Alex is putting the finishing touches on some new paintings that will be for sale to benefit the renovation of CoSM Art Sanctuary. Recent larger works, like the one pictured above, were begun as live-paintings before audiences of dancing, trancing loved ones. Four recent works portray loving couples in their see-through splendor. The finished images will be released in subsequent weeks.
Alex & Allyson Grey - "Visionary Art" from Omega Institute on Vimeo.
In the past two weeks two complete septic systems on the property have had to be replaced, one behind the main house and one behind the office. These needed improvements will be a tremendous asset and essential to the health and well-being of the site. Our architect, Al Cappelli, and our contractor, Kevin Lund are very proud of these jobs assuring us that they will last a hundred years.
CoSM needs your support now more than ever. We are asking those who have gotten value from the artwork and from CoSM activities to please consider making a generous contribution today.
http://www.cosm.org/donate.html
All proceeds from the CoSM Store go directly to supporting the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors project.
Father's Day is coming the most recent book from CoSM Press, Art Psalms, makes a wonderful gift.
Office Septic with Kevin Lund, the Michaelangelo of the backhoe.
Guest House septic system with Eli and Allyson -- "outstanding in their field" (joke by Eli).
Alex and Allyson are touring around the country this summer, live-painting at all-night parties, reading Art Psalms accompanied by Mz. Imani and friends, and talking about the progress at CoSM Art Sanctuary. We were proud to be painting at the Merry Prankster Reunion in San Francisco and then traveled to Knoxville for a party produced by Dale Inkhen.
Alex's Skull painting from the Original Face series painted at the Merry Prankster party, now available for sale. Serious inquiries can be sent to allyson@cosm.org.
Alex and Allyson with dear friend, Mark McCloud in San Francisco.
Alex with awesome buddy and CoSM supporter, John Gilmore.
Merry Prankster Reunion producers Shady Backflash and Zane Kesey with A & A
Vince and Gloria Di Biase, friends and caretakers of Jerry Garcia with A & A at the Merry Prankster Reunion.
Family reunion with Brian Morrison, Zena Grey, Alex, Allyson and Allyson's sister Liz Rymland at the Prankster party.
A & A visiting the Luther Burbank Home and Gardens in Santa Ana, a must see field trip initiated by our dear friend Brian Morrison.
A & A painting on stage in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Alex painting at the Knoxville party.
At the CoSM crew Seder a few weeks ago, we discussed the Dragon Gate. Susan Buck mentioned that perhaps dragons on the frontgate with two naked people might not be our best calling card to the greater community. Could there be a more welcoming expression of CoSM's presence? Out of that discussion came Alex's drawing of the Angelgate, a partial vision he had previously in Egypt.
Two heavenly beings made of both plant and animal worlds, with artists brushes as feathers, bow before the circle of the world. Between their profiles, the silhouette of the Chapel, and where their foreheads kiss, the sun.
Symbolically the Chapel unites heaven and earth. Interlacing sacred geometry, referencing Allyson's artwork, is the structure over which the angels pray, and toward which the angels lean.
Harmonic relationships are patterned throughout the natural world. Sacred geometry teaches us that the square represents the material realm and all that is human made. The triangle is the mind, rooted on the earthly plain and pointing upward. The circle is spirit eternal. The Angel Gate design integrates these symbols.
An Eagle and a Condor are portrayed in the wings. The Pacha Mama prophecy of South America declares that a new era will dawn when the eagle and condor fly together. The people of the North are represented by the Eagle, focused on development in the material realm. The people of the Condor are intuitive and earth honoring. The eagle and the condor flying together means the marriage of knowledge and wisdom, bringing an era of balance and peace.
Here are a few pictures of Peter’s extraordinary light installations, a short statement posted on the occasion of his exhibition at MicroCoSM Gallery in May/June 2007, an article Alex wrote about his work, and a link to Peter’s website. http://www.terezakis.com
"... Peter Terezakis' light installation powerfully suggests heat lightning fragmenting the desert's night air..." -- The New York Times, 2000
Peter Terezakis has originated inter-active works of art varying in scale from simple jewelry-sized objects, to an interactive building designed in conjunction with Donald Trump's architect, Der Scutt. His works have been exhibited throughout the United States and abroad, including Canada, Greece, Japan, Latvia, Mexico, Portugal, and Romania. On the faculty of New York City's School of Visual Arts from 1993 to 2000, Terezakis co-created the Extended Forms major within the MFA Computer Art program.
FLASH OF RECOGNITION
The Soulful Technology of Peter Terezakis
by Alex Grey
Over ten years ago, I was intrigued by the objects of Peter Terezakis which combined minimalist forms with winking and blinking LED lights. Knowing the artist, and witnessing his artistic evolution, it is clear that his artwork embodies some of the most impressive aspects of his character. His enthusiasm and inventiveness, a balance of inner discipline (as evidenced by a black belt in Karate) and his technological wizardry have all been placed at the service of what can only be called a spiritual search through the practice of art. That his patriarchal ancestry includes a succession of Greek Orthodox priests should inform us that his search has long and deep roots. I came to know Peter shortly before the death of his father, easily Peter's most influential mentor. The Senior Terezakis was an independent soul who made the difficult decision to leave the priesthood. And so Peter works through a passionate dialectic in his work--between faith and doubt, the scientific mastery of materiality and the threatening dubiousness of materialism as an answer in itself.
From the beginning, Peter's works have involved "interactivity". Using biofeedback and robotic monitoring devices, from temperature sensitivity gauges to sound and motion detectors, his sculptures have been "armed" with the uncanny ability to sense and respond to the viewer. I have watched the fascination and delight of both adults and children as Terezakis's sculptures respond to them with some flash of recognition. Hiswired art transmits at least three levels of metaphor
(1.) Relationship - the importance of our ability to sense and mirror
each other, the human relationship of friendly communication.
(2.) Paranoia - the power, threat and alienation of technological
surveillance, our invasively monitored contemporary life caught in an
electronic mechanical web of "information" to be used by hidden
forces for good or ill.
(3.) Communion - the magic of another "subtle" reality, unseen but responding to our presence, or glimpsed in flashes of light.
Questions that have bedeviled science fiction writers and now designers of robotics and A.I. (artificial intelligence), such as whether a machine can exhibit intelligence or consciousness, seem to haunt Terezakis's work. "The ghost in the machine"... if a machine can become conscious, what does this say of the mechanicalness and materiality of our own spirit? Thus the questions of faith and doubt hover just below the surface of our delight with the visual beauty of a work by Terezakis.
His "All the Names of God" experiment was created to activate an apocalyptic Doomsday scenario possible only through today's web-linked downloadable mindscape. To me, this is Terezakis's most satisfying and threatening piece. Aesthetically, a flame responds to each name murmured, pointing back to the ancient minds who first saw and heard the voices and names of God as they gathered around their fires, hoping and seeking for solace against the threat of nature, and their own hardwired doomsday of biological destiny as wormfood.
At the risk of over-extending the "Greek"-ness of Peter's art, I would point back to the cradle of Western civilization and culture in the teachings and example of that great soul, Socrates. This pre-eminent Greek philosopher was known to be in communion with what he called his "daimon", an inner voice that he wrestled with and relied on as his fountain of wisdom. Likewise, each artist is inspired by a force beyond themselves, a daimon of creativity if you will, that they must wrestle into form. I have suggested that Peter Terezakis's machine/sculptures embody the struggles of faith and doubt, which may be the character of his particular "daimon". And like the two streams of wisdom that flowed from Socrates' great students, Plato, the mystic idealist, and Aristotle, a philosophical scientist focused on the "real" material world, Peter Terezakis's soulfully technological art exemplifies the struggles between the ideal and the real, the still living questions at the heart of our post-modern civilization.
Every full moon for the past five years Peter has created an
installation of fluorescent standing pillars of light on beaches, in deserts,
on native American reservations and in national parks. These pillars or columns have a
resonance with ancient Greek sacred architecture. Bridging earth and sky, ancient and technological, these
installations represent both the threatening invasion of techno-industrial
culture into the pristine wilderness and the metaphor of enlightened presence
linking the Promethean creative force that reaches heavenward, stealing the
light of the Gods.
Alex and Allyson with our dear friend, Peter Terezakis
Here's a few Earth Day shots from CoSM's property in upstate New York. We walked the grounds with the crew today and when we talked about building a future sun altar to Horus, one of the crew noticed this sunny rainbow smile in the sky directly above us.
Allyson and I first visited this enchanted 40 acre wood 2 years ago today.
Thank you Earth Spirit!
pines reaching heavenward
forsithias abloom critter holes abound
