Notes from the Author Liba Waring Stambollion:
“Divining the Dream” is about remembering, reclaiming and rejoicing in our common divinity. It is a thought provoking quest for love.
I have woven the poetry and art of sixty artists and twenty-five poets together with my own, to produce this global expression of love. 
I chose material inspired by dreams, meditations, archetypal stories and icons, social and ecological situations and trance states.
The book has no chapters, but quite shortly you might note that it follows the romance of our divine mother and father as they weave the wheel of the year. Moving through the solstices, equinoxes and the forgotten holydays which originally marked the beginning of our four seasons, we follow both their dance and our own heart. Dancing in the same rhythm, through our familiar humanstory, from birth to growth, decline to death, we rise so high and dip so low. We are on a hero’s journey: harvesting lessons and revelations.
Painters Aloria Weaver and David Heskin along with Delvin Solkinson (editor of CoSM Journal) have gifted the book by proofing it with me.

To see some pages of the book, watch this slide show:

Sacred Expressions from Women  is a 120 page visual and poetic journey which unfolds through Love, the Goddess and God, creation, nature, introspection, mythology and compassion.
Aloria Weaver helped me bring together and select images from some of the most talented women painters in the visionary art movement.

Much of the work in here can also be found in the Dreams & Divinities edition: Divining the Dream (also check book preview and links on top of this page)


Participating Artists: 
Martina Hoffmann, Brigid Marlin, Maura Holden, Wessi, Amanda Sage, Gabriela Garza Padilla, Autumn Skye, Helena Nelson Reed, Elisabeth Slettnes, Liba WS, Aloria Weaver, Joanna Angie, Sarah Zambiasi.
I have taken the images and laid them out with poems from a selection of women poets.

Participating poets: 
Hazel Archer Ginsberg, Aleah Sato, Ingrid Andrew, Andrea Freeman, Gabriela Garza Padilla, Helena Nelson Reed, Aloria Weaver, Liba WS.

With these jewels, I have created a book which celebrates our dreams and divinity through beauty.

Vision without action 
is a day dream, 
Action without vision 
is a nightmare. 
- Japanese proverb

Post by Otto Rapp 

posted by Otto Rapp

Wandlung, a book by De Es Schwertberger
Sinnbilder 1963 - 1973
Small Square (7 × 7 in / 18 × 18 cm) 88 pgs Standard Paper

posted by Otto Rapp

Post by Otto Rapp

I had recently posted a tongue in cheek spoof about a 'artspeak generator': 
INSTANT ARTIST STATEMENT

OK, now I am trying to get a bit more serious here - 
below is a picture and quote from the blog Translating Artspeak (who in turn took it from an article in the Arts & Culture section of the ChicagoMag (January 2014): 

The quote:
“With his keen knowledge of paint’s spatial effects, the artist exploits the transformative qualities of color applied directly to the architectural frame.”

The Translation:
 The artist painted a mural. 

Of this English upper-middle class speech we may note (a) that it is not localised in any one place, (b) that though the people who use this speech are not all acquainted with one another, they can easily recognise each other’s status by this index alone, (c) that this elite speech form tends to be imitated by those who are not of the elite, so that other dialect forms are gradually eliminated, (d) that the elite, recognising this imitation, is constantly creating new linguistic elaborations to mark itself off from the common herd.
—E. R. Leach, Political Systems of Highland Burma: A Study of Kachin Social Structure, 1954
........................read MORE

but to be fair, here is the critique, if you will, of the above essay, by Ben Davis:

INTERNATIONAL ART ENGLISH
 - THE JOKE THAT FORGOT IT WAS FUNNY

“International Art English” is back. 

The essay of the same name, penned by David Levine and Alix Rule and published in the online journal Triple Canopy one year ago, touched off a minor furor with its attempt to prove scientifically that the art world was a hive of pompous windbags — that is, that the official language of art was a linguistically meaningless jumble of buzzwords written in a tortured style imported from French theory, a claim the authors said they could verify through running 13 years of press releases through a computer. 
..................read MORE

But if you prefer humorous, then by all means, check my earlier blog 
INSTANT ARTIST STATEMENT

Strange Lands
A Field-Guide to the Celtic Otherworld

Post by Otto Rapp

Click the image for a preview of the book

About the Author:
Andy Paciorek is a graphic artist, drawn mainly to the worlds of myth, folklore, symbolism, decadence, curiosa, anomaly, dark romanticism and otherworldly experience. He is fascinated both by the beautiful and the grotesque and the twilight threshold consciousness where these boundaries blur. The mist-gates, edges and liminal zones where nature borders supernature and daydreams and nightmares cross paths are of great inspiration.

About the book:
Strange Lands is a deeply researched and richly illustrated information guide to the entities and beasts of Celtic myth & legend and to the many strange beings that have entered the lore of the land through the influence of other cultures and technological evolution. 
At nearly 400 pages and featuring over 170 original illustrations, Strange Lands is an essential accompaniment for both the novice and seasoned walkers between worlds.
The following text from the foreword by Dr Karl Shuker ~ 
"Right from a child, I have always been fascinated by mythology and folklore, especially the rich corpus originating in the British Isles, and I have read very extensively on the subject. However, I can say in all honesty that Strange Lands is one of the most comprehensive single volumes on British mythological entities that I have ever encountered. Even Dr Katharine M. Briggs’s essential tome, A Dictionary of Fairies, universally acclaimed as the standard work on such beings, now has a rival in terms of the sheer diversity of examples documented. 
And where Strange Lands effortlessly outpoints even that classic work is of course in its illustrations, which are truly breathtaking in their beauty, intricacy, and vibrancy" from the foreword by Dr Karl Shuker

Post by Otto Rapp

Published at Blurb - preview the book HERE

Post by Otto Rapp

Hardcover 
large format landscape 13 × 11 in / 33 × 28 cm - 80 pages, premium paper, lustre finish.

also available as
Softcover 
standard landscape  10 × 8 in / 25 × 20 cm - 80 pages, premium paper, lustre finish.

In the early nineties Peter Gric started to discover the possibilities of computer graphics for his paintings. From then on his organic-surreal visual imagery was enriched by complex architectural structures and artefacts. In place of using pencil and sketchbook he began to design his compositions with a 3D visualization software, he started to transfer the virtual reality into painting and consequently found within this fusion to his very unique and distinctive stile.
This method is most obvious in his “Artificial Spaces” series. These paintings are based on three-dimensional geometries built with something like a “virtual building block system” or other mathematical and algorithmic concepts. The creation of these images becomes a play with complex spaces and perspectives in order to create normally non-accessible places in a completely artificial arrangement of space and light. By translating these virtual concepts into paint, Gric attempts to enter into those artificial spaces, and render them tactile. He seeks to give form and substance, bringing them out of their virtual state to a substantial manifestation.
In addition to his Artificial Spaces Gric also experiments with the human nude combined with mineral, technoid and architectural structures. Despite the fact, that the bodies of this “Mnemosyne” series are often dissolved and fragmented, he wittingly obtains or even emphasizes the erotic component. In this series his fantastic and surreal origin is most apparent.
In this book, Gric shows most of his works that he painted during the years 2000 to 2010.

Deterioration of Mind over Matter

Unbelievable - to be listed among some of the worlds famous artists - and for the List25 author Petr Habarta to pick my work as the title image! This work is one of my earliest, dating back to 1973 and it is from a phase that I jokingly refer to as my "Scare thy Neighbors" period.

here it is on DeviantArt - with the background story: 
http://fav.me/dser0i
acrylic on canvas, 20"x28", 1973

One painting, entitled “The Deterioration Of Mind Over Matter” is a frightening picture of a decomposing human scull firmly ensconed on some devilish birdcage in which the raw gore of mans physical being lies lifeless at the base. The parting flesh of the scull is secured by a tromp-loeil safety pin. This is truly an image that could have been utilized in the former issues of “Tales From The Crypt”, in fact it brings to mind in its own scary way the imaginations of Edgar Allan Poe. The poem, “The Conqueror Worm” comes to mind immediately:
But see, amid the mimic rout
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes! - it writhes! - with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And the angels sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued.

Excerpt from the critique by J. Brooks Joyner, Editor Visual Arts, The Albertan, Saturday, May 29th, 1976

Post by Otto Rapp

I can't help it - whenever I find something totally insane on the internet, I have the irresistible urge to pass it on.

Tired of racking your brain trying to squeeze out yet another artist's statement extolling the unique virtues of your latest net.art joint? Do you lapse into fits of involuntary muscle spasms every time you hear the word "immersive" in casual conversation? 
Then search no further -- 
http://www.playdamage.org/market-o-matic/


I could have added my own work, but I just love the insanity of this! 
Check out Rebranding on Computer Fine Arts  - and their re-branding of Teletubbies

The matrix creates, the empire permeates. In the trans-gender hallucination, art objects are resurrections of the imaginations of the matrix -- a matrix that uses the empire as a zeitgeist to deconstruct ideas, patterns, and emotions. With the rationalization of the electronic environment, the matrix is superseding a point where it will be free from the empire to transcend immersions into the parameters of the delphic hallucination. Work of Post-Art in the Age of Symbiotic Reproduction contains 10 minimal flash engines (also referred to as "memes") that enable the user to make mystic audio/visual compositions.

measuring chains, constructing realities
putting into place forms
a matrix of illusion and disillusion
a strange attracting force
so that a seduced reality will be able to spontaneously feed on it

Otto Rapp's work investigates the nuances of vibrations through the use of fast motion and close-ups which emphasize the Symbiotic nature of digital media. Rapp explores abstract and scenery as motifs to describe the idea of infinite hallucination. Using loops, non-linear narratives, and interactive images as patterns, Rapp creates meditative environments which suggest the expansion of art...

Update August 22nd 2014
for the sake of balance and fairness, I penned a new blog exploring this a little more seriously:
ARTSPEAK - from the sublime to the ridiculous

Post by Otto Rapp

Thank you Scott for including one of my works and a short text contribution in your excellent article. 

One of your lead sentences that summed it all up was:

"The idea that you might train a surgeon to be clumsy, or an engineer to build poorly, or a lawyer to ignore law, would be patently absurd. In the arts, however, you will find an occasional musician who purposely plays badly, or a writer who ignores grammar, but only in the visual arts is training in the traditional skills of the profession systematically and often institutionally denigrated."

Allow me to elaborate a little on my contribution to this article. The teacher I spoke of, lets just call him Professor B, was also a ardent follower of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, the art school that was first introducing Conceptual Art into Canada, and the first to eliminate traditional art classes, almost a decade prior to my student days at the University of Lethbridge.  While studying at the UofL I also worked part time as a Gallery Assistant to Professor B, the Gallery Director, who was also my printmaking teacher. The story about his classes is retold in your article, so I won't elaborate here. I would like to state however that I found that the UofL Art Department, then chaired by Professor H who was my painting teacher, had resisted the new trend of eliminating traditional courses, and my best and most useful classes were in Figure Drawing. It was only some time after I graduated when the Conceptual trend took over and I was shocked on subsequent visits to my old Alma Mater how misused and mistreated the studios and equipment in the former Printmaking, Sculpture and Ceramic Studios were.

But lets rewind to a specific event. I believe the year was 1979 when through the visiting artists program Garry Neill Kennedy was invited for a guest lecture. These were usually combined with a exhibition at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery. Kennedy employed art students to apply successive layers of different colored paint onto the exhibition space, ending up with the final color rust-brown. Just prior to the opening he scraped an area off a outside corner with a knife to show the underlying layers of paint. This installation was called 'Revealing'.
A throng of admiring students gathered around him (he was by then already a celebrity) and I joined the question and answer session. At one point Kennedy stated that "in this world there are only about a half dozen people that understand my art", to which I replied "if visual art is a form of communication, and as the saying goes, a picture speaks a thousand words, then I would think if only six people understand you, you fail to be a good communicator". After a short spell of silence he said something like that I am funny, haha; and his body language excluded me from the circle of sycophants.

A year passed, and my Professor B went on sabbatical. The Art Department squeezed by, by not replacing him but dividing his course load among the other faculty. I was Gallery Assistant at that time and for that year, entrusted with running the University Art Gallery. The department Chair, Professor H, had signing authority, but he basically handed me the keys and named me Assistant Gallery Director. This also included looking after the UofL Art Collection during that time. Ironically, the local phone extension to my little office space I was given was 666. I found this extremely funny!

One of the first things I did that year was to change the scheduled Student exhibition from the Saturday Afternoon Pop and Donuts opening to a formal Friday Evening Wine and Cheese reception, like all other shows received. I then got in touch with Prof.B at his sabbatical hide-out in sunny California and asked about the schedule for the following year, since there was none, but needed to be published. No answer. I discussed this with the Department Chair Prof.H and he said to 'go ahead and make your own'. There were some Provincial Artists I scheduled and displayed. At that time the new Fine Art Wing had been built and we moved. To celebrate the opening of the Fine Art Wing it was suggested that it should coincide with the opening of a International Exhibition. Since I scheduled travelling to Austria at that time already I suggested the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism. I got in touch with Rudolf Hausner in Vienna, and he invited me to his home. Laden with information he gave me - and he also sent me more books and catalogues after - I then wrote a  essay for this proposal once I returned to Canada. Long story short, I was shot down. The 'Nova Scotia' connection had gotten stronger by then in our far flung Western Province, and to suggest pure and highly skilled painting for a exhibition that was supposed to be also the opening of the new Fine Art Wing was considered sacrilege.
And that, at least in my mind, was the beginning of the end. Cultureburg  had finally taken over the rest of Canada.

To put this into perspective, check out the background of the main-player in this development in Canada, the afore mentioned Garry Kennedy, at that time president of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design .
Tim Zuck recalled about his student years, "I didn't paint at all there. In fact, that wasn't even an option. I think if you painted in Nova Scotia at the time you would be tarred and feathered." (Abstract Painting in Canada, Roald Nasgaard, page 338)
In retrospect I now understand the question put to me by the curator of the Edmonton Art Gallery (now called the Art Gallery of Alberta) when I submitted a painting to a show called "What's New" (October 1976).  He mockingly said "What, you still paint?" (but they did take it, I might add).