The Automatic Prophetic Drawing of a Bug.

When I draw I start making marks on a page and I have no idea what is going to come out.

Sometimes I just start lightly scribbling on paper.

This drawing (to the left) ,which I have entitled "The Beheading" is a good example of this automatic drawing process.

What triggered "The Beheading" was a blotch on the wall of a coffee shop (Allan Brother's on Hilyard Street in Eugene, Oregon). The blotch suggested a shape--a man's profile and I pulled out my sketchbook to make marks on the paper similar to the blotch on the wall.

A few days later I had finished the drawing, working a few hours a day.

I didn't know that I was going to color in the drawing until right before I did it. For the color palette I decided to used the colors I found on a leaf: green, sienna brown, scarlett red, and golden yellow. I added the blue because it was the color of the sky and leaves and sky make nice juxtapositions.

I like the automatic drawing process because I am always surprised at what comes out. It feels like it comes from deep inside my psyche rather than from my brain. It seems free and wild like a mustang rather than being in harness like an old plow horse.

There was an art movement in the early 1900's called Dada which led to another art movement called Surrealism. Both of these groups practised automatic writing and drawing. The technique of automaic drawing was invented by Andre Masson and practised by Andre Breton, Salvador Dali, Jean Miro and others. I didnt invent it and I am thankful to those that did and went on to use it so successfully.

In my drawings sometimes what comes out is dark and disturbing and I think "Oh, that will never hang in someones dining room."

However, I try not to judge the work. (There are enough people around to do that for me!) I try not to stop what comes out, but get myself out of the way. It feels like I am prophesying but with images rather than words.

The graphite pencil drawing of the man pulling at his mouth is another example of automatic drawing.

This one, entitled "Mouth-Puller", started when I began scribbling on a big piece of paper with vine charcoal. I was heartbroken and going through a break-up with my wife and was living in a friend's basement. It was a dark time in my life and this image had to come out--had to be birthed.

Now, I will decipher for you some of my artistic code; if you look to the upper left corner of the drawing you will see a dim sun on the horizon. To me the sun seems threatening and poisonous as if tainted with radioactivity. To me it represents God, the Universe, the hand of Fate.

When I drew this I no longer felt trust that everything in life would go well. I no longer trusted the Universe to be kind to me. Rather, it seemed as though the Universe hurt me in an uncaring scientific way. As if I were a bug in a jar.

Do you see the black sunflowers under the figure's left hand? Notice the title of my blog?

I will leave the meaning of the black sunflowers for another day. If you write a comment to me and ask what is the meaning of the black sunflower I will tell you. It has a lot of significance.

Thanks for reading my blog and for looking at my art. Please leave comments--I really like to hear feedback, it is almost as good as getting a letter in the mail.

It seems as though there are two types of images that I create: one type are the surreal images such as the Birth-Giver drawing (above this writing, on the right) and the other is more expressionistic such as
The Scream. (The image above and on the left.)

I created both of these images last week. The Scream at the beginning of the week--immediately after a panic attack at school--and the Birth-Giver, Friday night, during which I felt much more at ease--I was eating a sandwich and drinking a pint of IPA while drawing; there was also a fire blazing in the wood-pellet stove.

During the execution of both images my mind was almost a blank and my hand moved as if it were moving around on a Ouija board; automatically. (I would never play with a real Ouija board--I have heard some hair-raising horror stories about the use of those things.)

I did make minimal, conscious decisions, for instance before drawing The Scream I knew that I wanted to capture how I was feeling. I chose to draw the outline of a face, but then the unconscious impulse took over.

I also felt nudges as I drew, but other than that--and the conscious choosing of a color palate for Birth-Giver-- I stayed pretty much out of the way.

I always get surprised by what comes out. It feels as though I am tapping into a big, underlying current. It is immense, hidden, and pulsing with electricity. It makes me think of the time I put my hand on the concrete surface of a hydroelectric dam and felt the hum of hidden power.

This buried current comes out of me in images and symbols. Faces appear in my art and walls melt away into flesh. Sometimes the faces are stretched into screams. Sometimes they are half-buried and wrapped in roots.

I am also reminded of Carl Jung and his idea of the Collective Unconscious and how the same symbols occur, among various peoples, again and again: on cave walls and engraved in stone or cut into charred sticks, but always the same symbols--mandalas, spirals, labyrinths, stars, and cross shapes.

I don't understand it all and even though I do try, I am glad that I don't have all the answers.

It is these feelings of mystery and tapping into something bigger that myself that I like so much about doing art in the way that I do art.

I have heard of automatic processes before: the Surrealist automatism of the Surrealists such as Andre Breton and Andre Masson--among others--and also in the free-writing styles of people such as Natalie Goldberg who wrote a book that has helped me to write; it is entitled, "Writing Down The Bones."

Do you, dear reader, create in a similar or different way? I welcome your comments and feedback.