John Moriarty describes a dream in which he hears a knock on his door late at night. He opens the door to the incarnation of the constellation of Orion. Orion as a representative of the whole Universe has come to deliver a message to John (as a representative of humanity?), concerning the accumulation of everything which humanity has believed about the Universe, well, the Universe doesn’t recognize themself in any of it.
This drawing is part of The Diary of a Tree Standing on it’s Head series I’ve been working on.
I also decided to make some prints of this one. They are for sale here at Baumwerkshop.com
There will also be a display of artwork entitled POLYPHONY from Jack Baumgartner
I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the recurring image of the Lion/Dog-Chimera/Beast standing guard over the prone man in my work from the past 2 1/2 decades. The Beast Himself shows up in many other works, but today I am concerned with His appearance specifically over this lying-down (dead?)man; an obscured self-portrait echo of Hans Holbein’s Dead Christ.
When I first started making these images, I was very uncertain of the beast. Is he good or evil? Is he standing guard to protect the man from being devoured or to devour him himself? As time has gone on plenty of uncertainty remains, yet I feel that the beast transcends the duality of good and evil- I could even venture that he transcends it as goodness.
Pushing a bit harder, I might say the beast is the Angel of the Holy Spirit- if that’s too far, I can retreat to the ground that he is “messenger”.
Entering into the imaginal space of these images, the land of spiritual vision, allows their merger with memory and experience. That’s a leap into what some call the realm of the unseen. As for me, I say it is a seen realm, but with other eyes. They are my memories and experiences.
The man, is he alive or dead or both. He begins to be folded into the Earth in later drawings. And fully inhabits the worship life cycle of growth and decay by the last image. The relationships have matured a little bit perhaps? Time will tell.
The painting is back on the easel after a resting since spring. Gilding the letters of the divine and sacred promise to the land at the threshold of the picture was the first order, now I am glazing the purple field behind them, before addressing the errors in the gilding.
All the work is prayer- engaging EVERYTHING through the materials their resistance the colored dust the stillness the distractions the sable bristles the sticky oil the waiting the music in the background looking at Giotto interruptions aching neck lunch the glory the emptiness the inspired seeing fires skunks under the floor cold hands the failures and doubt exaltation pulling off a difficult passage looking at Gerard David the heavens the earth instinct the breathe the blood the sighing lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me.
“I cannot bear, nor even hear the voices of men
unless they be in song and sore-amazed at the nearing nearness,
soaring -soaring in awful timbre about the unified flame”
from the Diary of a Tree Standing on Its Head
This is a work in progress of the 1st of what will be a diptych of two large linen panels (60″ x 36″) representing the events of Revelation 19: 11-21.
The School of the Transfer of Energy 