed were factually anti-human - that is, not in the best interest or well-being of the person... there's more to this of course [there's ALWAYS more], but the point which should be kept in mind is to consider everything in terms of VALUES - what is chosen to be put in or left out, where, how big or little, how clear or obstuse, and so on... once there is the understanding that the moral or ethical is the viable values chosen, then it becomes clear where and how to see the expressings in the renderings...

FIGURELESSNESS

a second major aspect to rendering is when figures are NOT used, at least directly, but rather the effects of humanity are portrayed - either as still life, or as part of scapes [landscapes, seascapes, spacescapes, and so forth]... it is only when no figures or human effects are used that there can become a problem... this is because this absence of humanity is making a value-judgment, an expression of a fundamental view of humanity that says that humanity is not considered important enough to be in a landscape, etc., or that his/her presence is not considered to be a natural part of the world... this is, of course, a profoundly anti-human notion - even if it is not given thought to as being as such, or not intended as such... once again, however, knowing the nature and proper purpose of Art, and the rational ethics behind the purpose, allows that there can be a defense against it... yet - even as landscape, a case can be made on the 'benevolent universe' premise, thru the use of metaphoric personification... this has to do with the fact that 'man is the measure of all things' - in the nature of acquiring knowledge, and this is because measurement is an anthropocentric [man centered] process... the concretes, the specific images which a person directly grasps, are the basis and the standard to which everything else is related... if you add to that, that 'Art is not the means to literal transcription', and recognise that there is little need, if any, for rendering in a recorder mode, then thru personification there can be a pro-human stance given utilizing the non-human in the rendering...

FIGURES AND MORALITY

perhaps the most troubling aspect, when dealing with figures in a work, is whether or not to clothe them... most artists do not, as said, think in terms of the fact that whatever is included within a work is, by the fact that it is included, of fundamental importance... by the same token, what is NOT included is also making a statement of fundamental importance - the fact that it is not considered of major importance... clothing, even for an artist, is generally regarded as a norm... yet the fact that a naturalness - nudity - is being covered, is making a statement regarding one's relationship with the universe...as Rand pointed out, 'Art is not the means of literal transcription... this is the difference between a work of Art and a news story or a photograph.'... as such, what is shown in a work of Art pertains to one's fundamental view of a person's relationship to reality - which is why so many artists use the nude in their works, to establish the sense of universality, that what is shown pertains to all time... to a rational person, there is no problem - what is pro-human is to the good; what glorifies and/or accentuates human qualities is to the good [and a person's sexuality is very certainly a human quality] [and the first step towards showing that is portraying the naked figure]... the difficulty, then, lies in confronting the culture, which is, in many respects, in am anti-human viewing of one's self - thanks to the religions within it... because this has been the dominant - indeed, for most, the ONLY known code - there is difficulty in being able to mount a cognitive defense against it for most artists... even more confounding is being able to express sexuality of humans in a work - indeed, one would have less problems showing a bull mounting a cow than to humans lovemaking - and oddly enough, easier to show lovemaking than to showing explicit sexual arousal... in common parlance, this is called pornography - in fact, it is a religious attack on the sexual nature of human beings, and it is in knowing the nature and proper purpose of Art, and the rational ethics behind that purpose, that there can be a defense against this anti-human ranting...

TITLING

once having explored the sense of life of first impressions, a themescape work will have the theme/title to consider - a metaphoric relationship either between the elements within the work, or one dealing extraniously to the world outside the work... in so doing, there is an enrichment of understanding about some aspect of the world around - the greater the universality, the greater the work... initially, of course, it is to be expected that a lot of cliche metaphoring will be used... this is NOT anything to be concerned with, as the practice of thinking in terms of metaphoric relationships needs the mundane to help set a pattern of thought... not only that, there can sometimes be cliches given new life and new twists of insight that can be expanded into a truly original and worthwhile work... the exercises would be like a sort of draino, flushing out the stale and ordinary and common, and allowing fresh ones to take place...

THE NATURE OF A RENDERING

one of the things which needs correcting on is a misconception that titles are extranious fixture to all but literature... wrong... titles[or theme/titles, as i prefer to consider them ] are, properly, as much an integral part of the rendering as is the case with writing... perhaps it is more so, since it is the key to elevating the rendering from just a 'sense of life' to something more... initially, of course, the viewer is drawn to the visual work sans anything else about it... without knowing ANYTHING else - artist, title, era in which done - the work is firstviewed as a glimpse into a self-contained world... it is seen as a univeres on its own... within that framework, tho, there is much which can be gleamed... the metaphysical view, for instance, is instantly discernable - there is a vast difference in how a benevolent universe view contrasts with a malivolent one... is it a world of flux, or is it one of identity? if a landscape, are there vegetation, or is it barren? if vegetation, are they blooming, dying, or dead? are animals in health, or malformed? the humans - happy, serious, fearful? are the colors bright or murky? is it viewed with clarity, or is it as if from a nearsighted without glasses? what is the most prominant feature - the main focus? how is humanity placed within this universe? what size - larger than life, or tiny and insignificant? if no figures, what are the main entities - how are they placed? is there a significant difference of size between setting and object? is the emphasis placed more on one thing than another? figures - their posture: upright and proud or elegant, or bent and awkward? is the painting smeared or distorted, or orderly and complex? the light - bright, or subdued? in still life, are the objects glistening, or tarnished? are they solid, or fractured?

THE ACT OF THEMESCAPING

most artists react from the visual - that is, they see in the world around them a scene or objects which in the manner of their setting or arrangement as first seen, intrigues... it is of interest, compositionally... perhaps it is something even so simple as a butterfly alighting on a flower... perhaps it is a series of bottles on a shelf... a themescapist sees that - AND MORE... by training to think in terms of metaphors, a themescapist is able to bring to consciousness a 'universalness' out of that incident or setting seen in the world... this means that a themescapist takes from the given and CONSCIOUSLY raises it to a visualization of some fundamentalness... this can be done by using it as part of a larger visualization, for instance... or it can be done by shifting the components for better emphasis, as a crystalization of some importance worth showing - which is given notice thru the theme/title... a themescapist is also, because of this training to think in terms of metaphors, able to draw from the memory banks [the mental 'picture file' so to speak] a visualization, at least in part, of something read or said - the abstraction theme/title itself being the catalyst... sometimes, tho, this does not come with any sense of immediacy - there are in my journal many, many listings of theme/titles for which i have yet to have a visualization of, or for which the ones i have are nebulous at best... but the theme/title itself intrigues me... in many ways, this is the fun and the challenge of being a themescapist - this questing for discovery, for a new insight into this wonderful world we live in... by the way, these theme/titles, either way they are approached, whether from the visual first to seeing the abstraction out of it, or from the abstraction to seeing a concrete visualization, do not necessarily have to be profound... there is plenty of room in the world for lightheartedness, even whimsical - SO LONG AS IT IS LIFE ENHANCING, an expression of enlightenment in the minutae is still an enrichment in the understanding of the fabric of complexity which is the universe...

ART AND SECULARITY

good art is totally secular... one can project, thru various degrees of imagination, possibilities - but these have to be grounded in reality... in any case, as said before, there are unlimited possibilities... one can, however, set some limits by establishing the sphere or sector which most intrigues - still lifes, grand landscapes, and so forth, for instance - perhaps because of the specific challenges involved, or personal limitations, or combinations... or one can, as i presently do, be open to all areas, letting them fall as they may as they come to my attention... remember, as Rand said, 'the basic purpose of Art is NOT to teach but th SHOW - to hold up to man a concretized image of his nature and his place in the universe...'... the ethics involved is in that aspect of how the artist selects, being that '...according to the artist's fundamental view of reality'... this personally involves the sense of living in a world wherein my values have been successfully achieved - that world as shown in my renderings... that it why altho i have certain preferences, grand 'picture window' landscapes being foremost, i have chosen for now to sort of 'jump' all over the board, so to speak, in order to provide examples of a number of the various possibilities... the differences in rendering sizes also have a bearing on the work at hand - indeed, sometimes have found that the original size was not merited by the work in question, and have had to either redo the mock-up sketches, or rethink the whole thing altogether... some might consider that this 'jumping around' is a problem, but i consider it as a consequence of the fact that there's an immense curiosity about a great many things... so, never is known from one day to the next just what new curiosities may be manifested and in what way - and the subconscious is let to do its own work, with the consciousness analyzing the results when it comes forth...and i think this is true of all rational persons, even those who have laser-like devoted themselves to single pursuits... in one respect, at least, this is an advantage... there is greater diversity... not only that, thru the use of different angles on a theme [using, for instance, theme/titles that are conceptually similar], i can show greater use of metaphors in being able to show relationships across a wide range of emphasises that might not occur to a person otherwise - thus enabling and enriching both my own understanding of the universe, and the viewer's...in a way it's like science - a process of discoveries...

INDIVIDUALIST ETHICS

philosopher Ayn Rand's perhaps greatest achievement was to devise an ethical code for what constituted the individualist/trader syndrone, tho she was not aware of it as such... she was just aware that the code which had been used since before recorded history was an inhuman code at base - and she wanted one which fitted the proper nature of a human being... in so doing, of course, she was upsetting and altering the course of history of the past twenty-five hundred years... she rejected the sacrificial view of humanity, proclaiming that each person has theright to exist for his/her OWN sake, not to be a slave/serf and exist for the sake of others... she pointed out that this was a sum-plus world, not a zero-sum one - but that it required CREATORS to increase the wealth, not thieves, and that the only way this can be achieved is if each person is free to do what, in effect, comes naturally [tho it has to be learned]: use the faculty of reason... bridging the 'is/ought' problem that confounded philosophers for centuries, she proclaimed that what is rational is for the good, and what is irrational is the evil - because a human's primary means of survival as a human is to be rational, even tho that is a matter of choice [the 'free-will' factor] and the alternative is suicidal being... she pointed out, in other words, that the proper way of looking at the world is not thru the lens of 'otherism', but thru the eyes of one's own - 'selfism'... furthermore, that to do so would NOT result in the acting of a brute - as her detractors smeared - but that of the trader, who gives value for value, non-coercively...all of the philosophies of 'otherism' were and are anti-worldly... only a philosophy of 'selfism', which observes the world OBJECTIVELY, and is for the benefit of and well-being of a person in THIS world, the world that counts - the REAL world... this is because, in her system-building of a non-contradictory view of existance, she tied the ethics in with the metaphysics of the primacy of existance, thereby eliminating any supernatural necessity or implication what so ever - ALL of that was a fantasy, inimical to the well-being of any human, and should be discarded... what repercussions has this to Art?