Monday, October 02, 2006

Fudo Myoo and other Harbinger's of Change


Well, I've been promising to post this (or some example of my art) for a while now.
Sadly this painting was stolen from an exhibit in a restraunt. Fortunately, I had slides of it (it actually got accepted into the fairly prestigious regional Delta competition in Little Rock, AR, a little over ten years ago.)
I've covered the mythology of Fudo Myoo before, but here's a chunk from Wikipedia, for Westerners who might misinterpret him as evil or demonic:

Acala is typically depicted with a sword for subduing demons in his right hand and a rope for catching and binding them in his left hand. He has a fearsome blue visage and is surrounded by flames, representing the purification of the mind. He is often depicted seated or standing on a rock to show his immovability. His hair commonly has seven knots and is draped on his left side, a servant hairstyle in Buddhist iconography. He is frequently depicted with two protruding fangs. One tooth points down, representing his compassion to the world, and one tooth points up, representing his passion for truth.

To me, he represents many things, the calm eye of the storm, a warning against jumping to concluscions, as well as fierce and unrelenting compassion. And of course hope for growth and inspiration.

Speaking of growth, and inspiration, you should be seeing more changes in the Dragon in the coming weeks. More original art, for one, and hopefully some longer original writing. My restoration of a 1980 Vespa P200E is just about wrapping up, and I've been photo-documenting that process, so there should be a photo essay on that coming up soon.

I know I've been dropping hints, that my creative sap is starting run again, so while for the next few days I'll mostly be posting art from the Dragon's digital archives, I do think that soon, there will be some newer stuff here. There should also be some ruminations on art, craft, creativity and even commerce.

And of course, there will be scooters...

So stay tuned folks.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Stealing from artist is high treason. The slide doesn't do the painting enough justice I remember it well.

IBSANE

Anonymous said...

Loved the painting, congratulations, keep on the good work.

Peace.