I had to go through some things before nevertheless took place in my life.
-John P. Kee
Lately I’ve been on a personal discovery, having to work through life roadblocks that get in the way of being creative, as well as making a living off of my creations. Even with that, I’ve had to figure out what that means and what it looks like. In this society, money is the ultimate sign of accomplishment for the majority of us. It’s pumped into our faces everywhere we turn in life. I’m always questioning its true value. I’m very much aware of the things it can acquire. I’m very much aware that everything comes with a price…even if the goal of money for some, allows them to buy comfort (read: security…yet another illusion we've been force fed). I still haven’t figured it out. Until money ceases to be the true currency, we all need it. *It hurts to say the game is the game.
What has provided a creative spark as of recent are as follows: The Holy Mountain (1973), Mount Analogue, tarot, Supreme Lessons of the Gods and the Earths, and meditation. These are my main sources of creative and personal thought embodied in one. The motifs that come forth from me especially in my paintings, come from sitting with these and meditating on them until I’m chosen to express them. But I haven’t been able to tie in what I do with acrylic, with what I do digitally…until now:
Rifling through my journals together with new ideas, I’ve been piecing together what I call ‘AUGOS’…my version of the concepts of logos, ethos, pathos. All of it corresponds with SACREDBRED. I have my own reasons for choosing this name as a brand name but as I spend more time studying myself, bettering myself, picking myself up again…I’m starting to realize how much this name was already ordained before it was an actual thought for me. I was born in the month of August. August comes from the word, augury, which means the practice of auguring—attempting to predict the future based on interpreting omens or in some other mystical way. *Initially The A in LA meant alchemy…alchemy is a synonym of augury. Augury is what I consider my art style or the divine language that is spoken through me. I also call it, ‘coded language or CA (California)/coded arts.
Lately, the incantations have been based on meaningful people in my life. Family. Friends. Time periods passed by. The Present. Remembrance. Lineage. It also reflects embodying who I’ve been called to be and who I’ve always been…and where I’ll go/the future. But also the push-pull that has plagued me for so many years. I’m grateful for those trials and tribulations but man it was so goddamn hard going through (and still is).
I plan to use these to pay homage to my birthplace of Los Angeles as well as Las Vegas where this growth as an artist has taken place. Seeking knowledge in my rebuilding phase, questioning my purpose here, what to do with this life I’ve been birthed into…I started to see the symbolism of my path from birth to where I am now in this ‘now’. The A represents AUGOS, Angeles/Angel (sacred), the pyramid, Sirius, and fire. Mirrored, its the V in Vegas, victorious, vibrations, vision, virtuous.
*Attached are images of the LA/V concept for later on down the road. Second photo is a recent painting based on The Written Woman from The Holy Mountain, which ultimately resembling my mom. I had been meditating on MA’AT and began seeing the correlation between that word and Mother…and also math(ematics).
