I was without paint for a long time and I had these dregs of oil pastels that were OK, that I did some shapes with, but that I wasn’t totally happy with. I liked the creatures I made from the oil pastels but in the past I’ve used oil pastels along with acrylic or I’ve just used acrylic alone.
Now that I have paint, I’m in a frenzy to use up every drop. I love when paint lives thickly on the canvas. I’m wasteful with it, I put huge globs directly on my canvasses and I like seeing heavy pools of paint. I love when it takes a long time to try. I love when it is messy. I like pushing liquids around and seeing what they do.
So I had a few creatures. A dog, a frog and a fox. The fox was, in its other version, a lioness, but globbing the paint on to enliven and update her, a fox revealed itself. Who am I to stop the fox from being birthed from the lion? When I first did this one a while ago (before the version you see now)—I had a dream of a lioness standing on a high sand ledge in a Sietch Tabr-like place. No people were there. This lioness looked down on me. She was covered in paint/blood. Red. A small twisted tree was next to her. I was scared of her, she is a wild animal! She looked like she wanted me to come near but I was too scared. If you’re an astrology buff, please know that I have Venus in Leo in the 12th house and the Ruler of the 12th in the 11th in Cancer. ;)
So when I painted over the lion and it revealed a fox, I thought of that dream. I hope I don’t upset the lioness. but maybe this new creature has something to say as well.
For a long time, the oil pastel version of The Frog was on our bathroom door. He’s vulgar and has something happening with his vagina. It always looked like pee or something crazy. I don’t know. I felt like he should definitely be made of paint and he’s the one who looks most like his original form. I was really excited to do splatter on this canvas because I think it reminds me of going to the bathroom and everything going wrong. We’re going to have to get him back on the bathroom door. He’s a denizen of strange swamps.
Then there is the dog. I really love the colors on this one. I’d done a metallic Jupiter symbol for my Jupiter altar a while back. And I’m currently moving away from planetary magick to move toward a less structured practice. Especially because my dreams and canvasses are visited by these beings. I think it’s more important to build up my own internal consistency with these symbols right now. Rather than try to impose an external symbol system upon them. I don’t want to organize them into existing esoteric categories, I kind of want to know them for who they are. But because this canvas initially had a metallic Jupiter symbol on it, I’m not sure I can separate the esoteric Jupiter from this painting. It reminds me a lot of a sketch I’ve had up for a while in our house: my alien dog. But this dog feels like it is a robot companion.
Something incredible was happening with the colors on the layering of this painting and I haven’t yet figured it out so I think this might be unfinished. Or it might have a companion piece that expands on what I found here:
It feels really nice to have these creatures in our apartment at the moment. I may or may not sell some of them in the future but right now I’m just getting to know them. I used to sell my art but it’s so hard to get rid of my creatures. I start to love them. They’re part of the family. I think sometimes that I’ll put them in my online shop, beside my astrology offerings, but selling a painting feels like it takes something from me while doing astrology consultation feels like I’m giving something to someone. I think it is because I am a total sponge of information and theory and astrology is a deeply social thing. It’s about society and psychology and history. It is a communication format. I don’t know if I’m necessarily communicating when I paint, I think it is closer to adopting pets or talking to gods. Which really might be the same thing. Oh, I wish I could have a pet but our finances are too unpredictable at the moment. It would be a lot for us. But I get to watch my friend’s cat at the end of the month and I’m looking forward to that. At my house I can really just afford these strange painted pets. I was doing pet sitting for money for a long time and I loved it but it is pretty difficult to be running around town while also needing to carve out time for astrology and auditions —-which is where I prefer to make money. I wish I could do it all. But at least I get to see my friend’s cat. We have a great friendship, me and that cat. And my friend of course.