Black and Tan and Symmetry

One of my favorite palette colors are black and tan.

As I was making them, I realized how much these small collages 
have been influenced by my attraction to:

. . the black and tan of some African Kuba cloth

. . Asian symbols and script

. . grid composition

. . vertical symmetry

. . circles, squares, rectangles, and lines that overlap
. . the range in shades of vintage paper
. . the surface of printmaking
. . some graphic designs

I have been collecting natural wood frames from the $1 store

The first page of an old bible . . Genesis

All are paper and stamps

They are the beginning of a grouping
that will be in my home.

My father's confirmation certificate . . 1934

With Pinterest I can organize art into various categories. I now have a Pinterest board called "graphically", as well as a board of "art . grid composition", and another named "with symmetry". It's kind of amazing to me how my eye draws me into areas I would not have thought my mind was aware of; and how my eye informs my hand as I create. There's something about symmetry for me. Perhaps it is that part of me, within, that longs for balance in my life.

This blog is my journey in making art, and it suprises me all the time!

A fascination with symbology and script

"I believe in the language of symbols, because they carry the power to

transcend barriers, allowing us to travel beyond the barriers of culture, intellectual dogma, and ultimately personal identity." ... Juan Rosenfeldt

Mesopotamian incantation bowl

"Where there is a symbol, there is creation" ...

Stephane Mallarme to Jules Haret .. 1891

 

this appears to be a middle eastern 

chart of the cycles of the moon

I'm drawn to cultural symbols and script that

seem mysterious, in that they are unfathomable to me,

yet steeped in another culture's traditions, spirituality, 

lineage, and daily life . . books, paper, stone, wood.

Persian sale purchase document from the 1800's

Yin/Yang

Small folding manuscript in northern 

Thai script (British Musem)

Ironwood shaman's calendar

Pasir Dayak

The labryinthe at Chartres

Moroccan calligraphy, 19th century

A Sino-Arabic calligraphy panel by

Yusuf Chen Junhui

(translation: "praise be to God)

The oldest known inscriptions of a family tree
thought to show the names of emperors from the Chang Dynasty

from Sri Threads website

Nanso Satomi haken den by Kyokutein Bakin (1890),
one out of 98 volumes from his long novel, Yomihan 

Inscriptions on stone drums (Eastern Zhou Dynasty, China, 5th century BC)




Postage stamps as contemporary cultural identification symbols . . .

Using "asemic" (without semantic meaning) symbology in art . . 

Antoni Tapies

Two encaustic paintings from my Semiotics Series . . the symbols

are meant to be a mystery (asemic) and were chosen for 

the aesthetics of their graphic qualities.

Janna Gougeon 14 x 14 encaustic

Janna Gougeon, 12 x 12 encaustic

When I was young I wanted to be an archeologist, but that didn't seem very "practical". Then I discovered that there was something called sociology. That also didn't seem practical, as I didn't want to teach. So I chose to get a degree in psychology. Now, as an artist and spiritual seeker, my eye is drawn to visual symbols. In my fascination with the ancient (archeology), sociology (cultures), psychology (personal creation), I seem to have combined them all.