Oliver Halsman Rosenberg /art/ & \text\

India 2012 *new drawings/paintings

2012-01-27T03:35:00.000-08:00

Back in my favorite living museum...India...eucalyptus paper, gouache, bird calls dancing in ears, temple views...back to the sacred geometry and spiritual iconography...unfolding flowers and stars with symbol of divine devotion with-in...

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(view from my outside studio)
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Rest In Peace Erik "DC" David Carlson (1982-2011)

2011-11-28T23:13:00.000-08:00

New Blog

2011-10-17T14:27:00.000-07:00

This new blog focuses just on my spherism/vibrational body of work. It's nice to see a concise thread in my work emerge over 6 years. I know the longer I'm working, the more it will all make sense to everyone else.

http://spherism.tumblr.com/

The tantra of imagination in the public sphere

2011-09-11T19:39:00.000-07:00

I'm a philosophy buff as well as being an artist. A favorite past time of mine is to take conceptual views of reality for test drives. After India certainly things made more/less sense when returning to America. Nonetheless, Public art/intervention remains a fluid form. Reality is the canvas, your body becomes the brush, and your intention becomes the paint (so to speak). When I say tantra, I point pack to its original and non-sexual definition, which is a "weaving" of the fabrics of reality, where all becomes holy and divine, and the launching pad for transcendence. As an artist, life becomes the ultimate creative act/action/experiment. As a lineage holder of the surrealist and atomic mysticism art movements I like to inject irrationality into the public sphere as an action, not only as a static image charged with symbolic potential knowledge. To weave play into the reflection becomes the intention.

My latest public action was a collaboration, mostly with my partner Djamilla, and some dear artist friends. I created for her a catalog of planets that she could fill in descriptions about. It was like a tourism brochure: "Don't like your planet? Visit one of ours!" Once it was filled out, she sold tours to people, and I used my body script to paint the boarding passes directly on the bodies of our customers (usually their right fore-arm). This was all done with a very straight face, as I asked them how long of a journey they would like to take (whether they wanted to travel one-way or round trip), and then I would send them down the line to my associates Frank Callozzo who was signing them up for Liability Insurance, and Shrine was making sure they had Collision Coverage. Anahata even showed up for some time to serve as the Galactic Linguistic Liaison. We called ourselves the Perpetual Epiphany Galactic Travel Agency, and probably sent 100 people on journeys.

The art in this piece for me is more in the intention of connecting people with imagination and play, where-as the results is the body adorned with different temporary paint indicating travel itinerary and types of insurance coverage. Our nomadic galactic office was temporarily set up at the Black Rock City art festival in Nevada.

Here are some pix of the crew in action. More detailed pix of my codes can be seen on my body art site: http://bodyglyph.tumblr.com/

Sphereism makes a come-back!

2011-08-24T20:04:00.000-07:00

The art techniques and vocabulary I develop often reach a certain stage of growth, and then put on hold till another time, while I explore a new modality. Like a room full of musical instruments, they remain in waiting till I choose to take them out again and play. Sphereism was a conceptual vocabulary I developed a few years back. Similar to how cubism was a way to re-see space, Sphereism is a way to see through space (conceptually), it intends to show how everything isn't actually solid, but rather made up of over lapping vibrations. At first I was doing highly esoteric symbols as vessels to contain knowledge about the nature of the universe, but after some time I figured perhaps this was over the head of the audience, so I decided to go supermarket low-brow. Cereal boxes, and trashy magazines became my new vessels to reveal the vibrational nature of "reality". When I saw this recent cover of STAR Magazine with "Plastic Surgery Confessions," I couldn't pass up the opportunity to alchemize this American trash, and elevate it to something perhaps higher...

Pix from the SpinCycle show opening

2011-08-14T07:19:00.000-07:00

Show is up till the 27th of Aug.
Hope you get a chance to see it in person, as these pix are pretty low res..

(me and David Aron, good friend and other artist in the show)
(me and mom, my first art teacher)
(opening)
(25 foot calligraphy scroll from the J.B. Blunk residency. Ink on paper)
(1 framed piece from a series of 7. Ink on paper)
(2 nine foot batik pieces. Dye on silk)
(Series of 10 energetic Kabbalah totems. Gouache on Eucaliptus paper)
(Kaballah diagram)

NYC exhibition coming up...

2011-07-19T20:58:00.000-07:00

Been BUSY! Wow.... heres the info on what's happening shortly....

Spin Cycle - a show by Oliver Halsman Rosenberg & David Aron

hpgrp Gallery
529 West 20th Street #2W
New York, NY 10011
212-727-2491
hpgrpgallery.com

July 29th to August 27th, 2011
Opening reception Friday, July 29th, 2011 from 6 to 8pm

Artists Oliver Halsman Rosenberg and David Aron present a show that explores spirituality, energy, the mind, and body in their show Spin Cycle. Both artists are influenced by Eastern culture and practices and channel that through their work.

Rosenberg has been traveling for the past three years to India and Indonesia where he has been studying traditional folk art. Much of his work in the show uses a channeled, calligraphic script evocative of Asian or Arabic font forms. This script is used to create larger forms and work as atoms, cells, or even organs, energy wisps and blips. He uses them like building blocks within beings, places, or to create time and space on the page. Some of the pieces use a batik technique he learned in Bali. The fabric evokes fluidity through material and the bright colors express immense amounts of light and spirit. In addition to these Eastern ideas and techniques, Rosenberg mixes in Jewish culture as well as Jewish mysticism in his large scroll paintings that hearken back to sacred texts and in his totem series based on the Sephirot of the Kabbalah.

Aron has been meditating through Vipassana, an ancient Buddhist technique from Burma, for many years. In contrast to Rosenberg’s vast use of color, Aron uses a decidedly monotone palette for this show with the idea that the simple and unburdened is of clear thought and something he wishes to attain. His main pieces are white painted, wood sculptures evoking a sense of togetherness or community or oneness, and peaceful protest with a happy ending. He uses universal, simple shapes to convey a quiet optimism.

As the title of the show implies, the exhibition incorporates circles and natural cycles but also is about cleansing; like the finishing off stage in a washing machine spin cycle. Although both artists come at this idea of cleansing from different angles, both have strong individual interpretations about the human condition and how one might start on the path of attaining a higher state of mind and being. Together they show us what our eyes may not see but what may exist right now under our breath.

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Oliver Halsman Rosenberg was a recent recipient of the J.B. Blunk residency in northern California. He edited the book “The Unknown Halsman”, a collection of the more unusual photographs from his grandfather Philipe Halsman’s archive, which Oliver also illustrated and designed. His work is in the Dakis Joannou and Berkeley Art Museum collections.

David Aron was one of the founding artists shown at the legendary Alleged Gallery. In the past few years he has traded urban skateboarding for making art and experimental music in the quiet country. His band Koi Pond will be releasing a new record in the near future.

This show is curated by Hanna Fushihara Aron. As the former Director of Little Cakes, she and her gallery graced the pages of everything from The New York Times, Paper Magazine, Tokion, to The Journal. She now lives in the Hudson Valley.

New text in Book

2011-06-10T12:32:00.000-07:00

Now that I'm back in NYC I have access to a bunch of projects I've been involved with that I never saw the fruit of. For instance here is the catalog of a Dali/Halsman exhibition up now in Pubol, Spain. I was asked to contribute text and wrote an essay about the alchemical influence on these two artists' collaborative work.

Statement of the day

2011-05-31T15:22:00.003-07:00

Existentialism was my modus operandi before I knew the word existed…the search for meaning has led me to destinations alluded to on philosophical system’s maps. …meandering through the forest of life, again and again passing over the same places, weaving, interlacing, memorizing the moss on stones, and watching as it grows each time I pass. My art is my map…my understanding of a certain path….my travel guide through different modalities of consciousness, which we can all wear as masks through the tragedy/comedy of life. The work is diverse, because it emanates from this place of open mind and experimentation, but each piece can lead back to specific philosophical seeds. I create work in series/suites…sudden bursts of expression after a process of understanding, where often times the process of creation mirrors the philosophical concepts visually. Different symbols/vocabularies/tropes emerge and then dissolve, and can be re-born years later in a new series, where they integrate, the way two schools of thought would come together to form a new way to explain what is “What Is.”
The past 3 years I have lived like a nomadic art history and art technique researcher, learning different traditions from different folk artists from cow dung painting in India to silk batik painting in Indonesia. Exchanging ideas at roots level. ..Injected with inspiration fuel from ancient caves and lineages of ancestral artists… I also come from a long artistic lineage. Past generation’s fresh Surreal juice has become fermented over the years, and as its caretaker, I sneak sips of this wine with my inner DaDa. My creative output finds the appropriate clothing for the idea it is intending to express. Categories I would check off, but not limit myself to include: Drawing, Painting, Site-specific Instillation, Photography, Video/New Media, Community Based Projects, Writing, Curating, Conceptual/Visionary Ideas.

Bali Batik

2011-05-12T08:21:00.000-07:00

Here in Bali, pushing my script into new mediums to see what the results will look like...

...found a Batik factory who transferred my ink drawings into wax on silk, and let me dye the fabric as I like...

fun/love/play

...my 2 silks gets boiled this weekend to melt off wax and reveal white space beneath...

...pix to follow....

Bali Songs

2011-04-26T18:58:00.000-07:00

More and more creative spirit is wanting to be expressed in the most effortless and joy filled way...too long I have tried to deny it, and now I just let the flood gates open...the force of the stream is carrying me into uncharted territories as it stops being about "art" and the "art world" and begins to be about something fresher and lighter...breaking free into the unknown...just happy to ride the dragon...as the dragon rides me...

Good Bye Blunk Residency....

2011-03-31T21:47:00.000-07:00

The last few days here have been sunny and H-O-T (just like the first few days were when I arrived in Feb.), forming a cold/storm sandwich, which kept me inside creating, but now its spring I can hang out in isolation, painting naked in a garden surrounded by humming birds...not bad for my last day...snuck inside for one last shot with the Blunk sculptures I have been living with every day...It's been so great up here...I worked on slowing time down by being as consciously aware as possible, so to all those people who told me it would go by real fast, all I can say is: I didn't even get here yet!

Virtual Open Studio 3 -Oil Paintings

2011-03-31T21:36:00.000-07:00

Virtual Open Studio 2.5 -Calligraphy continued

2011-03-31T20:34:00.000-07:00

These are the last pieces I made at the Residency, working on top of antique musical scores, and a print I made of my favorite Olmec Kuntz Axe...have to ship out of Inverness tomorrow..off to the next nomadic art adventure (Bali!)

Virtual Open Studio 2 -Calligraphy

2011-03-27T23:20:00.000-07:00

I've already written several times about this series elsewhere, so just enjoy the visuals this time...

Big update on the J.B. Blunk blog...

2011-03-27T23:19:00.000-07:00

http://jbblunkresidency.blogspot.com/2011/03/oliver-halsman-rosenberg-week-65.html

THE PIXEL SUTRA

2011-03-20T09:10:00.000-07:00

On this first day of SPRING I hereby release my digital short "The Pixel Sutra" into the virtual/non-virtual universe. May it have a long, healthy, and inspiring life!
(25 minutes run time, Thanks for watching)

The Pixel Sutra from OliverHalsmanRosenberg on Vimeo.

VIRTUAL OPEN STUDIO 1 -left hand/right hand drawings-

2011-03-19T09:48:00.000-07:00

I like to paint on my body my cosmic script. It has been an evolution to try to paint my right arm with my left hand (I am right handed). So I took up a project recently to develop my brain connections to my left hand.

In India it's called "Swara Yoga" when one learns to balance the left nostril "Ida" (moon/female/right brain/creativity) with the right nostril "pingala" (sun/male/left brain/logic), and then automatically the central sushumna nadi (third eye) is activated.

So I hold a pen in each hand, and simultaneously draw, letting each hand mirror the other. Here are some early sketches, and then more developed work towards the bottom. I have noticed that the left hand is now more "conscious" when I am painting on the right side of my body...

(These are all archival pen on paper)

Studio...preperation for open studios

2011-03-09T09:30:00.000-08:00

So much work in progress, hard to document everything...Lucky Leslie Williamson came over a few days ago. She's an awesome photographer who just had a book come out on artist's homes called _Handcrafted Modern_ (Rizzoli). As a personal project she's been documenting the artists in residence at the J.B. Blunk Residency for a few years. Posted a fun shot of me on her blog here:
http://lesliewilliamsonphoto.blogspot.com/2011/03/jb-blunk-residencyoliver-halsman.html

Ok, back to work.....

Stills from the "film" THE PIXEL SUTRA

2011-03-07T07:53:00.000-08:00

So as I use day light to work in the studio on oil paintings and calligraphic script downloads, I have been teaching myself Final Cut Pro at night. Editing a short "film", or rather a "digital short" because there was no actual film involved...just a billion or trillion pixels....

The vision came as a re-birthing/butoh theme, but I mixed it with another concept of re-examining the Buddha's Flower Sutra (Flower Sermon) in contemporary times, where the concept of the empty pixel's infinite potential replaces the flower. New times call for new metaphors to communicate the glory of the building blocks we so often overlook.

Also just saw a show of Tibetan Buddhist sculptures at the BAM, full of sexy dakinis and goddesses, so in a sense I continue in that tradition of using the vessel of the human form as a container for a teaching....

But if nothing else, Its a bunch of compelling images of nature and play, which are always good to have more of in our life...

Here are some still shots, and I'll post the complete 24 minute piece on vimeo when its done...hopefully by my open studio on the 19th. I'll make sure to have a link from this site.

Open Studio March 19th 12-4pm

2011-03-01T20:40:00.001-08:00

It's funny, I planned on updating pix everyday of the residency, but truth be told I'm just to busy making art. Come check it our for yourself!

RSVP to mariah@jbblunkresidency.org if you want directions to come.

1.5 hours from SF/Oakland area...

JB BLUNK RESIDENCY ~Day One

2011-02-01T18:14:00.000-08:00

Couldn't believe the sunrise this morning...feels good to know I'll be in one spot for 2 months...can unpack and feel grounded again after over 2 years of gypsying around...found a photo last night of a man riding an Orca (my power animal), and hung it over my bed....read a book on the Olmecs before sleep, and now day one, meditation and master cleanse (day one of ten), arraigned the art studio and oil paint supplies, took notes from Dali's 50 Secrets of Magic Craftsmanship, and waited for Fedex to deliver some oils I needed before I got started (they never came), tripped out on a dried manta ray, got started instead on transforming some baseball catcher masks into props for future scenes in my film...all the bits and bobs seemed to magically come together into some America's Next Top Shaman (Hi Gus!) spirit masks...worked on a bunch of other props to hide GoPro cameras mounted on dancer bodies, and called it a day. Now that its night, I'm gonna take a short nap and then do the tutorial for Final Cut Pro so I can edit some of the films I've already shot...

New shots from RE BIRTH film

2011-01-29T16:56:00.000-08:00

...can't wait to start editing this stuff together on FCP

New works on paper for sale at Triple Base

2011-01-28T09:11:00.000-08:00

LINKS MISSING, 2011 Gouache and Milk Paint on hand treated paper

more at:
http://basebasebase.com/index.php/flat-file-artists/oliver-halsman-rosenberg-2/

Flea Market Props for Art Film Costumes

2011-01-27T12:10:00.000-08:00

Art is alchemy....
Can't wait to transform these elements from the flea market into costumes for my film...
Off to the residency in a matter of days.
So excited!

Hawaii Rock Spirits

2011-01-27T12:02:00.000-08:00

I have a panoramic setting on my new camera which captures horizontal scenes by creating slices of reality and gluing them all together. I took this shot in a car and when I looked at the close up I saw I captured an amazing face. I have a close up, and then one with a rough outline to show you where to find it if you don't see it at first. This was taken just after meeting the King of Atooi.

Interview in Resource magazine

2011-01-27T11:44:00.001-08:00

Nice little 8 page article on my grandpere, Philippe Halsman, with quotes from me and my mom....

FILM stills

2011-01-18T14:22:00.000-08:00

...fresh from Hawaii...

...started creating footage for my butoh egg rebirth sacred script film...

...Djamilla was my first rebirth dancer...

...gonna shoot more and work on editing while up on my J.B. Blunk residency...

Kingdom of Atooi's new "Minister of Creative Cultural Arts"

2011-01-18T14:16:00.000-08:00

Blessed to meet the King of Atooi when I was in Kauai. I asked if I could be the "Minister of Imagination", but I think that was a bit too far out for the Queen..

4th dimensional musical compositions for 13 Crystal Whale Skulls

2010-12-06T22:31:00.000-08:00

@ Adobe Books Backroom Gallery on 16th street in SF/CA Dec 2010

-Since 2003 I have been channeling a script, which I felt was musical, but since I do not play any instruments I wasn't quite sure how to decipher it. The script energy began asking to be placed on my body, where invisible energetic lines exist are drawn out. I began doing this 'conscious body art' on myself, as well as therapeutically for others with positive results.

In 2007 Bay Area musician and producer Anahata Pace saw this script and was able to vocalize it (imagine dolphins making love in space). I began to compose linear arrangements for her, and continued to work on healing body glyphs for those I cross paths with [which I have also learned to tattoo permanently on the body due to the volume of requests]. During the opening of my 2010 JAPA show at Triple Base, Anahata sung a 13 foot scroll I composed for her while I was in India.

I call this group of 13 compositions '4th dimensional' because, instead of progressing like a typical linear musical score, the whole song is seen at once. I look forward to one day doing a concept album with Anahata.

here are a selection of pieces from the show (gouache on paper)

ART ROAD TRIP with KORI GIRARD

2010-11-05T13:28:00.000-07:00

We did it in INDIA and NEPAL in 2009. Now we drive thru America's South West. On the road collaborative art making experience. Images to come...

The last word....

2010-10-11T09:39:00.000-07:00

The sketch/notebook I started in India on 2/10/10 was just completed on 10/10/10 at the 13 Crystal Skull event in NYC. As an artist, I always appreciate peeks into other's creative process, so I decided to share with you some pages that contain doodles, concepts, and sketches from my life over the past 8 months...

getting closer to the point

2010-10-03T14:30:00.000-07:00

The "stick and poke" tattoo method uses dots to build up shapes and tones instead of the lines that a tattoo gun makes. Pointalism on the body. Here are some sketches playing with the technique.

Artists Speak: Oliver Halsman Rosenberg

2010-09-27T12:08:00.000-07:00

Mini interview on this blog:

Artists Speak: Oliver Halsman Rosenberg

J.B. Blunk Residency Artist 2011

2010-09-16T14:30:00.000-07:00

Dreams do come true!

I was one of 4 artists selected for 2011. I'll be there for 2 months in nature...so super grateful to come off these nomadic art wanderings and be able to ground in an amazing space with an amazing legacy...

http://jbblunkresidency.org/

S P A C E to P A I N T

2010-09-16T14:05:00.000-07:00

NY is great for inspiration...

but suffocating in terms of space...

I felt the urge to paint my cosmic glyph caligraphy large, but with no studio I headed to central park last week with some house paint and a pink Italian sports newspaper and used an amazing amphitheatre as my nomadic NY studio. Met a really sweet man when I was done who was just there to blow big bubbles all day to touch the hearts of kids. If anyone has been following my art, I went thru a whole phase dealing with spheres/bubbles, so it was a wink from the universe to have this guy show up when I was done. Ouroboros style....

New zine available now...

2010-08-27T08:31:00.002-07:00

Hello friends,

Pleased to announce the release of my new (zine) publication
(Vice into Nice Age Publishing catalogue 2010)

I don't have enough time to write all these books, so I just drew the covers...
13 Pages, hand signed and stapled. Contact me if you want a copy....

Pix from Sweden

2010-08-27T08:31:00.001-07:00

Big group show of SF artists curated by Andrew and Breezy of the extraordinary Needles and Pens gallery/zine/DIY clothes shop. Kyle Ranson flew out to do some site specific work and I joined him in collaboration and did a solo mural too as well as having smaller work on paper for sale (available here)http://www.krets.info/. Cindy, Anna, and Jonathan did an amazing hosting job. Thanks Krets Gallery. Thanks Malmo.

OHR mural

detail

detail

Gallery Krets

Kyle and OHR collab

detail

Kyle and O

Group show in Malmö -Opening Aug 14th

2010-08-05T16:21:00.000-07:00

My friend Kyle Ranson and I will be doing some site specific mural painting, and showing work along side SF´s most talented. Curated by Andrew of the wonderful Needles and Pen´s store.

4 new books hot off the press

2010-07-24T06:47:00.001-07:00

2 new ones from the fake book cover series

2010-07-03T05:39:00.000-07:00

Totem 4

2010-07-01T08:11:00.001-07:00

Totems/sepherot 10-4 completed. 3-1 (original female aspect, original male aspect, and creator) to be completed (hopefully) in Sweden in the coming weeks....

Acquired by the Berkeley Art Museum

2010-06-24T01:15:00.000-07:00

2 collaborative pieces I made with my friend Kori Alexander Girard in India last year were just acquired by the Berkeley Art Museum. :)

Mercy (Chesed)...totem 4

2010-06-16T08:28:00.000-07:00

Art and life's edges often overlap and blur... This totem series has a sub theme as I work from totem 10 to totem 1 I follow kabbalistic themes. Last week I began totem 4 (chesed) and 3 (Binah). Which images to choose to create the totem's architecture to explore these themes? I've been drawing a lot from my drawing from babas at the kumbh mela, as well as photos I took of butoh dancers at the local butoh school here... so totem 4's theme is mercy/love, which is very much like buddhist theme of compassion (Bodhisattva), or vedic practice of karma yoga, where the ego is surrendered to be of service as the highest path of connection with the Source, which is in an eternal/continuous state of giving, providing our consciousness with maya to experience, as well sustaining the physical world with a ground for our physical bodies (as well as all other unfolding/decomposing manifested reality).

So, as the theme of compassion and surrender has been on the mind even more so these days, its no surprise the universe reflects in experience what the mind is focused on. Last week on my walk from Dharmkot to Mcleoud Ganj I met a tibetan monk who wanted me to help him practice english pro-nun-sea-ation. I went back to his humble little room and we read _Doctor Dolittle_ together. In his room he had a little shrine set up with images of HH Dali Lama, and Green Tara, and about 12 little bowls filled with water, which were offerings he made every morning for the liberation of all sentient beings. Later in the day I discovered a huge magical ritual sea shell hidden on a shelf in a tailor shop, and after some tai chi bargaining acquired it. From that day forward I have been using it as my "bowl" to pour water into every morning as I put out my intentions to be of service and play my tiny role in the liberation of all sentient beings.

This opportunity has manifested recently as a chance to be of service to an old man I had seen around town over the past few weeks... He has a long white beard and always is getting around with the assistance of fellow travelers. From a distance he inspired curiosity, because traveling around India alone as an elderly disabled person seems very daring/trusting/risky. But recently I had a chance to get to know him and I was very surprised by what I learned.... I was helping him try and vacate his room, and as I was zipping up his bags I saw how neatly everything was packed and folded... I complimented him, and he told me he had been traveling continuously for the last 42 years... wow! I felt like helping him was like connecting with my grandfathers in some way who I never really got to be of service to...(ancestry as totem pole)...so in my head I tried to do the math...he looked about 75 or 80 so I figured he had be traveling since he was in his 30s. A little later I asked how old he was, and he told me 58 (which is younger than my father!). It startled me, and it meant he had been traveling since he was 15, and hadn't shaved since he was 18 (he looks like an old testament jew), but 4 years ago he contracted Parkinson's disease, so his relaxing life of non-stop travel and independence (he didn't want the responsibility of home/family) had drastically turned into a reality of dependence and physical tension.

Somehow I felt like I was seeing a future reflection of possible self, overlapping with now moment self... twice since I've been in India I have manifested illnesses with in my self when I my independence was butting heads with a relationship type situation, and in both cases not until I surrendered to dependence/interconnectedness did my dis-ease dis-appear. So this is what I am learning about mercy/love/compassion ...as I take a break from painting to slow down and spend 5 hours just helping him do very simple tasks (fixing zippers, counting money, paying bills, helping him go to the bathroom, back and neck massages, etc.), I am experiencing this interconnectedness of all of us. As I hold his shaking hands I experience deep vipassana like bliss moments. There is no end reward for service, the process is the portal... To embody that mercy/love is to loose ego self and connect with higher qualities of what it means to be human.

I think back to another old man I met on this trip in India who is living a far different experience. Baba Shyam Kisore Das, so sits and sleeps under a mango tree by the bank of the Ganga in Rishikesh. He is in his mid 60s and has spent his entire adult life as a renunciant sadhu (saint)practicing karma yoga. Everything he gets he gives away half, and he never wants more than what he needs for the next day or two. When I would bring him bananas, he would give one back. If I brought milk he would make us chai tea. If I brought half a kilo of whole wheat he would make us chapaties... As I sat with him every day for a period of weeks it was amazing to watch this flow of energy play out...The more he gave, the more he received. He has a simple satvic diet and a skinny emaciated frame, yet he would show me the most incredible yoga moves where he can stand on one leg, with the other foot resting behind his head and flapping his arms like a bird (garuda asana).

Something I learned in Zohar class recently was that giving takes place in many forms. (Giving with expectation. Giving without expectation...) But the highest form of giving is: to allow others the opportunity to give by receiving. So this is this dance I am having with these two old men...(2 versions of myself played out in the future for me to engage with and learn from)...mercy and love, the play of giving and receiving....

The next totem (3) is "Binah" understanding, the first manifested female principle.... I've already done the skeleton draft, and its filled with birds, eggs, and nests... curious to see what will unfold in life as this totem is worked into....

4 new totems....

2010-06-09T23:17:00.000-07:00

Working my way down to the Crown.....

Titles:
Totem 8
Totem 7
Totems 7-10
Totem 6
Totem 5
(all gouache on eucalyptus paper, 2010)

New Totem Series

2010-05-26T22:38:00.001-07:00

In Dec 2009, after a year in India, the first place I went to in NYC before I even saw any friends was the Museum of Natural History. In the basement there is a hall filled with Totem poles and masks from the Pacific North West coast Indians....This is where I went to ground...with the sacred spirits of the land I had just returned to. I've always had a strong connection to the spirit of the native peoples more than the western culture that has sprung up on their ancient land....perhaps it was those pow-wows my mom would take me to as a child which activated some inner affinity.... I've wanted to do a totem series for some time, and now that I have the opportunity to work large again (temporary studio during this nomadic journey), sketches of sadhus from the Kumbh Mela, as well as Kabbalistic concepts (subjects I'm currently exploring) are working their way into these unfolding and vibrating energy totems....

Titles:
Totem A
Totem B
Totem 10
Totem 09
(They are all gouache on eucalyptus paper)

2 New Fake Books

2010-05-26T22:34:00.000-07:00

I Heart Books

2010-05-16T06:26:00.000-07:00

Wow...Since I've been In India I've read so many mind expanding books which tickled my intellect...plus they have weighed be down, and taken up a lot of room in my small baggage ...needless to say, books have played a big role on this nomadic journey, ....that is until recently when I began to feel completely overwhelmed by all the knowledge I had exposed myself to....My system crashed, and part of my recovery process was taking a fresh look at the role of the book's surface/cover...I invented a title, and gave my creativity a break by using found imagery from this trip (covers of books I'm actually schleeping around, match books I found at the Kumbh Mela, and old etching some westerner did of Indian myths a couple hundred years ago). These are all pen on Nepali rice paper... probably 8x12

Some more of this series which can be attached to a clock so they rotate

2010-05-16T06:18:00.000-07:00

Horizontal or Vertical???

2010-03-08T21:41:00.000-08:00

Please vote in the comment section...

I always rotate my abstract paintings as I am working on them. At the end I decide which way works best. Instead of deciding, maybe it's better to attach them to analog clock and have the painting rotate through out the day? Curious to know which you think works best of these 2 choices (I can't decide), horizontal or vertical?

(horizontal)

(vertical)

NEW PAINTINGS

2010-03-02T21:56:00.000-08:00

These recent works are approx 10"x7", mixed media (mendhi, incense, and gouache on Madhubani cow dung washed paper)

These works are available for sale at this gallery: http://projects2ndfloor.blogspot.com/

Two Late Feet

2009-12-31T03:42:00.000-08:00

Thoughts:

Drawn to the banks of the river of truth…observation can tell only so much…to watch the rapids, to find the pools of stillness….. one must jump in and merge with it and become it to truly know it. I want to write about feet, and history… not necessarily the history of feet, but exploring how symbolically one stands in ‘reality.’

First these terms, as I understand them:
Reality…this seamless shared perception experienced and interpreted by the sense organs and the brain, which is an ever-flowing trinity (ripening arising, fresh now, rotting passing).
History…subjective record of rotten now moments.
Feet…our rivers of action and stability/stillness.

So then, most of us are victimized by our perception of reality, and the limitations we unknowingly place on ourselves, which have been handed down quite naturally over time. Mimicking and shadowing those who have happened to come before. This is a faultless non-conspiracy view of what is. Of course its easy to suggest that there are powers that be that want to suppress natural intelligence, but in this story one imagines themselves as the victim, a dualistic role which defeats the purpose of higher intelligence whose goal is unity (awareness of self as Self and the subsequent natural merger which takes place).

There is a comfort one falls into through a life time of patterns reinforced and therefore expected, and when the pattern breaks one goes through a mini crisis, needing to mend their reality into an understandable shape (like trying to turn a Jackson Pollok into a Mondrian). But this Mondrian-esque life of knowns becomes a labyrinth of yeses and nos. Operating with a limited interface system closes one of to the dynamism of what is. Maybe it is too radical and too uncomfortable for people to completely throw out their concept or view of what life is. After all, they are happy (or are they?) to continue with their 90degree lifestyle. And maybe that’s fine. In fact, it’s perfect.

I often try to interpret my understanding of philosophical concepts as visual forms. For instance, I wrote a short story about how each one of us is like a thread woven in a giant quilt through time and space. Our actions and personalities can be imagined as a particular ‘design’ and ‘color.’ So let’s say the creator of the quilt would enjoy a portion with red roses against a black background. The few roses would be dependant on the mass of black threads that they need to define their edges and give them support to exist.

So this quilt of life, like a river treadmill, forever being created from our actions and inactions, appears underfoot out of no where, and then disappears behind us into ‘history.’ Logic would suggest that if one examines the pattern of the past, one should be able to predict the coming pattern. Lets say there is a pattern of: fire rows of red roses, one row of yellow roses, a fire truck, 40 days of rain, and 333 humming birds, then when the next row of five roses appears, one could assume the yellow rose/fire truck/rain/bird scenario would follow. But here’s where I believe we get the whole learning from history wrong: maybe where I’m standing on the river/quilt of unfolding time and space it looks like a fire truck to me, but my neighbor sees a roller-skate, and someone down the block knows for sure it’s a t-bone steak in a doggie bag. Through time these subjective interpretations of truth are passed down as history. Edited, revised, disseminated, taught, and called fact.

This collective history is some sort of conceptual framework that creates the illusion of structure. Us, them, that, there, here, etc. Of course it can be comforting if one identifies with the ‘victorious’ and ‘advanced’ heroes of history, and it can be oppressive and unsettling if one identifies with the marginalized (of course the trick is to liberate yourself through non-identification). So should history be scrapped, especially since we can’t seem to learn from it anyway (Holocaust/Rwanda)? Perhaps it’s a rash idea because it suggests we would loose so much knowledge as well, so only on a personal level should one experiment with moving beyond the trappings of history (personal and otherwise).

Since I have returned from India 1 month ago I can help but notice the love affair Americans are having with their hand held portals to the virtual WWWorld, the Jungian collective consciousness, the tower of babble, connecting us all, from home made porn to Iranian street demonstrations caught on mobile phones. What is to become of history as we conceive it? Will a clean objective narrative still be created and attempted to be passed on, or is it just too over whelming at this point? Too many voices?

Jean Cocteau once prophetically said filmmaking would only become an art form when the tools are as inexpensive as pencil and paper. Perhaps the same can be said about history. While major corporate networks subservient to corporate advertisers still have the largest broadcast scope, the web becomes the medium of the next millennium, but in the process creates a navel gazing culture, where all feel more comfortable looking into their palm portal instead of the mystery of a stranger’s eyes. What this means for culture is a question whose answer we all get to live and help form.

This brings me to the subject I really want to talk about, the phrase found in businesses all over the country “No shoes, No shirt, No service.” I noticed in my most recent art exhibition at Gallery Mary Smith & Friends that I had grouped a bunch of paintings and drawings together because they all suggested feet in some literal or abstract form. This work was created during my year in India where not only did I see a lot of bare feet, read about the foot in yogic texts, made sure I didn’t point my feet directly at anyone which is a sign of disrespect, but I also enjoyed feeling the earth under my own feet. Raymond Duncan (brother of modern dance inventor Isadora Duncan) once said something to the effect of: intelligence begins with the foot. Reflexologists can tell you that the many nerve endings on the sole correspond to internal organs, and a palm reader I met was convinced that by doing a series of exercises he showed me (which stimulated the foot’s nerves) one could grow new lines on your palm, which reflect growth in your brain as well. There are also many sculptures of feet in relief at Hindu shrines which represent the feet of god one is supposed to bow down and humble him/herself before. Feet also come up in Buddhist texts as a place to look for symbols that identify reincarnated lamas. And then there is dance, of which I am happy to surrender to and allow my feet to take over for a change. As I found a richness of foot culture in the East, I couldn’t help remember a phrase branded in my sub-consciousness: “No shoes, No shirt, No service.”

Now I don’t know the history of this concept, but at first glance is seems to be based on two ideas: cleanliness and economic elitism. What it creates in its wake is a sort of shame or judgment about being shoe-less. It’s not hard to see how obsessed shoe/boot/sneaker as accessory our western culture has become. The shoe is no longer just for function, now it’s almost exclusively about form. It’s become a symbol of individuality and economic success. No judgment, but lets take a broad look at some of the results of an anti bare foot culture. My first impulse is to talk about litter, and imagine that if we were all bare footed people would be more conscious and aware about disposing of garbage (broken bottles for instance), but just having returned from India, despite the bare feet, it would seem people do not consider this when they choose to litter, as many glass shards and other dangerous garbage could unfortunately be found just about everywhere. But, as a barefooted walker I was forced to become more aware of each step I took, so I didn’t mindlessly walk into glass or cow patties. This slowing down is a meditative technique as well, which brings your awareness out of the whirlpools of the past and the hot tubs of the future. So, litter aside, lets look at our relation to nature here in America. Could this sign, which is found at most gas station convenience shops and fast food restaurants, have created an environment where grass and woods have been replaced by concrete and pavement?

Ever unfolding nature will eventually reclaim the lost land, Which can already be observed as weeds break out of deserted strip mall parking lots like a 5’o-clock shadow. But, can we reclaim our personal nature? I feel the foot is a good place to start. In this constant race from experience to experience, the image that manifested itself to me which demonstrate the alternative, was that of a young sadhu (renunciate/ascetic) in Omkareshwar doing morning yoga standing for long periods balancing on one foot. Yes, the world and experiences will be eternally spinning from unripe to rotten, but if we can find our inner flamingo, and plant ourselves to the earth and breathe then we begin the shift back to our inner nature that has been buried beneath the distractions of this modern world. As our physical foot becomes rooted and more sensitive, the mind falls into place, and we can root our mind in the subtle fields of ‘what is’. Here is where the desired union can begin to first hold hands and go to the movies together. As the practice develops one begins to see the joy in surrender, and how energy had formerly been exerted in chasing fantasies. With nothing to achieve, or desire for success, there is an overwhelming feeling of contentment as you have found your way back to your natural path. Now if this path is to find a cure for cancer, invent the light bulb, or compose music then the energy put into these tasks is coming from the pure source of universal wisdom. Good luck!

Love,
Oliver Halsman Rosenberg
Dec 30, 2009

a drop in the void

2009-12-19T13:17:00.000-08:00

My old blog www.daytg.blogspot.com was a beautiful doccumentation of: my attempted journey to India in 2006, the 2 years in NYC before I actually got there, as well as pix from my year long travels there in 2009. Now, as 2010 approaches I feel a shift from doing strictly doccumentary blog work, and would rather just explore posting images of my art and thoughts that I seem to think I need to share...

Introduction

2007-05-27T07:24:00.000-07:00

Like a family tree, where ancestors shed light on present incarnations, I will use this blog format as a linear system to explore the development of my art. Often times I am asked what kind of art I make. This perhaps is the most dificult question for artists to answer, and in my case it is espically dificult because most of my work stems from philosophical concepts, and takes on many forms. The more work I produce, the more I see patterns developing in a spiral format. I may explore a theme for several months, move onto something else, and pick it up again a year later -this time from an evolved point of view or implementing new techniques/process/materials. I will begin ten years ago (1997) after I graduated Skidmore college as an art major, art history minor, and work my way to the present, and then use the blog to archive new projects.