Zeus Velchanos

 

These are images of Boy Zeus, the Great Youth, as worshiped in ancient Crete - or at any rate as I conceive him. It's possible that I may at some time create an oil painting of this subject. What's needed is a superlative model.

Manuel Carpeta

 

I just completed this watercolor portrait of the great flamenco dancer Manuel Fernandez Montoya, called El Carpeta. It's based on a photo taken in 2012. I'm reposting below the graphite drawing that underlies this image. These are the same piece, executed on the same sheet of watercolor paper, the drawing serving as guide to the creation of the painting.

 

 

I'd like to do an extended series of pictures of El Carpeta. However for this purpose I need access to technology which is not currently at my disposal. There are several potential projects on my plate at any given time, so I'll forge ahead with whatever happens to be achievable at the moment, and hope to create the proposed images of El Carpeta when that becomes feasible.

 

 

 

Mercurius

 

He is the god of commerce, communication, merchants and thieves. He is the luck god. He is the Psychopomp, the guide of the dead to the underworld, and speaks to us in dreams: or so the ancient poets tell us.

 

Son of Hecate

In Praise of Sensual Pleasure

 

A scientific researcher wrote:

 

"I am now convinced that the deprivation of physical sensory pleasure is the principal root cause of violence. Laboratory experiments with animals show that pleasure and violence have a reciprocal relationship, that is, the presence of the one inhibits the other. A raging violent animal will abruptly calm down when electrodes stimulate the pleasure centers of the brain. Likewise, stimulating the violence centers in the brain can terminate the animal's sensual pleasure and peaceful behavior. When the brain's pleasure circuits are 'on,' the violence circuits are 'off,' and vice versa. Among human beings, a pleasure-prone personality rarely displays violence or aggressive behaviors, and a violent personality has little ability to tolerate, experience or enjoy sensuously pleasing activities. As either violence or pleasure goes up, the other goes down."

 

- James W. Prescott, Neuropsychologist

 

 

I take this to mean that those who attack, punish and vilify sensual pleasures are in fact promoting violence, and willfully creating and perpetuating a culture of violence. This, in my view,  is the true meaning of the "morality" of the Abrahamic faiths, at least so far as regards bodily pleasure, including but not limited to human sexuality. They systematically propagate a culture of brutality. I.S. is merely the currently most salient example of this principle in action.

 

These drawings are designs for the doors of a temple I wish to create. In accordance with the ideas expressed above, any temple that I have to do with will necessarily incorporate a sense of the importance and essential goodness of bodily pleasure as one of its core operating principles.

 

Selene, Goddess of the Moon

 

This is my ink drawing for a watercolor of the same subject. Many preliminary sketches were required to bring the composition to this point. The design, as with several other of my images, is based on the writings of Giordano Bruno. In future I'd like to create further images of this and related themes based on pagan sources like Hesiod and the Homeric hymns.

The Sun and Mercury

 

This is an allegorical image of the Sun, based on the writings of Giordano Bruno. Below is the ink drawing for my watercolor of Mercury, inspired by the same source. I've made the first image a bit sexier than Bruno probably intended, and this is very much on purpose.

 

 

Mercury is the planet closest to the Sun, and hence is a mythologically suitable accompaniment to it.

 

 Both images are constructed in accordance with my spherical perspective system, based on a dodecahedron whose geometrical center is identical with the center of projection. This makes it into a kind of dymaxion map, only representing the visual sphere rather than the sphere of the earth.