The most important thing first, here is the new picture:
And yes, it was a tough call. Yes, it was only a deadline I set for myself, but still. I am now completely worn out, like I pured everything I had in me for this weekend in this one picture. Well, I guess I will sleep now and see how you all like it. Leave me a message on this, will you pleeaaaaseeeee!?
I just stop by shortly at the end of this Saturday to present a little sneak peek on some work in progress. Just the other day I posted the draft of the Jupiter Sphere. I managed to find some time and oportuntiy to purchase some canvas (btw all the pics in this series are 70 cm x 100 cm, acrylic on canvas). And as I can’t see any white canvas without feeling the urge to cover it with some color I started off right away.
After a day of work I got this far:
The ‘knitting’ is done. Now I am in the progress to create Jupiter and its four greatest moons that will make up the ‘M’ for monarchy (like in Dante’s Paradiso). Or is it here more for materiachy (think Molly Weasley)? Or is it really a ‘W’ for Weasley? Any way I am at the planets and moons.
They will have to wait until tomorrow though as it is late here already. Still, I hope to finish on the pic tomorrow. So, stay tuned for more color and more information. Good Night.
Since I have no canvas anymore until I can get my hands on a car and get some new I use the time drafting the remaining spheres. What is left? Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the Fixed Stars and the Empyrean Heaven. I have a clear picture in mind for all but the Fixed Stars. Even though Saturn has been very tricky my train ride to work once again proved very inspiring.
But I don’t want to reveal too much before I have something on paper. So, let’s talk about two spheres that made it already into my sketch pad – Empyrean Heaven and Jupiter:
Obviously, I was inspired by the Heavenly Rose mentioned in Dante’s Paradiso. The rose appears here not only in its natural shape with the portraits inserted. It also appears once again in its stylised form in the labyrinth. I used the same motive but much smaller in the first picture of the series in the upper left-hand corner.
Oh yes, I combined the Dante inspired motive with an idea of JKR’s Harry Potter series. As we are on the ninth and last Sphere of Paradiso we are also on the last level of Hogwarts, the seventh floor. And here is the Headmaster’s office located. One very prominent feature of this ofice are the talking portraits of the former Headmasters. They sit at the wall of the office like the saints sit in the Heavenly Rose. So, it was only logical to bring both ideas in one pic.
And here we move back a bit to Jupiter. I chose Molly Weasley for this sphere as she fits the idea of a strict but just ruler (and she has almost as many children as Jupiter has moons [insert rolling eye smiley]). As the inhabitants become less human in their shape as we ascent through the spheres of Paradiso I rather use an idea about her than her picture. And as ruling is very similar to knitting (you tie in threads/ people into the position they best fit your plans) her fondness of knitting inspired me to this sketch.
I need to thank the best hand model of the world for providing me with some photos of knitting – my friend Chan. You can see what her hands create on her blog Chan Knits . I hope she doesn’t mind me linking this to her page.
Yes, I finished the fifth picture and that means I am half way through my series. It’s time to recap what I tried to transpose and check with what I really realised. Dante’s Paradise is a piece of cultural heritage. Many artists have tried their luck with this material. I wanted to discover it for my own and I wanted to see it through eyes nobody else before me had seen this place. So, I set off with JKR’s Hogwarts castle and its inhabitants in mind. And today, after finishing with the Moon Sphere, I feel, like I am on a good way.
The Moon Sphere is how Dante enters into Paradise. It is the sphere for those who abandoned their vows. As such it still has the shadow of earthly life lying on it. Vows are a subject for itself in JK rowling’s Harry Potter series. We have to deal with life debts and unbreakable vows. And they are all connected with the name of Professor Snape.
As he is the dungeon dweller in Hogwarts castle – and for my purpose, the dungeons of Hogwarts equate to the first sphere of Paradise – he would probably be the first choice picture-wise coming to mind. His watery potions would tie in nicely to the watery aspects of the moon too. At least we use his office and potion ingrediences in the pic.
However, more so womanhood and female magic – to create new things, to nourish and feel – connect with the moon. In most languages other than German the moon is female. The full moon here stands for the woman in the high of her power, as the mother and wife.
Tonks is the one woman who becomes pregnant in the series. In m picture her bubblegum pink hair falls like a curtain, covering the magic at work in her belly. The hair here works like the curtain behind the Popess on the second card of the old Marseille Tarot set that hides the female magic in the temple behind her.
Her round belly is also the moon. And the moon spots Dante discusses with Beatrice shape up to a phoenix as the child is the quintessence of the relation of two people in love: One becomes Two, Two becomes Three, and out of the Third comes the One as the Fourth.
And that leads us back to the (almost) broken vow. It is a marriage vow I had in mind. Remus Lupin gave it to Tonks. But his boggart, and therefore the thing he is most afraid of, is the full moon. Sure, you can say it is because he is a werewolf. He fears that his animal self takes control of him once a month.
But wasn’t it also his animal self that was afraid of a close relationship with a woman? And wasn’t it also his animale self that made him want to flee once he saw himself faced with the responsibility of a family? He was ready to abandon his vow immediately. And that made Tonks and Lupin perfect inhabitants for the Moon Sphere in Professor Snape’s dungeon office.
It is going only slowly ahead but I think one can see the progress since my last post. And you can already see where I am heading with this pic. Here it is:
I hope to finish on it this weekend. Oh, how sweet the sound of the word weekend is ringing in my ears. It’s ringing loud already
This WE was a successful one. First I had a nice visit by a friend. And then I used my free time to work on my art. I managed to finish the Sun Sphere of the Hogwarts and Dante’s 9 Spheres of Paradiso:
And then I started on the Moon Sphere:
This is of course still work in progress. But you can already see how the hair of the woman (Tonks with her bubblegum pink hair) is hidding the female magic (creating new things from nothing like in pregnancy) like the curtain on the second tarot card of the High Priestress/ Popess. I wasn’t aware of it before I saw it on canvas. However, now that I discovered it I really like it.
I am so happy. I have given the speech and everything worked out fine. I managed to deliver the speech almost completely from memory. It was necessary as I had a microphone in my on hand and the paper in the other. Once I was through with the first page I had no hand available to switch to the second. Well, it worked out fine and the people lauged with me at the right places and seemed to listen.
After the formal part was over they came up to me and asked me questions to the bear and even asked me to sign some postcards made from my bears for them! As I was very nervous (still even at that point of time) and distracted by questions I nearly missed to write my whole name.
I found some time to take some pictures. This are shots right into the room:
And this is thereason why the room is called the Mosaic Hall, it’s the make off of the floor:
This is the bear before the opening of the veil:
It reminds me a bit of a piece of Cristo art. And here is the bear in the background after we pulled the cover off:
I think it was a successful evening. And over all it was a very nice one.
On Sunday I mentioned a speech I needed to write. Well, tomorrow is the big day.
In the Bears, Bears, Bears section you can see twin bears, about man high, that I created for the Jewish Hospital Berlin and the Siemens Health Insurance. As the later celebrates its 100th birthday tomorrow they combine the ceremony with the official welcome for the KardioPro Bear. And they asked me to explain my ideas.
The ceremony will take place tomorrow (April 09, 2008) at 6 p.m. at the Berlin Headquarter of Siemens. I don’t know yet who will gather in the Honor/ Mosaic Hall. I guess there will be some of the leaders of the company and its branches. However, even without knowing who will attained the ceremony I am so nervous.
Well, I will hopefully find the time to take some pictures tomorrow. For now, I leave you with a translation of the speech I will give:
It’s the nature of female magic that it creates new things and revive them. I used my magic to create him, the KardioPro Bear. The familial similarity between us can’t be denied once you look closer. Only that he lets the turbulences wash over him with stoic tranquillity while I should be red up to the roots of my hair.
Well, I need to push through this now as I was asked to give a few words of explanation to this bear. And I am delighted to meet this demand.
Obviously, this sitting guy belongs to the species of Buddy Bears. Other fellows of this species campaign through their peaceful coexistence for tolerance and international understanding – a message that can’t be repeated often enough. However, also our KardioPro Bear has added his share of charity through his pure existence.
I haven’t exhausted the topic of bears for today yet. But first, let me go into some more obvious details, like he hearts. KardioPro, eponym of the Bear, is a project of Siemens Health Insurance in collaboration with doctors, hospitals and patients. It is the goal of the project to thwart heart diseases according to the latest medical standards and to identify individual risks for heart diseases on an early stage. With the Siemens Health Insurance every heart is in the right hands.
Last but not least, a first survey shows a happy colourful person with a healthy heart beat and muse for the fun things in life. – That’s how patients in the KardioPro project should feel.
Perfect design, mission completed, I can go. – Not that fast. I am not for the easy explanations. Otherwise, I would believe that Occam’s Razor is the latest invention of Gillette or that Harry Potter books were written for children.
Penetrate deeper into the design and follow the lines in the shape of the Vitruvian Man. The network of lines of different length adds up to the abstract picture of a city. Vitruv, who was an ancient Roman architect, inspired L. da Vinci to his drawing that is the basis of this bear through some thoughts in connection to human anatomy, geometry and proportions in architecture in De Architectura.
And just as man reflects through his proportions in a city, the city reflects in its inhabitants. As much as I love my hometown Berlin – its buildings, its lights, its pulsing life – city life isn’t healthy, especially not for the cardiovascular system. How well is it then, that people exist, who take care of our health in projects like KardioPro; who don’t care for perfect proportions but for the perfect heart beat.
The Vitruvian Man leads us directly to my next thought that I tried to convey. And here I also want to answer the question: Why, for gods’ sake, do you paint something like that on a bear?
Da Vinci was an alchemist, student of an ancient science that found its way today into the analytical psychology founded by Carl Gustav Jung. His Vitruvian Man is a proof for it. Here circle and square overlap.
In Men and his Symbols we can read that the circle is the symbol fort he psyche, the Self or said more poetically the soul while the square represents the body, the reality as experienced by men and the spirit. When squaring the circle soul and spirit are united. The result is the gold of the alchemist – a whole person. In psychology called individuation the process leads to an individual that is able to decide freely what to do next, and if it is only to play soccer, to dance, to hike or to read like the little figures on the arm.
The gold of the alchemists evolves from chaos, the Prima Materia, that contains the gold already. One of the many symbols that alchemists have found for the raw material is the bear. I told you I will return to it as well as to the heart and KardioPro.
While the bear is at the beginning of the alchemical process, the gold surfaces in Rubedo. The color of Rubedo is red. Since blood is red as well, the alchemists believed that the essence of life can be found in the blood. Thus, the heart was seen as the physical and spiritual center of man.
We know today that a heart beats about 100,000 times a day what sums up to 2.5 billion beats in an average life time. Like the pendulum of an old-fashioned grandfather’s clock the pulse sets the pace and thereby measures the time.
In the alchemical language the pulse is the physical reflexion of the spirit. There are many reasons why the pulse may speed up. It is as if the spirit runs away from the body. If one succeeds to balance body and soul and reduce the heart beat, thereby reducing the stress of the heart muscle, we could be able to prolong our days. Thus, we closed the circle and returned to the goals of KardioPro.
And I came once again to the conclusion that it is easier for me to catch my thoughts in my pictures than explaining my pictures in words. Therefore, don’t let you be scared by my gibberish but let the bear affect you. And celebrate a Health Insurance that implements since 100 years very small projects like this bear and large projects for the health of us all, like KardioPro.
It is the weekend. Well, actually it is Sunday evening again. sic! I used the free time (next to a trip to the Olympic Stadium to see my team Hertha BSC loose again) for my art of course. Why else would I write about it in my art block?
I started on the Sun Sphere. The sketch for it was long done. But the bears kept my attention for the last time. So, now that I have some time for my own art projects I took a new, white canvas and ‘contaminated’ it with some pencil lines and color… Here is the work in progress:
And now I better stopped drawing as my hands start shaking. On Wednesday I will attained a welcome ceremony for my ProKardio Bear and I have to give a speech – not one of my favorites. But man grows with the challanges. I better get my speech ready now and stop writing here. p&s
Beatrice had fixed her eyes
upon the eternal wheels and I now fixed
my sight on her, withdrawing it from above.
as I gazed on her, I was changed within,
as Glaucus was on tasting of the grass
that made him consort of the gods in the sea.
To soar beyond the human cannot be described
in words. Let the example be enough to one
for whom grace holds this experience in store.
Dante Alighieri: Divine Comedy (Paradiso 1.64 – 72)
Dante and his guide Beatrice start their journey through Paradise in the terrestrial Paradise atop the mountain of Purgatory. They fly upwards as Dante stares into Beatrice’s eyes, which in turn gaze at the sun.
The word Paradise derives from the Old Persian phrase pairi-daeza and means a place that is “around-walled”. J. Gallagher states in his commentary A Modern Readers Guide to the Divine Comedy: “In Dante’s usage, it is a divine or heavenly place that is fortified on all sides against the invasion of evil or unhappiness.”
What better image for such a “walled-around” place could be found than a medieval castle with its thick walls, high watchtowers and that is also known as a ‘stronghold of ancient magic’? What better picture can be made up than a building that can only be seen by those few with the ability to do magic and that would never have come into existence without the same talent? What better place is where than JK Rowling’s Hogwarts? Hogwarts and Dante’s Paradiso have many similarities.
And so it is not astonishing, that eyes are prominent in both works. While Dante travels to paradise while looking into the eyes of his first and deepest love, a love he was never to live, Harry is recognised by his eyes that are so similar to that of his mother, who died because she loved him dearly.
Harry’s/ Lily’s eyes accompany us on our trip to Hogwarts/ Paradise. And still, the eye shines in the picture rather like a black sun. It reminds us that Paradise is fragile and nobody living there is a one-dimensional, all-good, all-saint creature – the world isn’t split in good people and Death Eaters. We all have our Shadow that escorts us like an uninvited guest who came to stay. He escorts us even to Paradise.
And here is a thumbnail of the picture:
For a better image look here:
