Aether Into Image

Visual artist, student of Tantra and Western Shamanic techniques. Scales, claws and kitten paws. www.klenoresiner.com

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Signal boost! Extending the application deadline for the Fall artist residency at Star & Snake until July 15th. Please share and help get the word out about this opportunity to create art for 2 weeks in a former Catholic Church located in the lakes region of New Hampshire. ❤️❤️❤️ Link to the application here: http://ift.tt/2s9DWGb

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What My Blood Knows - oil on panel, 24"x24", K Lenore Siner http://ift.tt/2p38VD8

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Esoteric Artist Residency in New Hampshire that my partner Natan Alexander and I founded is currently accepting applications for the June 2017 residency. Watch the video to learn more!

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My 10 creative rules to follow in 2017. What goals and guidance do you have for your art making in the New Year? http://ift.tt/2i8uH73

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May your cup be full of the richness that flows from devotion Her Mysteries. "East Window, Facing West", 10"x8", mixed media. Part of a body of work to be show at Ouroboros Press Gallery in Seattle this Spring. http://ift.tt/2hZUPBh

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The Eastern Luminary, installed at Star & Snake on summer solstice eve. http://ift.tt/28Q9mrV

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The 4 Luminaries (east, south, west and north). A collaborative project in process. Oil on panel, 60"x30 http://ift.tt/21M8Ezh

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The beginning of this month I had the pleasure of accompanying my partner, visual and tattoo artist Natan Alexander to the “Saint Bowie” show at the Stephen Romano Gallery where a piece of his work was showing. I was pleased by the quality of the work shown, especially that of the concurrent show “Midnight Paracosm” by Matthew Dutton and the excellent reception of Natan’s illuminated glass painting.

However, I found myself quite put off by 2 women in bikinis and lightning bolt face paint hired to be part of the opening. While Bowie, whom the show was in tribute to, was certainly a sex icon to many, he was one that represented deviations from the norm of heterosexual aesthetics. I for one am one of the many girls who crushed on his character Jareth in the Labyrinth movie, feeling simultaneously confused and excited by his heavy makeup and foppish dress. So what did two heteronormative looking women in bikinis and heels have to do with either Bowie or Occult Art?

The annoyance is deeper than a poorly thought through motion to have some eye candy at the opening. It speaks to the issue of the Occult being a trending topic in popular art and culture. I use the work “issue” as don’t see proliferation of occult based shows as either a blessing or a hindrance, but rather a currency that must be wisely invested while available, in service of creating an Occult Art Movement that is more than just a flash in the pan. My annoyance with the bikini girls stems from deeply wanting Occult Art to be viewed as something real and credible, not posed beside a mostly naked women to make it that much more of a pop culture commodity.

With this moment in the limelight there is an opportunity to create a credible and powerful voice for Occult themes as valuable and intrinsic parts of why some artists create. And I very much mean “why” and not “what”, for I am not so much interested in the celebration of an aesthetic of the occult (skulls and sigils) as in creating visibility for the process and intention – an Occult Art Movement. An occult aesthetic appreciates the way skulls and sigils look. An occult art aesthetic will rise and fall out of fashion the same way styles of hair and jeans do.

Carrefour D’Hecate by Leonor Fini. Exhibited a “Language of the Birds”

An Occult Art Movement brings together art with varying aesthetics because they are created with similar intentions – to give voice and presence to the unseen mysteries of existence. This in no way excludes skulls, sigils and beautiful women as possible elements of Occult Art. It instead clarifies that the intention and energy put into the creation of the work manifests in a final product that has the potential ability to impart Occult information or experiences.

Shows such as “Language of The Birds” curated by Pam Grossman and the 2014 Fulgar I:MAGE show are beautiful examples of what a mature Occult Art Movement can look like. These shows have highlighted artists making strong and varied work, shown that work in the light of its Occult underpinnings and given artists a platform to freely discuss their motivations. They have been points of light in substantiating this movement within the greater art world, perhaps even in a lasting way.

My intention with voicing these thoughts is to create discussion around what Occult Art is and to unify artists who fall under the movement’s umbrella. If we are to cultivate both the visibility and validity of these themes it is absolutely imperative that they not be overshadowed by a shallow understanding of Occult Art as occult aesthetic. While the Occult has its 5 minutes within popular culture, how are we representing ourselves as artists and how are we allowing our art to be represented?

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Currently in the uncomfortable “between” period, nearing the end of a series of work and thinking a lot about what to create next. Always in these periods the same questions push on me with an incredible weight – what is worth creating? What is most genuine? It’s the age old problem of the blank canvas.

I sometimes surmount this by not asking “why” and simply putting pencil to paper. But I know by now that questions like these – and the painful silence that follows them – are incredibly valuable. They create a space, a crack that might let something otherwise unnoticed in. They make room for something new.

“Thinking” is not something that has ever provided me answers to these kind of questions. The mind is a goddamn hamster wheel and just spins on in the same ways until impeded. So in the silence of the big questions the game seems to be to pay attention, to listen.

Begin stream of consciousness.

Dinner with the incredible David Chaim Smith. Recognizing the state of ecstasy a portion of my being was lifted to just by being around him and from this being reminded of the power of transmission. From that, being reminded that this is the foundation of my desire to paint – to transmit energies through the energetic connections that can be imbued into a painting, that the painting has the potential to take on its own beingness that exalts the viewer in its presence. Thinking about the common comment that my paintings are so much more powerful in person – the difference between being with the teacher and being with a photo of the teacher.

A comment by David that someone had an experience that was just “picking up shards”, picking up energetic fragments, in his telling, not a real transmission. Feeling, “This is what I do, I pick up the broken pieces and paint them.” Asking myself, “Does this have value?”

Walking to the studio. Remembering conversations with my partner about the loss of matriarchal ways. I’ve always felt that this came not from some overthrow on the part of the patriarchy, but rather with the power of disseminating information via the written word.

Remembering Amodali Zain speaking on her exploration of female initiatory magical formulas and praxis at the 2014 Esoteric Book Conference. She used the phrase “fluid, intuitive gnosis” to speak about the feminine ways of knowing. The words hit me over the head. How do you put that kind of information in books? You don’t. It can only be transmitted. It is a beingness and it passes away with each teacher.

What are my lineages? I studied Tantra with Swami Vivekananda Saraswati in my 20’s and he taught me much. But the emphasis on 3rd and 7th chakra development left me questioning what I would be learning if I had a lineage of Tantrikas to study from. Most of these women could not write. Practices lost in the sands of time. I learned Lakota ways but even the women there were honest about the fact that the women’s songs had been lost. We danced in a ceremony for men, because the women’s ceremonies were no longer practiced.

The paths that call to me are in shards.

Sitting in the park, I remember that in Guatemala I learned that Mayans compare women to hollow reeds in the lake.

An image flashes in my mind of a t-shirt my friend made for me in high school that said: “The lunatic, the lover and the poet are of imagination all compact.” I look up the passage and see that Hippolyta replies that if they are all imagining the same thing, there must be some truth to it.

End stream of consciousness. …

So, this becomes the praxis: There must be a willingness to not know. The transmission of information comes from the space within the reed, the emptiness, from waiting in the void and listening for a clear tone to sound. The process of unearthing the fragments of what has been hidden or lost. It is certainly imperfect and it might be imagination or madness. It might have value or it might be clouded my own crap, the thinking that gets in the way of the listening.

Its been a week or so of collecting all these impressions. I return to the studio with the renewed intention Let me be a clear channel for that which wishes to speak, in the service of all that is beautiful. Other then that, everything must be let go of. There is no point for me but that in the creation of a painting. And if I am successful, I believe each painting is a pathway, crumb by crumb, fragment by fragment, back to a whole truth.

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Spending two weeks up at Star & Snake's Fall Artist Residency. Plans to finish up some old projects, paint a mural and do lots of dreaming and sketching. On my first day I finished up this drawing which is an exploration for a larger piece inspired by a recent archaeological discovery in Peru (which you can read more about here: http://ift.tt/1ODmUXW) "Tomb of the Serpent Jaguar Priest", mixed media, 16"x12", 2015 http://ift.tt/1LMqgCz

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To celebrate my first Etsy sale I am giving away one signed, 12"x12" archival print of "Priestess Miriam's Temple"! Follow me on Instagram @klenoresiner for contest details. Thanks for the continued love and support! http://ift.tt/1Jo2AqF

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“Piercing the 3 Veils of Self Deception To Become Queen of Heaven and Everything” by K Lenore Siner

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Follow Fraternitatis S∴S∴ on:

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#balance #ra #nuit #sacredart #union

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