As I remember Don Juan once saying to Carlos Castaneda about what it is to be a warrior (very roughly paraphrased);
"He could be staring at Satan himself, and no one would ever know." — John

Ah. Poker face.

Yes, Paul Klee was a big influence at one point, this was before I had learnt to paint. I wasn't going to let that hold me back from being creative. I like those landscapes (Moth creek, Govetts leap), I am beginning to see an Australian style, perhaps its due to the bright light.

My first thought was that Veritas represented fire, which represented pain.

I'm not sure; I've never seen it as far as I can recall.

I like your Mycellium, but mycellium are static and your work seems to me more fluid, dynamic. Like a river flowing over rocks, white waters splashing and turning into calmer blues. Joyful, looks like it could have been fun to paint.

It's interesting you should say that, because there is an older painting underneath, which is precisely of complex streams of water flowing over rocks, that didn't work. So I painted over it. Not much of it still shows, though.
The title is a reference to Terence McKenna's wacky idea that mycellium (at least in the mycellium of Psilocybe (and other hallucinogenic genera) mushrooms) is an active neural net hosting an intelligence that spans the globe.

Also, the experience of Psilocybe dreaming is anything but static! ;)

Also, the experience of Psilocybe dreaming is anything but static! ;)

I was going to say something along those lines, but thought it was to hedonistic for such a polite audience.

Hmmm, I don't know that I'd class the psilocybe experience as hedonistic; for me it always involved at least as much suffering as joy.

Yes I think it depends on your personality type. I always had very positive results, except for a few brief episodes of paranoia, cased by external circumstances causing my body to want react defensively, or evasively. Well into the hedonistic world in my experience though.

I like PBRs and I am always trying to think about something else to paint. So when I saw the Pabst contest, I thought sure, it might be fun to do something a little different. Some really creative ideas posted on their web site. I might try to do this again prior to entry, try to give it a little more finished look.

http://pabstblueribbon.com/art/

Yes, when it's good, it's certainly good. A healthy spiritual 'hedonism', free from anxious desire, though, not a debased one, wouldn't you say?

Yes, not debased. I wasn't thinking of the less than constructive tendencies in hedonism, which can be real for many people. For me, the experience occurred in the light of my already being a practitioner in a spiritual life. I do remember an occasion when amongst a party of friends, I found myself sitting peacefully meditating, while the others were wildly bouncing off the walls listening to Pink Floyd Dark side of the moon at full volume. They couldn't understand why I didn't get swept up in the mania. But I had learnt how to harness the effect of the drug in my meditation practice, or something.

8-)

Been photographing drawings and paintings today, so here's a couple of each. A portrait of a friend, and one of myself, and a couple other works.

I was a cartoonist for a couple of years about 2003/4, I was so incensed by Blair and Bush going into Iraq etc that I turned to satire. These are a couple I fished out the other day, the G8 conference failing to come to any agreement over climate change and Gordon Brown floundering around like Tommy Cooper(the comedian), Blair is represented by the cobra.

That's a pretty cool cartoon of Gordon!

Thanks, I will find one of Tony Blair. I like your portraits, they have a solidity and depth about them.

Cool stuff, guys!

Good stuff John :)



Love those cartoons. I too was incensed by the Iraq war, but don't have something so bitingly creative to show for it. 8-) (I have done some written satire, but directed against other targets).

A few more cartoons, all about Blair, in the first one he is the glove puppet.

NIce work Punshhh!

I like this better than my 1st Pabst.

Cool cartoons Punshhh, and I agree that one is better Cavacava (Y)

Just finished, looking inland from Aldeburgh beach.

I really like your sky!

Stormy wind bellows high
Frequent tracker numb and low
Painted upon an artificial sky
Botched in rage with lines of mellow

Script lit. eyes sit, haze hits

Flounder within the murky water
gulp gas, and sneeze oil
Monstrous nightmare daughter
exhale life and endless toil

Closed now, for thou, I vow.

Time ends again and again
It's mourned eternally
Sleeping yesterday and dreaming tomorrow
Wrapped up, warm, and maternally
Crying with the tears we borrow.

I can see myself sitting in the middle of the island. Is this going to be a painting?

Nice :) . I have been thinking about making a painting from this.

This is NOT philosophy.