Pan Filosofem

I remember this piece started almost purely from a desire to try and nail down a visual and textural vibe of hard light on crusty stone or plaster that was inspired by a Nicola Samori painting.

Nicola Samori

Jeff Simpson

I picked Pan unconsciously but as I was painting it became a meditation on him, the sign of Capricorn, man (the MANIMAL) and nature. When you're sitting in front of a subject for hours you get some really good thinking time around it's themes and ideas.

I thought a lot about myself as a being in nature. About animist and Heideggerian ideas about the really important distinction between seeing ones self as separate, or part and parcel to nature, and nature as living being. What's hurting our planet is the idea that we're separate from it. We are nature too!

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Nature is smarter, more powerful, efficient, creative, and productive than any person could ever hope to be alone. The technology that pumps our blood through our veins, turns the air we breathe into energy, converts friggin light into energy for plants, allows us to see the world through our eyes, it's amazing. And we don't consciously do any of it with our intellect or rational mind, it's all already here chugging along, and will be here long after you and I are gone. And we're just plopped here playing in it. That same technology runs everything, it's a cohesive, holistic system of which we are *integral*. But, we still look at nature as "dead" in a way, as something to be used as a means to our ends; only the separate, inert, broken eggshells of a gooey Humpty Dumpty. but just as much as we use nature, nature is using us. Using might not be the right word, but it's a two way street, it always is. Humpty Dumpty is a BEING, not just parts.

You could even say that the entire pursuit of humanity since our inception has been to understand and decipher nature, to put Humpty Dumpty back together. But we don't put him back together by pushing the pieces, using our intellectual monkey minds to solve the puzzle or will it into being. Nature pulls us to her, we don't need to *do* anything except be attentive and listen carefully, and we'll receive what we need to know.

When you're using a tool and it's working perfectly you don't even think about it or notice it, it's a perfect extension of yourself and the expression of your intentions. There's not as much of a distinction between you and the tool as subject-object, all you're thinking about is how nicely your work is going along. But when the tool breaks it's glaringly obvious that there's a hammer or brush or keyboard or internet connection getting between you and what you're trying to do.

The other themes that came up when thinking about this was the sign of Capricorn and the role pan plays in it, as well as the wild part of man that comes from being a literal animal in nature. Capricorns have been described as the mullet of signs, business by day and party god by night (the Astrology Podcast :)), they work really hard and play just as hard. There's two main things I thought about most with this, the first being the drive and achievement and struggle of climbing the mountain of success that is Capricorn. The other being the root of Pan in panic. This comes from the myth of Pan being disturbed during an afternoon nap and shouting so loud it scared everything around him. I think nature, or deeply wooded and secluded areas, can do this. Where they almost reject something like a loud obnoxious, unaware human from within itself. Where one can start to feel that there's an immense and tremendous power deep at the root of the woods, a primordial fear and terror arises, that they REALLY don't belong there, and that they're completely vulnerable and at the mercy of the mountain.

This could just be an echo and projection of this learned separateness we feel about nature or some sort of genetic memory of however many humans dying alone in the wilderness. But I think the solution is a switch from a pushing and active approach to nature to a receptive one. When you listen you can hear what it's saying and approach it in a way that it won't reject you. And instead of having all that natural power as a knife at your throat, you've got it as a gentle hand at your back pushing you forward.

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Thank you for reading!

Integrating the Shadow

I'm still not entirely sure what this painting is about, but here's the stuff I was thinking about while I made it. I do want people to approach it in the way you would a David Lynch film, to not really try and figure it out, but just soak it in and see how it makes you feel and what it makes you think about.

I think a big part of it is my nostalgia for North Carolina. I lived there from ages 5-10 and got a good taste of the hickness. I started this painting as a spur of the moment, fleeting feeling of intense, unleashed inner wild man. The part of myself that comes out when it's not stopped by any inhibitions (aka drunk). The weird inner cretin that's not afraid of how off-putting they may be, pure instinct and impulse shrouded in a small tunnel of perspective. The inner party boy heavily inspired by Larry Enticer 69, Trailer Park Boys, Gummo etc... There's this intense feeling of relief and freedom that comes from shrugging off all responsibility and being completely indulgent in the first impulse or desire that hits you.

Bacchus/Dionysus, god of wine

The Bacchus/Dionysus tattoo on the bottom right of the torso embodies that hedonistic drunken binge. This is an expression of that spirit in the modern day, with a little hint of violence and stabbing for flavor.

This is personal and something I really don't need to share, so I'll just say that over the course of painting this, the focus shifted from hillbilly-beast-unleashing to the Shadow self, and that I don't drink anymore. And we'll leave it at that :)

fukn sending it

Thomas Metzinger is an amazing philosopher that focuses on what he calls the Phenomenal Self Model (PSM). He's great to listen to/read if you want to understand how flimsy your sense of self really is and how it comes to be, which is great for understanding how your ego represses parts of yourself to create your shadow. This is from the beginning of The Ego Tunnel.

"In a series of virtual reality experiments, Olaf, his PhD student Bigna Lenggenhager, and I attempted to create artificial OBEs (out of body experiences) and full-body illusions. During these illusions, subjects localized themselves outside their body and transiently identified with a computer-generated, external image of it. What these experiments demonstrate is that the deeper, holistic sense of self is not a mystery immune to scientific exploration--it is a form of conscious representational content, and it can be selectively manipulated under carefully controlled experimental conditions."

In other words, the ego/self is not limited to your body. Your sense of identifying with things is flimsy and can meld with everything around you (I am the universe and everything in it) or shrink to the point of your own limbs feeling foreign. This is a huge part of getting "triggered." When your sense of self attaches to an ideology or fandom or brand or character and you identify with it, and that external thing is attacked, then you're attacked, and you need to defend it!

Here's a talk from the Deconstructing Yourself Podcast with Metzinger - https://deconstructingyourself.com/podcast/dy-012-consciousness-spirituality-intellectual-honesty-guest-thomas-metzinger

The alchemical Great Work, the Magnum Opus is the life lived with ones full potential being met, the unification of the ego with the Self. The system of the individual encounters something that breaks it apart, what it thought it was we realize is BS (Nigredo). Our sense of self is shattered, the house of cards comes tumbling down, we realize there is no objective reality, we see the emptiness in everything in the Buddhist sense. The disassembling of the chariot; when taken apart what is the meaning of a wheel? What is the meaning of a splinter from the wood of the wheel? Everything only has meaning relative to everything else, within a context. Even the tiniest, most insignificant thing is dependent on, held up by, and exists in relation to EVERYTHING else.

So then what? Nothing matters, there's no meaning in the world, life is pointless? No, you make the meaning, you make the rules, you assemble the pieces back together however you want according to your will. This is your chance to put things back together right. "It is a Latinicized term meaning "whiteness". Following the chaos or massa confusa of the nigredo stage, the alchemist undertakes a purification in albedo, which is literally referred to as ablutio – the washing away of impurities. In this process, the subject is divided into two opposing principles to be later coagulated to form a unity of opposites or coincidentia oppositorum during rubedo."

The guy in the painting would be in this negredo stage where nothing has meaning, nothing to lose, the massa confusa.

Here's another awesome talk from the Deconstructing Yourself Podcast related to this subject by the author of Seeing that Frees - https://deconstructingyourself.com/podcast/dy-025-emptiness-liberation-and-beauty-with-guest-rob-burbea

Also here's yet another amazing episode from the same podcast that's really talking about the shadow from a different perspective, calling these troublesome parts of ourselves our blind spots - https://deconstructingyourself.com/podcast/dy-018-seeing-your-blind-spots-with-guest-kelly-boys

You should just listen to every episode, it's great.

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“You think it’s funny, cause I cry when I’m drunk? While you were laughin at me when you were all loaded? Are you feeling anything?? It’s not funny!”

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Chaos magic in relation to the deconstruction of the self

What I love about chaos magick (symbol on the bellybutton) and why I think it ties really nicely into this whole negredo stage of emptiness is it's approach and perspective on the traditional Golden Dawn ceremonial magick setup. It takes all of these "empty" (in the buddhist sense) parts and processes and rituals and plays with them and finds the core parts that work, it mixes and matches the puzzle pieces in order to carry out an intent, whatever that is. I think one of the fundamental mechanisms of magick is using your intent to modify future probability, as Tom Campbell would put it. All of the ritual trappings and flair in ceremonial magick are techniques in order to help you focus your intent into something clear and strong. What happens so often with just about every packaged procedure is people get caught up in the trappings surrounding the intent, and not the intent itself. Why I like chaos magick in the context of this painting and the deconstructing of the self is it's openness and outside of the box thinking of taking all of these "empty" ritual techniques like using the pentacle and chalice to represent the elements of earth and water, and mixing and matching them with whatever other tools are available, and experimenting and seeing what works. Doing things like invoking Superman to bring out your confidence. That contrast between ritual objects also reveals more about what fundamental factors are at play, which I think is mainly intent and willpower. So I threw that chaos magick symbol in there to drive home this idea of there being no inherent meaning in anything, no objective self either, there's what appears to be in your field of experience and you choose to interpret it and do with it what you will.

All the chaos of the universe emanates from the belly button

The "born to lose" and discordianism symbol are heavily inspired by Robert Anton Wilson - "The Sacred Chao is not the Yin-Yang of the Taoists. It is the Hodge-Podge of the Erisians. And, instead of a Podge spot on the Hodge side, it has a pentagon which symbolizes the Aneristic Principle, and instead of a Hodge spot on the Podge side, it depicts the Golden Apple of Discordia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_of_Discord) to symbolize the Eristic Principle. The Sacred Chao symbolizes absolutely everything anyone need ever know about absolutely anything, and more! It even symbolizes everything not worth knowing, depicted by the empty space surrounding the Hodge-Podge."

Sacred Chao

The sacred chao is in there because discordianism, that's all you need to know. The moment your eyeballs graced this text you've been pontificated. Also, The Game. http://discordia.wikia.com/wiki/Discordianism

I think it was in his talk Techniques of Consciousness Change

he mentions these four dispositions of people: I'm ok, you're ok; I'm ok, you're not ok; I'm not ok, you're not ok; and I'm not ok, you're ok. This really stuck out to me and I've thought a lot about it since. He goes into a short description of each I think, and I could be remembering this wrong as I haven't listened to it in a while, but mentions the last type as the kind of person to have the "born to lose" tattoos. This stuck out to me as great imagery and inspiration, and I think I as well as many others fall into this category of thinking everyone else has got it together and we're behind and something's wrong with us, "why can't I just be normal?" etc... This is a big part of my personal shadow, feeling inadequate. This painting is almost a ritual releasing of all my shit I don't need.

The poorly drawn little bird in the top left is from the prisoner guy in The Grand Budapest Hotel :)

The Dove and Serpent tattoo is a rabbit hole of it's own, but is very much tied into the overarching idea behind the painting, which comes down to all the fun little predicaments we get into with having an ego. The serpent represents the mind, the intellect, left brained thinking, things in particular, boundaries, limitations, earthiness, physical death and mortality. Basically lots of parts of the ego. The dove transcends boundaries, limitations, and conditions and represents the spirit or soul, the Self in Jungian terms. On a 2D plane the dove would be the Y (flying) modality and the serpent X (slithering), and in order to move dynamically you need both. The two are supposed to work together to navigate life, not be at odds with each other. But in a lot of cases the mind and ego ends up strangling the spirit! Instead of the ego merging with the self, it stifles the spirit and tries to control it according to what parameters are "best", quelling fears, making it look good, fending for itself at the expense of others etc...

This is where we get into rough waters with this video in terms of it being pretty far out there, but I think it's got some great nuggets in it in really understanding how the ego works in the context of duality: self and other, higher and lower self, left brain vs right brain, etc... -

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Here's a great distillation of Jung's Shadow - http://highexistence.com/carl-jung-shadow-guide-unconscious/ . With the climate of social media this is the perfect contrarian antidote to bring up against all of the carefully constructed houses of cards that are our online personas. Tear it down and see what you're really made of, ugly bits and all (as if this whole essay isn’t just that, me projecting an image of myself, heh). The goal of "shadow work" is facing and acknowledging your unconscious tendencies that you'd otherwise repress and avoid. I had this messed up notion though, that in order to "purify" myself I needed to pick apart each and every uncomfortable and negative aspect about myself. That I needed to fully immerse myself in my own baggage and completely understand it, and this really just ended up with me putting myself on trial and judging myself into oblivion. It ended up being like someone going along a path, squatting down and waddling backwards and picking apart their own piles of shit instead of standing up straight, looking forward and taking in what's in front of them. It's so much healthier to take your negative aspects as they come and simply face them and try to understand how or why they got there instead of actively seeking them out and trying to dissect them and judging yourself for them. To be in the present looking forward instead of dwelling on the past. Forget what just happened, what can I do right now in this moment, regardless of that isolated thing that just happened, to most effectively do what's best for myself. That's something I really struggle with.

Other's may be the exact opposite, thinking they're the shit and can do no wrong. The same thing still applies, looking at your reactions honestly and understanding where they come from. Does the core of your motivations come from somewhere secure or insecure?

Some more on Jung's interpretation of the four alchemical stages from wikipedia - "The three alchemical stages preceding rubedo were nigredo (blackness) which represented putrefaction and spiritual death, albedo (whiteness) which represented purification, and citrinitas (yellowness); the solar dawn or awakening.[2]

In the framework of psychological development (especially with followers of Jungian psychology), these four alchemical steps are viewed as analogous to the process of attaining individuation. In an archetypal schema, rubedo represents the Self archetype, and is the culmination of the four stages, the merging of ego and Self.[4]

The Self manifests itself in "wholeness," a point in which a person discovers their true nature."

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I wish I knew all of the symbolism in this image. I can see the kundalini serpent rising from the root, and possibly something like a chimera head? Man and beast? But the dagger, lightning bolts, and owl I’m not sure about.

The tattoo of the "Hero", the figure with the lightning bolts, dagger and owl, is from the album cover of Bölzer's Hero -

I just love this album and get a strong sense of spiritual power and creating from a very inspired place. I aspire to create my paintings with as much intervention of the divine muses. Here's an interview with the lead guy that's really interesting - http://www.bardomethodology.com/articles/2016/11/09/bolzer-interview/

Here's the lyrics, just very inspirational in general - http://www.metalstorm.net/bands/lyrics.php?album_id=89605&band_id=7974&bandname=B%26ouml%3Blzer

“Fertile is the mind tilled with steel
Idle the hand abandoned in drought
Dream seed in antediluvian abysm
Eyes to be cauterized with light
Rumblings ‘neath the frosts of Terra Nova
Skin cleansed by a sea of Icarian fire
Fates shift ‘tween the sundered palms of belief
Strange fruits accorded the furrows of Id
Face aflame
Afront eureka
Flesh be tamed
By the gaze of Medusa
Shattered sky
Blazing Orion
The shadow yield
Existential explosion
I am the night
I am the fist
A thunderbolt of flaming wisdom
A hammer at dawn
A kiss at dusk
Bequeath thine womb and thine heart
May we ascend unto the stars
Psyche be ye rocked by thunderous laws
Scorched throat when breathing the spears of the gods
Pillars of oak fuck the hymen of Ego
Pantheon laid waste by a mortal orgasm”

— Bölzer - I Am III

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The "snitchblade" tattoo is mostly just badass and embodies the perfect vibe of the type of person in this painting, and it's one of my favorite songs -

“Loose lips sink ships and in these days and times motherfuckers walk around with a little more than a limp.
You gotta know that I’m dead serious.
Ain’t playing with the game, it’s still the same.
Never gonna try to change or make it new cause in the end you didn’t play the game cause the game played you.
Fuck the police, don’t need them as you see. We’ll handle this thing, let that pussy bleed. No need for a cop to make the spot hot. Just keep your mouth shut. Cause if you talk to a cop you’re one dumb fuck and...
So it goes round.
Here it comes back round again. This time you’ll meet the end. Not of my fist or a friend’s. Here it comes back round again. This time you’re who’ll pay. Can’t keep your mouth shut. Get hit with a snitchblade.”

— Kids Like Us - Snitchblade

Same with this dude…

Gummo - Marvelous Persona -

Here's the raw dump of brainstorming of the mythos in which this painting exists that I'd add to as associations popped up.

“dischordianism
eris
dionysus - grapes and wine
bacchus
crass
misfits
black flag
born to lose
Send it - Larry Enticer
gummo dickies torso, tom waits rags tin cans tools grease

bat
tiny silver hammer-hope
trailer park boys
gummo
the place beyond the pines
sling blade
tom waits
gasoline
engine parts
greasers
rockabilly
reckless abandon”

On the actual visual art side as opposed to the conceptual side, the aesthetic was heavily inspired by artists like Nathaniel Evans, Sid Watters, Phil Hale, and Justin Mortimer. All of which have works that are lit like a camera flash and have such a specific feel and look to them. I just wish I could be as loose and expressive and moody as them, their work is so SICK. Hopefully as I get more comfortable with oils I'll be able to play around more.

Here’s some more nice close ups of the final painting

So that’s about as coherent as I can get on the storm of ideas that was going through my head as I was making this. I really hope this was enjoyable to read despite there being about 20 hours of podcasts and videos. But these influences have transformed the way I see the world and how I make my art.

If you enjoyed this subscribe to get these in your inbox. I want to start trying to put something out once a week. I’d also love to hear what you think and your struggles and what you’re stoked on.

If you want to help support me in making these paintings please consider pledging to my Patreon. I just redid the rewards to focus more on selling oil paintings and really cool stuff like bronze and resin castings (which I have yet to finish). If you want a better chance to get your hands on any of my work I have a tier that allows you to buy anything that’s limited edition or one of a kind 2 weeks before everyone else. Plus you’ll be a fully fledged Dungeon Stalker ;)

Thanks for reading!

Making a living doing what you love

This isn't quite done yet, but is oh so close. I wanted to document it before I potentially ruin it with the tatz. So for now all you get is a crappy cell phone pic. >:) 

I've been thinking, and writing a lot since that last post on the last commission work I did (and thanks for the encouraging words, they really do help). I want to write about my business approach to art and how I'm going to make a living doing what I love, and possibly get a conversation going with anyone else who even has an inkling of this desire, or is already doing it. I want to protect my passion and compromise the integrity of my work the absolute least amount I possibly can. In order to do that I have to watch out for scarcity mindset, I need to be secure and feel like I have enough in order to not try and squeeze in little intentions or compromises into my work.

Things like, "uh oh, I need x which costs y, by time z, how can I make this painting appeal just a little more to the right person so that it might sell sooner or for a higher price?" That's not why I make art, I make art to share beauty. I've been thinking a lot about my direction and where my motivation comes from and how important it is to have a clear goal to go towards. Very much the 'driving across the country at night' analogy, where you don't have every road and every turn mapped out in your head before you go, but you've got a set of headlights illuminating what's in front of you, and you follow the signs as you go. But in this case it's more making sure you've got the damn headlights on at all, it really feels like I'm fumbling around in the dark at times. A huge part of it is not getting paralyzed and taking the courageous initiative to step forward.

In the past, getting into art, my sights were set on fantasy game art, because that's what I saw online and thought looked like the absolute coolest, tightest shit ever. I made the very straightforward connection that hey, these guys are doing this work for game companies, if I want to do this for a living and make awesome art, then that's what I've gotta do. SIMPLE. I've also been hugely influenced by seanwes and his breakdown of how to make money doing what you love, mainly: client work, products and teaching. He talks about how client work is one of the quickest and easiest/straightforward ways (do work, get paid) to make money with your work. As I got better over the years and started seriously comparing my work to what I was seeing out there, I made the decision to go all in on client work. Spamming my portfolio out to any email I could get my hands on. I could go on to talk about the process of getting work etc... but I want to talk about why I don't think I like doing client work after trying it for roughly three years. A huge reason was trying to rely on it when I got so few offers coming back. I was also awful at scheduling and aligning the jobs well. So what would happen is jobs would overlap and I'd get crippled by the weight and pressure I'd put on myself. 
I wonder if this has to do with how I formulate ideas for my own personal work and how that process carries over to forming ideas with a client. 

But when I'm in the brainstorming stage, even before I lay anything down in any physical shape or form, I've got an almost complete image in my head. I want to know how every little detail is going to look and why, and its extremely fun when it's just me and I get to play with every little notion. I don't question myself so much as an authority on whether or not my choices are good. I think this is because of the context I'm making those choices in, and that context is exploration, fun, curiosity, beauty, impact, sharing a moment etc... Trying to wrench up mood, atmosphere and emotion for the sake of communicating and sharing direct experiences and thoughts that are going on from my first person perspective. When I'm creating from life experience and inspiration like music, that's when I get the best ideas and make the best work. 

For some reason when making something for someone else it just throws a wrench in the works. I think one of the biggest factors is the context is different, and there's a lot more pressure and seriousness (it's work more than play) around what you're making and when I'm in this context that's when I start to question my own authority and second guess myself, wonder if who I'm doing it for would rather have it this way or that, or just start basically asking them to make the piece by offloading the creative decision making to them. The whole impetus and drive and origin of where the creativity and motivation for making it is coming from a different place. 

Another challenge I have is feeling guilty for making what I want. I have a strong sense that I need to be of service to society in some way. I feel a duty to put my skills to work for others, but doing what I love, for myself, is probably the most impactful way to actually give to others. 

I may just have a higher learning curve when it comes to doing client work and I'm still loosely open to doing it, but then I think about fine artists and they just make what they want and that's it. They probably don't even question whether they need to do that at all. It's odd that I feel this pressure that I should be able to be good at doing client work. Maybe it's the art climate and environment I formulated all my sensibilities in: deviant art, cghub fantasy freelance/studio stuff. 

So what I've been thinking is I need that clear direction and goal to go towards like I did with client work. Even though I didn't like it, didn't make a lot of money, that is when I did the most and learned the most and failed the most. Failure is learning what doesn't work so you can narrow down what does. My friend and I have been talking about this and I'm realizing how important this approach is. The idea that before you act or do anything you have to have everything figured out perfectly and know you've got the right choice, and then execute it. That's not how you figure out what the right choice is. You figure out the right choice by making lots and lots of wrong choices. And you WILL fail, and much more than you succeed at that. But its a game of narrowing down, not precision calculated sniping. The analogy would be something like you've got a weird organic squiggly sculpture hidden in a huge block of sandstone, and the only way to get it out is by shooting it with little .22's. Every bullet is executing a choice and 90% of them are going to dud into the sandstone, some might even ricochet and hit you square between the eyes (those are the real spectacular failures). But the fastest and best way to figure out what the hell is even in the stone is to shoot the most bullets everywhere at first. Maybe some big choices can act as a sledge hammer or something. Then you can start to narrow down where the thing even is in the stone (you may find a creative outlet that you really enjoy) and eventually you find out it was a barrel money all along. Holding and rotating the object in your hands is like knowing exactly what you love doing and how to live comfortably with it. That's the goal, find what you love doing, share it with others and how to live sustainably. 

What I want to do now is take that drive and direction I had for client work and put it into products and teaching, but mainly products at first. Things I'd love to make and sell but haven't yet (or at least haven't sold much of): charcoal drawings, bronze sculptures (some aesthetic and some even functional: book ends, oil diffusers, incense holders etc...) oil paintings, resin casts, prints, t-shirts, etching prints, etc... The big challenge with products that's different than client work is the up front investment in making something like a t-shirt or bronze cast. They cost more money to make. So that's what's risky about this and makes me a little nervous. But I'm gonna go for it. 

My biggest worry right now with going hard on pushing products is I have virtually no demand for anything I have. Maybe that's due to marketing, but I would think my work would speak for itself. I'm really hoping that once I have actual stuff out that people will want it. Here's to hoping that's not putting the cart before the horse too hard.

One thing I'm very passionate about and really want to help others with, and this is because I want it so dearly for myself and struggle a lot with this, is to be able to get your ideas out and express yourself as accurately and fluidly as possible. For your ideas to not be compromised by either lack of technical skill, lack of inspiration, or other constraints like doing it for work. 

So this is really a big open ended thought dump and I'd love to hear what anyone has to say on the subject of making a living doing what you love. Whether it's personal experience, what you're struggling with, or advice if you're already straight killin' the game slayed up forever. 
Thanks for reading!