Showing posts with label folk art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label folk art. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 8, 2022

The Witchy Magick Season: Art, BVM and Apparitions

 My art groove is back. Rearranged my paranormal library; here's my Marian Apparition shelf. 


I'm keeping my Doreen Virtue Mary Oracle deck, even though Virtue's turned against the occult and became born again, denouncing her past heathen pagan ways. I could have sworn I had more books on BVM apparitions.

Years ago I put together a free PDF e-book on Mary as Trickster on Lulu.com. You can download it here.




Speaking of apparitions, I recently completed this:


Apparition, acrylic and ink on canvas, 18" by 20"


Back to the Marian apparitions topic, I did this collage about a year ago:


Dollhouse People, digital collage

The collage was created by using a photograph of a pasture where I saw a dollhouse just sitting there in the middle of nowhere. I added the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, then played with the color on the computer.

And this of the Blessed Mary, done about a year ago:


UFO Mary, oil pastel on paper

I have a blog titled UFO-Mary, but due to Google-Blogspot password insanity, I can't access the blog.  Very frustrating! 


Sinister Spirit, acrylic on masonite, James Rich

This painting was done by my husband. I had posted it at my UFO-Mary blog. As someone commented, it has a Buddha like feeling. Jim and I both thought it looked like an abstracted goddess or BVM figure.




Samhain Dance, acrylic and ink on canvas, Regan Lee

I painted Samhain Dance last month, October, the witchy season. 





Sunday, March 6, 2022

The Case of the Curious Dollhouse

 Which remains unsolved.

I found this photograph as I was working the book room we're clearing out. It was near an envelope from the U of O, Folklore Department. I majored in folklore there; and yard art, outsider art was an interest of mine, still is. So I know I spent a lot of time taking pictures of yard art, things I found along the way, colorful mailboxes and folk art, especially religious or spiritual inspired folk, or outsider art. (The two; folk and outsider, are not necessarily the same thing.) In fact, the photo was near an envelope full of photos I took at the Saturday Market, where a woman who went by the name of Sister Bear decorated holy cards and night lights of Jesus and Mary.


I have no memory of taking this photo though. None. What an odd thing to find; a dollhouse in the middle of a pasture. Just sitting there. The area looks to be in the Lorane area, a rural area right outside of town, an area I drove through all the time and still do.

This will make a very neat mixed media, collage piece! 







Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Random Sketching, and Looked What Showed Up

Didn't mean to, it just came out that way. The ubiquitous aliens-in-the-bedroom drawing. Here's the original:


And then I played around with the color enhancement thingie and this felt right (as if there is anything "right" about this realm.)


We've seen these before; these drawings of faceless, ghost like beings peering down at us while we're asleep and unaware of the presences surrounding our beds.

I've written before that I have memories of little "wolf like" (gray, short, jabbering) beings surrounding my bed when I was a child. Jim, my spouse, has had similar experiences. (The Synchronicity of Puppet Wolves: Binnall of America 2007)

In looking at this sketch, I realize these entities are not all that short -- not the typical gray alien so commercialized and now a non-event in pop culture. The gray has replaced the little green man from mars as cartoon. Prevalent and used to promote all manners of entertainment. Yet there is one little guy (that's how I think of him, without thinking of him…)

What does all this mean? I'm not to say. I don't know. This not knowing annoys some. As if, because I've had these experiences, I should somehow know. I wish to hell I did know. But I'm not a prophet. I have some theories that are in constant stages of movement. A dance, and all performers come together in one beautiful display but abruptly break apart, flowing back into an alleged chaos. I continue to research and speculate and explore with others their experiences, but I don't know. I guess. I dream. I draw.  I manipulate the memories, hoping to evoke some truths out of what's hidden inside.


Monday, June 27, 2011

"Clown Selling" : Circus Offers Therapy for Clown Fear

Wasn't sure where to post this exactly, so I'll just put it here. (Er, clown "selling?" ) Anyway, speaking just for myself, I don't exactly have a fear of clowns; I just find them disgusting, creepy and dishonest. But if you suffer from a fear (as compared with just plain old disgust of sleeze, cheese and nastiness) you can now get clown therapy, or some such: BBC News - Circus offers 'clown-selling' for people's big-top fear. And oh hell, yeah, I am a bit scared of them too.

Saturday, November 8, 2008

The End of the World As We Know It by Daniel Wojcik


NOTE: this wasn't done by Wojick; someone else did this and put it up on Youtube about Wojick's book. I have no idea if Prof. Wojick has seen this or not.

Well, this is a neat find. I was a student of folklore Professor Dan Wojick, author of this book, and my little contribution was to share my UFO library with him, for which he kindly acknowledged me in his credits. Professor Wojick is also very interested in Marian apparitions, (though I don't know or not if he shares my views on UFOs and Marian apparitions.) He was a great professor, his classes were all very enjoyable but more importantly, took a risk and addressed aspects of both folklore and Fortean type phenomena that not too many academics do.

Wojick is also interested in folkart, including folkart that has to do with UFOs, aliens, etc. Send images his way if you have any and are so inclined, or send them to me and I'll forward them.







Read about McMinnville UFO here!

Check out my published content!

Friday, September 21, 2007

Images that zap





I've seen hundreds of images of the "typical aliens" or what we think of as "typical aliens" in our current culture. I'm immune; no flashbacks of repressed alien abductions, etc. But now and then an image of "them" jolts me; gives me a deep physical nervous feeling I can't shake. The cover of Strieber's Communion did that to me.

The cover to Mike Oram's "Does it rain in other dimensions?" doesn't "scare me" -- I find it charming and familar (and okay, maybe a teeny bit "creepy") there's just something about it.

I wrote about this reaction I have someitmes to certain images from the anomalous realm on my Trickster's Realm for Binnall of America.com: Unexpected Reactions.

Here are some more images that just kind of zapped me over the years. On some subconscious level, these images just kind of unnerved me a bit.







Now I realize that none of these are of the real thing; a real photograph, video or film image. They're representations, interpretations of things some people say they say. They're not "real" in that sense. But art is an expression, and a communication, it is a type of folklore passed about. (ie folk art, etc.) Look at our current pop culture and its alien iconography. Even so, sometimes an image tugs at us, some memory, or acts as a reminder, or starts a process that pings one thing inside us and leads us to another place, and another. . .

Thursday, August 2, 2007

Fatima Oracle Cards

Arrived while I was gone. I mentioned the other day I wasn't that keen on the design of the Fatima oracle cards, but they're not that bad, kind of interesting. To my surprise, I liked using them. Can't always tell just by the art work and appearance of divination cards; you have to use them, go by other factors as well. For example, I wanted to like the "Mermaid" deck but after handling it I actually found it creepy, and didn't buy it.

The Fatima deck has 32 cards; very simple.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Alien Ride Roller Coaster




I like this story: Alien Dreamer, by Daniel Joshua Rubin for The Motley Fool. Bryan Temmer, after a lot of rejection, will see his dream realized in Roswell, New Mexico for an Alien Abduction Roller Coaster. A dream, an obsession, a hope, Americana, aliens, -- it makes a goofy sense.


(image source:ROBERT COKER:ROLLER COASTER, 2003)

Sunday, January 7, 2007

MY CAT’S NAME IS ROSWELL : UFOLOGICAL INTEGRATION


image source: http://www.rion.nu/v5/archive/000371.php
rion.nu v5



Really, it is. We found him ten years ago; he was the most freaked out little thing I’ve ever seen. One night, I heard this awful yowling; it just wouldn’t stop. I couldn’t take it any more. It went on for a couple of hours. I went outside, found that the sound was coming from a house across the street. Looking around, I discovered the sound was coming from underneath the porch. I could see a tiny little black and white kitten (a hell of a noise coming from such a small thing) and I tried to coax it out but no way was he going to leave. Yet he wouldn’t stop yowling.

What surprised me was the complete lack of interest from the neighbors. Already at that time we had a reputation; one neighbor did step out and say to me, “Oh, we wondered when you’d come out and get it.” Some people. (And what of the people who lived in the house? Oblivious. I find that astounding.)

I kept leaving little bits of food, further and further away, until he came out, only to run back under the porch. After a few days he came out and stayed on our porch. While I kept agreeing with my husband, who said, every five minutes, “We are NOT keeping him,” I knew better. So did he. (He’s the one who said, “Where’s our heating pad? Poor little guy shouldn't be out there in the cold.”) Next thing we know, he’s in the house.

The name Roswell fits; he’s a happy though slightly hothouse pampered little thug of a cat, never going outside since his traumatic brief life outdoors. We’ve tried to put him out; he won’t have it.

When I say my cat’s name is Roswell, almost everyone gives a slight, startled, brief little laugh. A few have paused and said, knowingly, “Roswell, eh?” then I realize I’ve entered a dimension, a secret society of people who know. He/she too is “into” UFOs , and so the conversation begins. Others are aware of the name and its place in pop culture, but don’t go further.

Maybe I’m wrong about my firm opinion that the infrastructure will never allow things like full disclosure, scientific respect and investigation, etc. (At the same time, I’ve also always maintained that the lone squeaky voice needs to be heard and maybe, over time, all that nudging will bump the paradigm enough to cause a shift, no matter how slight.)

Maybe I’ve been too harsh. Jeremy Vaeni’s recent piece in this issue of UFO Magazine,: Whose Time Has Come?, suggests that we put it all out there, without expectations, or offense. Yes, the meme of alien probes appears in sit-coms, from the mouths of talk show hosts and comedians. Corporations appropriate abductions; the Energizer bunny shows us how well its batteries work, even while being sucked up into the Mother Ship. While “they” may think they’re diluting the phenomena by trivialization, maybe they're also, inadvertently, helping us all to acknowledge the reality.

Yes, let it be known that 2007 heralds the arrival of the new phase: The complete integration of ufology into normal everyday acceptance by the average person. Gone are the days of paranoia and demanding the truth. Gone are the days of highs and lows, the peaks and valleys of public clamoring.


Vaeni urges us to just put it out there, and not expect everyone to get it, because they won’t. That’s okay Don’t take offense; just put it out there. My cat’s name is Roswell. You get it or you don’t. Some may even snicker. I tell them I have a UFO blog. They can Google me, ignore me, or back away, slowly.

The inspiration for Vaeni’s piece is his review of the book U.F.O., written by four artists “with philosophical and anthropological underpinnings.” (Vaeni.) Part of that inspiration was the search for the identity of a graffiti tagger who calls himself (or herself) UFO. Vaeni describes the graffiti art:
UFO tags the city with bulbous-headed alien and fiery spaceship spray art.”


The artists who wrote the book U.F.O. discovered that this graffiti image has appeared all over the world, including Thailand, and that the image is a replica of the symbols found in Australia, painted by the Wanjina.

Vaeni interviews one of the artists involved in the book, Jack Warren, who told Vaeni:
If you’re going to write an article on this book, I think the story is that we’re bringing this [ufology] to the broader public.”


Vaeni says something very important about UFOlogy and the general public’s interest:
”We’ve been trying to shovel legitimacy down the public’s throats for decades now, haven't we? This is real! This is real! Pay attention! They did; they didn’t; did; didn’t, like a tide. then the tide stopped. We thought the field was dead.”


Vaeni believes that this yo-yo effect is done; now we’re entering a phase of above board acknowledgment of aliens, UFOs, the anomalous.

He may be right.

We’re not quite finished yet.

Discussions about the book U.F.O. continue on graffiti blogs.
The
Razor Apple blog
has a very different take on the book, and the author’s (who are also artists themselves) exclusion of U.F.O., the tagger:

Last week, U.F.O. showed up in disguise to chat with Combustive Motor Corporation at the release party they held to push their book. Though no minds were changed, the discussion continues on Suckapants. Intentional or not, we agree this book exploits U.F.O. and his work. Conducting an “urban anthropology” on U.F.O. without involving him is unethical and exploitative research by any definition.


Worth noting. Another layer to the phenomena.

My background is in folklore and, aside from UFOs and related topics, my other favorite area was folk art. Graffiti is certainly folk art. This does bring up questions of appropriation, or maybe just laziness. The issue of the artists being ignored is a personal one with me; being an artist myself, and married to one, I am acutely aware of the treatment of artists in communities. (For example, using the artists art to push/sell institutions to corporate and municipal entities, all the while either ignoring the artist, or treating them like an embarrassing bastard stepchild. They will use our art, but they don’t want to stink up the place with us.)

There’s a parallel here with some of those who study UFO cases, from the chronic skeptic to the UFO researcher, while ignoring the witnesses. At some point, and this is true in the case of anti UFOists, the witness is long forgotten.