MINERALARTS: Iron and Thorn

It’s good to be working on the Moon Oracle again.  Finished the first of the eight Stones drawings.  These will depict various round white quartz and chalcedony pebbles in the geological environment where they are found (which is sometimes, though not necessarily, the environment where they form.)  This one is for the First Quarter Moon and was drawn from one of my photos.  There are several similar archaeological sites near my house, with grinding holes/bedrock mortars in granite outcrops along major washes.  When the Hohokam lived here, these places would have had mesquite bosques where people came to collect and grind the sweet pods for food.  The holes almost always have nearby petroglyphs depicting spirals or concentric rings, perhaps associated with water or the with the work of grinding.   

I found the two pitted and “eyed” chalcedony pebbles on the bajada near my house.  The pits on the pebbles reflect the grinding holes, and the concentric chalcedony layers that are revealed in the broken pebble mirror the ancient weathered petroglyphs.

Two happy boys - they are best friends:

I finished the last of the Stick drawings.  This one represents the Third Quarter Moon.  For some reason, this is the most stylized and least realistic of the series, though that wasn’t intentional.  Minor changes will be made in a couple of the drawings before printing, but for now you can see how they all look together on the Moon Oracle page:

http://www.mineralarts.com/artwork/MoonOracle.html

The 8 Sticks are only half of a 16-card oracle.  With the next moon, I’ll begin drawing the 8 Stones that will complete the project.

I’m working on several paintings for a poster presentation that I’ll be taking to a botany conference in two weeks.  The poster is mostly about using handground mineral pigments in egg tempera for botanical illustration, but will also include scratchboard art and a couple of craft projects like this:

Jaguar Tracks in Blue Oak Canyon  10″x14″

Amate (Mexican bark paper, which represents rocks), muscovite and biotite mica flakes and powdered pearlescent mica pigment (flowing water), copper foil (blue oak leaves), gold metallic powders (acorns), silver scratchboard (forefoot track), red ochre (hind foot track), malachite and azurite pigments (the moon, and the copper ores which are found in the canyon).

TURQUOISE has been turning up more frequently in my art recently, and it looks like that will continue for awhile.  I have an ambivalent relationship with this stone.  I’m not fond of most turquoise jewelry or its various cultural trappings - my attraction to it is much more primitive.  My favorite cuts are the round “donut” discs with a hole in the center, large smooth but irregularly-shaped beads, and some very simple cabochons.  When I use it in jewelry, I’m trying for a look that is primitive but universal - something to display on a blanket on the ground, that could have come out of a trader’s pack yesterday or three thousand years ago.  I just finished this necklace of hammered and hot-forged copper, African cast-glass beads, a Chinese turquoise donut, and an antique Chinese cast-bronze bell (this is OLD, and the subtle design on the surface was worn and obscured long before the beautiful patina developed).  The bell has a lighter, more tinkly sound than my iron bells.

A few days ago, turquoise entered my creative life in a different way when I accepted a commission for a lion doll made with the same pattern as the one on my website.  But this one is to be a Tibetan snow lion, white with a turquoise mane.  I am already having fun planning his blanket and ornaments, even though I won’t be able to start on the project until after the botany conference.

For the Waxing Gibbous Moon, the Stick Oracle shows a gate built of two heavy Arizona madrone branches placed in a pile of stones on a small island.  The young bark of madrones is smooth and dark red, so it is shown in black here.  Older bark is nearly white and is broken up into small square blocks.  The poles crossing the forked top are made of peeled branches.  Old stumps, repeatedly healed after fire damage, fade into the background.

Just in time for the First Quarter Moon - the corresponding card in my Stick Oracle, showing two forked staves marking the confluence of two creeks.  Although carefully sketched before inking, these Stick cards (six so far, with two to go) have had a lot of reworking as each develops on the way to the completed drawing.  When they are done, I will make minor changes in all of them to improve the way they fit together.  All are powerful images for me, from long ago and far away - they seem to have always been with me.  Although several of them have motifs in common with the Wands in the Tarot, they are more complex than that (for example, they have water as well as wood and stone). 

I bought myself a Winter Solstice present:  silver scratchboard by ScratchArt.  It comes in packages of 10 8″x10″ sheets for about $8.00.  Basically it’s a sheet of smooth aluminum foil laminated to cardstock and coated with a thin layer of black ink.  The ink layer is thinner than the Ampersand Scratchboard (Claybord Black) that I usually use, and is easier to scratch off - but the foil surface quickly dulls the knife edge!  It is better suited to a curved blade rather than a pointed one, though I use both.  I will enjoy using this for crafts, gifts, or personal projects - obviously it doesn’t photograph or print well, but the effect is dramatic and very appropriate for winter.

A year ago I had a dream in which I walked in a dark, windy marsh and was told, “A true healing shaman blows noon, with breath like molten silver.”  This would have been quite inspiring, except that I have hardly had the breath to blow out a candle for the past 25 years - and candle flames seem to get bigger and more stubborn each year!  So what does it mean?  Either I’m attempting spiritual work that I shouldn’t be doing, or I might unlock some healing energy if I work more with a metal that I’ve always approached with some ambivalence.   A reading on the subject gave me the Ore of Spikes/Ace of Wands.  So here on silver scratchboard is an object inspired by an older dream of a split silver wand that sprayed stars when I held it.  Here it’s depicted as the lichen glyph for the day after the Full Moon, which is the day that I had the dream last year.  A way of setting one intention for the year - to forge more silver.  I like using blacksmithing techniques to work with heavy silver rod, but the Moon Metal is less forgiving and more unpredictable than steel - it tends to writhe under the hammer, and can crack or twist without warning.  But it has a lively tension that is not seen in cast or fabricated silver, and it’s a good match with blackened steel.

My next oracle project is a set of 16 Sticks and Stones cards.  The Sticks will depict twigs, wands, and staves along the Oldest River, and represent moon phases as well as the eight “fire festivals” of the solar year.  Four of these drawings are completed.  The Stones will show various types of naturally round white moon-like chalcedony pebbles in their geologic environments.  These are just pencil sketches so far.  I hadn’t planned to post about this oracle before it was finished, but yesterday I completed the Winter Solstice/New Moon card.  Since this year’s Winter Solstice is close to the Full Moon, I’ve posted the Full Moon/Summer Solstice card as well, for comparison.

The Winter Solstice or New Moon card shows the the Oak Maze, Daedalea quercina, growing on a rotting stump.  Water or ice trickles down the labyrinthine pores of the fungus and seems about to split it in half.  D. quercina is a woody brown bracket fungus that grows on dead oak wood and often persists for many years.  The gills (platelike structures on the underside of the fungus, where the spores develop) are unusually thick and interconnected in this species, creating fascinating and beautiful maze-like patterns.  The drawing was made from a specimen that I collected in Virginia many years ago.

The Summer Solstice or Full Moon card shows a stick shelter made from stacked and interwoven cottonwood branches.  The fallen and living cottonwood trees behind it offer additional protection, and the water seems to be flowing out of or into the shelter.  The hut is reminiscent of ancient mammoth bone shelters that would have been covered with skins and earth.  I photographed this structure along a river, long after whoever built and used it had continued their journey downstream.

I realize that this pair of drawings is rather cryptic now, but there is no point in offering more interpretation until the other pictures are done.  Meanwhile you will have to make up your own stories about them.

To celebrate yesterday’s Full Moon, here’s the Graphis Lichen Oracle, with 28 glyphs for a lunar month. More about it, including free online readings, on this new webpage:

http://www.mineralarts.com/artwork/LichenOracle.html

Today I uploaded my webpages on Arizona’s xerophytic ferns.  There is an introductory page and a field guide.  It’s not finished, but comments and suggestions are welcome.

http://www.mineralarts.com/ferns/desertferns.html

I won’t be able to photograph more ferns until the winter rains bring them back to life, so the project will be on the shelf until after the Winter Solstice.  Meanwhile,  here’s a red-spotted toad contemplating Argyrochosma jonesii growing in a cool shady limestone hollow under saguaros.