The Inverted Picto Man

I have a symbol I have used from time to time in my art. It is the inverted picto man. I got it from the early days of when I began to draw automatically. That was such a radically different experience for me that everything I thought I knew about myself and my world felt upside down to me. Where as before I would use feeling to insure a gesture with integrity now the gesture was coming on its own, the feeling issuing from it's action. I was no longer drawing for effect but was the effect of what I was drawing. 

What was incredibly challenging in the first couple of weeks of doing this automatic drawing was the fracturing I experienced in my being. The control center of my mind was no longer in control when I was drawing. Some other intelligent part of my being was moving and directing me, and the controller was absolutely frantic at losing its illusion of control. It was literally screaming at me. But the drawer was not affected by this. It's movement was not hampered. And it was powerful movement, which was in no way based on knowledge or habit.

My body was speaking and making art. I was not sure I even liked the art it was making but the experience was so profound I could not do but continue. There were so many questions that arose then, questions I wouldn't have been able to formulate a few weeks before. And one thing I questioned was the validity in an objective disposition to the world in the face of such profound subjective workings. Generalizations, categories and assumptions became highly suspect from seeing which part they arose - the controller, the thinker, the analyzer and the habit maker - a part I could then see was not even half of my make up.

The picto man is a generic symbol of man. It is purely an indicator of man, or a man, without any greater complexity. It represents the idea of man in a completely objective way. And what was being challenged for me was the authority of this objective view, an authority that seemed never to be seen as influencing, but merely accepted as being so. I put this symbol upside down as this seemed to represent the new sense of the complexity of my subjectivity and the authority that represented to me, as my world view had been turned on it's head.

In 2003 when time I did mock up of this image above I burst into tears. It had a great deal of import to me. The image seemed to represent quite a bit what I was feeling and thinking. The inverted picto man as symbol is mirrored by the physical markings which result from a powerful introspective response, one which shows a pattern of the complexity of the subjective. I did series of about twenty of these drawings and displayed fifteen in a series.

From that point on I pretty much eschewed the use of representational or graphic imagery in my work. I wanted to discover what this pure automatism would develop into. I have seen the image evolve, perhaps as the movement has evolved within me, and have explored it to formal ends. I knew eventually I would reintroduce representational material, but I am glad for the pure investigation without it. Also I wanted to make this an addition which rests on ideas and questions about the relationship of ecstatic to more normative experiences. 

How I am introducing these representational images is through the use of stencils and with rubbings. Paint applications are still primarily automatic so the representational elements still come directly from my ecstatic approach and are integrated into that application, hopefully in a way which shows both the spontaneous and methodical, and the relationship between them.

Below is the first painting I have done with stencils. I decided to bring back the inverted picto man symbol as this ties the work back to my own history in this art making. Multiples always work well in my art.

Why Call It Kundalini?

I do know that my experiences correlate to documentation of Kundalini awakenings, but that to me is neither here nor there. I had these experiences for a few years before I read accounts similar to what I was experiencing. And although inquiry into teachings and documentation about the Kundalini often proved interesting and enlightening the label of Kundalini best served only as a title to a collection of such material, not most of it beneficial or accurate to my found direction. What I had discovered that was of the highest profundity to me was a very new and vastly more intimate view of my own subjectivity. In no way does the idea of Kundalini affect this perception. It is my own relationship to my inner workings and to my unfolding ecstatic experiences in which the import lay. This is where I learn the most.

Unfortunately Kundalini as a subject is a bit volatile as the occurrence of it is highly coveted. There is a whole culture of reverence, mystery and verification surrounding it. I had already known of the Kundalini through Kundalini Yoga as taught in the US by Yogi Bhagan, but none of the explanations about Kundalini in those teachings described what I was experiencing. Mostly they were generalities in very mythological terms about the types of attainment available through the Kundalini. What I was experiencing was very specific and direct, so the reference never came to mind.

In researching Kundalini on the internet I often find a certain effort towards authority  in the Kundalini experience through indicating benchmarks of growth and denouncing other's claims of authenticity or level of attainment. This covetousness would be a major distraction to me and my growth. I do not care to compare experiences for another's authentication as I have nothing to prove. As stated the label of Kundalini is superfluous to my experience and growth, I have no reason to claim or defend it.

The nature of my experiences are completely unique from all other experiences of my life. The onset of them was an entry into a completely novel perception, one which continues to astound me. There is no way for me to really describe them. And the problem of then saying that they are of the Kundalini is that the concept of the Kundalini is known by many. There are many books written about this and its history in human practice. However these books cannot penetrate into this perception or give an experience as I have, (at least I assume they cannot.) In this respect the five thousand year tradition of the Kundalini is only five thousand years of hearsay about something which cannot well be described. 

For me it has been a great endeavor to communicate my experiences through my words and my art in an accurate a way as possible, a very complex challenge. And I hesitate to identify what is ineffable by something that many people feel they can understand or even know through the great length of literature that has and still is being generated about the subject. Whatever Kundalini is most probably do not understand it. However many people really want it. The want for something one does not understand cannot be the want of that thing but of something it represents to them. I in no way want to associate or address what I experience to this want in others. If I could I would like to give the discovery of an experience of the great complexity and vastness of one's own subjective authority. Speaking of the Kundalini seems to me a diversion from that end.