Star-like *

Did you know that the earth makes a light pattern like stars? … *!*
(Click to see this image at it's full size & be fully rewarded !!) * * * ** *

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I have a little treasure I'd like to share with you all:

It's called the Astronomy Picture of the Day. Every day there's a new cosmic/astronomical photo and small description and every day it's BEAUTIFUL !!

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod

Depending on when you see this, you might see a different image! There are also archives to browse through...loads of beautiful information at our fingertips!


Enjoy the beauty that is part of this world we belong to. This world we are part of. This world that we are.



(Photos thanks to APOD. !)

We are all made of stardust **

This is my new art. I've come to think of the body as a canvas... the most precious and beautiful of all canvases because it is ALIVE ! I love the impermanence of spontaneous body art. . . its fleeting nature as a work of art. . . which is why - as much as I enjoy drawing on my body - I have never seriously considered a tattoo for myself. The body is a beautiful canvas in that it is constantly changing, constantly growing new cells as others are shed, healing, moving, beating, pumping... it is ALIVE !!



As of last fall and this semester, I have been increasingly fascinated with star patterns. I grew up seeing these patterns in my hometown sky where the amount of human light pollution is minimal, where I could sit on my driveway and stare at a dark canvas full of white dust/snow/faraway fireflies/stars . . . Stars are everywhere!!

I create the beings I am about to show you by first painting directly onto the human body, photographing, and manipulating via computer. I begin each body by painting stars on top of a person's freckles and then adding to the spaces between. . . I like to think that I'm merely exposing what's already there.

The face represents the peace & serenity that comes with being of one mind with the universe~
The shoulders represent the unity of body with the universe~
The image of a being looking out across space represents the spirit & an active experience with the universe~

Whoever separated "man" and "nature" must have been half-asleep. We are so connected to the earth, the trees, the water, the sky, the stars...! We have the same veins that carry blood to every part of our body, just like trees do. We need water and room to grow, space to breathe. Our bodies are made up of almost the exact same percentage of water as Earth itself. Our eyes are perfect spheres, like small scale models of stars. . . .

The more I think about it, the more I am confident that the world really is just one big organism. I am just a small scale model of a larger whole.






( we are all made of stardust ** )

Circles & The Number 8

a drawing from my new sketchbook**a tangle of 8s

So I might have a few obsessions, as you may be able to tell... I like to refer to them as more of "fascinations" rather than obsessions. Trees ** and the number 8. Why??? It began as purely an aesthetic thing. I didn't have a favorite number, so I thought to myself "I like 8...because it looks like an infinity turned on its side!"

∞8∞

An 8 can also be written as 2 circles, one on top of the other...and the circle is a powerful shape. Artists such as Kandinsky recognized the special qualities of the circle in their art...

The circle, he wrote, is “the most modest form, but asserts itself unconditionally.” It is “simultaneously stable and unstable,” “loud and soft,” “a single tension that carries countless tensions within it.”


"Several Circles" by Kandinsky, 1926

This past December, my painting professor (remember Filo?!) sent me this article all about the Meaning of Circles. . . At some point it talks about the circle in nature :

Life as we know it must be lived in the round, and the natural world abounds in circular objects at every scale we can scan. Let a heavenly body get big enough for gravity to weigh in, and you will have yourself a ball. Stars are giant, usually symmetrical balls of radiant gas, while the definition of both a planet like Jupiter and a plutoid like Pluto is a celestial object orbiting a star that is itself massive enough to be largely round.

It goes on to talk about the eye: a perfect sphere inscribed with perfectly circular irises pierced by circular pupils.

“The shape of any object represents the balance of two opposing forces. You get things that are round when those forces are isotropic, that is, felt equally in all directions.”

So, there is a b a l a n c e that exists within the circle and the sphere... a balance in every direction. This idea is so interesting to me !!



Just some things to think about . . . *

( read the whole article here )