Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Alan Kitching - Designer - Artist

Alan Kitching - Designer - ArtLyst I just stumbled across this amazing artist who spoke last year in NYC at an event sponsored by Eye magazine. Vicky Heinlein's blog transported me there, backwards in time in a magical fashion that was all build on written language and its smallest's parts letters. With letters, words and worlds have been build. Civilizations and unique individuals all exist as the result of our ability to exchange information and build cumulatively on the knowledge of others. What would I be and where in what civilization would I live if not for the magic of letters. The ancient Egyptians ascribed writing as a gift from the ibis incarnated god Thoth. I am a worshiper at his temple and indebted to him for such a gift. Letters individually seem so small and insignificant like people, yet bound together by thought and laws commonly understood they have formed a force of unimaginable power and importance and changed the landscape of the known world and what we know of our selves.

Alan Kitching work for me, forces one to stop and reexamine the letter and the word, to see the magic and the beauty if letters, who together form such an interesting and entertaining group of types. I am happy that I live in NYC where it is not strange to be devoted to the beauty of letters and the worlds they have built, I am not alone in awe and wonder at the beauty of the temple that they as bricks have built. That temple of the mind rivals any built of stone in the history of humankind. The heights of its ceilings are not measured in physical distance but only by the limits of our collective imaginations.



Hundertwasser who I have known only through words and stories and the images in photographs and books would appreciate the vegetative and slow process that has cumulatively and in layer evolved over time into a thing of marvelous beauty with a power that transforms both you and me and the civilization of the 21 century that we are building together. I pray that the project that we have imagined will take hold and grow and build upon our salvaging and restoration efforts we have engaged in for almost seven years. Is it madness to be so optimistic about the future of a mural and a world that both seem to have been slated for destruction, if so we need to be a little bit crazy to survive. I know I am not the only one, that is the foundation of my faith and hope that Paradise in the world will be restored and shared in love with respect for all.



I also know that there is an all seeing intelligent and compassionate eye that see's all and knows all. It is in the mural in the trees designed and painted with such intelligence , knowledge and imagination by two friends one an artistic quest to produce a mural that imparts knowledge and shared beauty even if it is not consciously understood. The eye in the tree is shaped like the Ujad , the eye of Horus ore the all seeing creator Ra. They have created an amalgam with the fish which is a Greek symbol used by the early Christians in the catacombs of Rome as a symbol of the Christos or savior. The fish is a symbol of what is real but hidden like the soul or what C,J Jung called the Archetypal god self. In a closer examination of the eye you will note in its pupil which is shaped like a series of concentric and expanding or contracting circles there swims a little fish, who represents us. We were all made in the image of the big fish and made male and female. This idea in some of its earliest forms was expressed in the Vedic text like the Upanishads, as the Atman, Brahman reality, We are a holographic bit of that greater eternal and shared self, each on of us are on close examination reflections of that transcendent reality  The eye has bars that are self imposed because humankind and each of us has been given free will. Our gift and curse is our ability to chose for good or evil, to love , cherish and support life and ourselves or destroy that life . I see all this in an element of a large painting. Is that the intention of its makers or a reflection of me and my knowledge, experiences and prejudices.



I think not, in defense of my interpretation of this element of the mural the eye in the trees , I stand on solid grounds and others in the world of symbology will back me up. I am trying to get a scholar at the Jungian institute to examine my conclusions an support them. I was also a TAG student in my collage and received an A minus on my CLEP Test for the interpretation and analysis of advanced litterateur.

A painting like a poem or a song is composed of individual characters that are elements of a complex and often nuanced communication, each means something in and buy itself but when read as a whole take on a much deeper and complex message or reality. Hundertwasser in 1953 wrote an essay where he decried the visual illiteracy of the masses, people have eyes but do not see the realities in front of them ,Their powers of observation and there skills of deduction and reference are highly limited and flawed. Just go to any art show and listen to the conversations of the viewers and the wide and often shallow readings of the painting or art in question.



 Most people do not have the experience or background to appreciate art, or poetry or the beauty of an idea or imaginary construct. This is the fault of our collective and twisted priorities as a culture. In the  good old USA what percentage of our resources are spent on the Arts, fine arts or literature as a percentage of our collective budgets for sports and American Football where we allow our future generations to smash their heads together in what can amount to moral or paralyzing conflict. These number do not lie and are not exaggerated. Any court of law by international standards of decency and science would convict us of child abuse and our children removed from our charge.



Why does it matter? Because if we are to have a future as a spices on this planet we need creative and intelligent children who will grow up to do better and greater thing than we have done in order to save us from a sad and terrible fate.

 Many people may not understand what I have just said in this long and impassioned blog entry and may seriously wonder where I come from to speak or write about such things. What qualifies me as an authority. All my life I have feared the judgment of the masses and the brutality of their ignorance and there insatiable want or greed. I hid my knowledge and intelligence as many a girl has done so not to offend her les intelligent and educated suitor. Little about Albert Einstein Qualified him to write with his wife's help his first three papers. If Max Plank could have goggled him he would never have bothered to read or publish the work of a nobody in the world of science who worked in Zurich as patent clerk, What qualifies my experience and understanding is innate to my species and the cumulative wisdom of many that I have had the pleasure to meet thanks to the magic of the letter and the word made flesh in books. I was dyslectic as a child but with the help of a tutor learned to read. I latter scored (95%) on reading comprehension and have read many books.

We live today in a knowledge rich environment that is mind blowing , with access by many if they chose, Never before in human history has knowledge been so easily available. Knowledge and wisdom are unfortunately often distant friends, one does not guarantee the other.



My final qualification is based in experience, the experience of the Archetypal God/Self that Carl Jung the famous psychologist wrote about. I believe this is the source of all wisdom and the common ground of all world litterateur on the subject. It is the word made flesh in me that speaks and the letter

of the unwritten law.

I have attached images of the mural and a distorted Photoshop close up of the Eye in question. See for yourself.





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