A Surprising Omission

This is a detail from a painting I did back when I was still a student at USC.  Something had reminded me of it and I wanted to look it up on this blog.  It is one of my favorite images, and naturally I had assumed I must have long ago posted it here.  Rather to my surprise, I found that I never had, so here it is (the Latin phrase for "here be dragons" is a later addition).

When I painted it I was thinking of Dr. Lao, the enigmatic Chinese circus master in the book by Charles G. Finney (previously alluded to in the July 26 post).

The Dragon's Return

I took this quick shot of a moderately interesting, but otherwise fairly unremarkable, cloud while out walking.  I didn't think much of it then.

However, upon taking another look later at home, I thought I noticed something, a tinge of familiarity(?);  so I gave the image a quarter turn, sharpened it up a bit, heightened contrast... and yes, my hunch proved correct;  it's another dragon, a dragon of bones only -- unlike my other, "normal" dragon Dracovolans australocaliforniensis maximus -- falling down from the sky!

But a Dragon falling out of Heaven... isn't that Lucifer?

Related posts:  Something Really, Truly, Is Going On Up

                          There

                         Dracovolans australocaliforniensis maximus

                         Another Dragon

                         The Fall Of Lucifer

The Eye Of The Firestorm

Maybe this sounds like something a fan of those old kitchy Hammer Horror movies might say (I confess I am one), but surely this is Baphomet, the horned goat-deity of old, come to unholy life and staring out of the hellfire to which it had been consigned!  Burning in the deepest pit of Hades, and over it a dragon biting its horn -- perhaps Satan himself..?

*OR PERHAPS IT'S ONE OF THE DJINN, CREATED OUT OF FIRE AND SMOKE -- BUT ON THE OTHER HAND, IS THERE REALLY A DIFFERENCE?

ANOTHER DRAGON

The latest, and perhaps the most dramatic so far, appearance of Dracovolans australocaliforniensis maximus.

Related Post: D. australocaliforniensis

DRAGON HEAD ROCK

From my trip to Jeju Island earlier this year.  My friend Evelyn was impressed by this image and commented it looks like some other planet.  You're right Ev, it really does.  Rest in peace.

An Amusing And Touching Dream

This morning I dreamt that this fiery dragon-cloud from 2010

came back.  I was just walking along, and I looked up and there it was.  But it was in the bright sun of the day, not in the evening, and the dragon was 'flipped', facing right, so it looked more like this:

plus it was tipped so that its new orientation was more of a proper flying-forward position rather than one of falling or rising.  Right away I took out my camera and took a number of shots to document this wonderful, rare phenomenon for this blog^.

I must say, the theme of returning to one's origins after a long period away or being found after being lost, is one that touches me deeply.  I have often fantasized a novel that begins with the protagonist entering a room and saying "Hi" to someone, thus beginning a long complicated series of events, then the plot coming full circle and ending with the protagonist again entering a room and saying "Hi" to the same person.

Related Posts:  The Dragon Cloud,  Dinocloud Returns,  Lost-and-Found Cloud  

Screwy Twisty

An unusual instance of contrail twisting -- not only does this one twist on itself, it actually winds around an axis exterior to itself, like a winding staircase.  Minor examples of this epiphenomenon have been seen before, but this one is the clearest, best illustration I have seen so far.

Or maybe it's the trail of one of those Asiatic dragons of Southern California descending to earth..? (for explanation see:  Dracovolans australocaliforniensis maximus)

Some 'Lost' Old Art

AND A CURIOUS MISTAKE



This piece was the central attraction at a show I had way back when, at the Simard & Halm gallery (which no longer exists). It was during a troubled and somewhat desperate time for me, and when it was sold I was only too glad to get the money; I didn't bother asking who the buyer was (I suppose I just assumed I could always ask later, only the gallery soon went out of business and I gradually lost contact with Mssrs. Simard and Halm), nor did I remember to document it; so all I have are these low-quality images from a magazine review. Which is why I say it's 'lost'.

It's a kind of temple-mandala-stupa with four sides, with three of its sides showing images with dreamlike -- or nightmarish -- themes:   St. Anthony assailed by devils;   a nude and rather voluptuous St. Margaret with a dragon;   a toy airplane in both the actual (sculpted) and dream (painted) versions (check here: Dreaming Lucid) -- and the fourth side was open, revealing a hollow interior in which hangs what might be a skinned carcass (not shown in these photos); all very Vajrayana Buddhist if you ask me, despite the presence of Christian saints.

What I only just realized today is that the figure of St. Anthony (right panel in the first photo) is mislabeled as 'Jacob' -- I literally just realized the error as I was preparing to upload these pictures. Given that the Temptation of St. Anthony is a major theme in Christian art, the story of Jacob is also famous, and I am well familiar with both, it is strange that I should have conflated the two. But then, as I stated at the beginning, this all happened during a period in which I was beset with issues.

One last thing -- it was never quite finished. I was seriously pressed for time, and in the mad rush to get the piece into a presentable state for the gallery opening, I had to cut a few corners; that is why the base and the plaques bearing the sub-titles are so plain and simple, in contrast to the rich ornamentation in the rest of the piece. Had I had more time to work on it, everything would have been as elaborately finished as the main 'building'. In fact, I was still touching up the St. Margaret panel when guests started arriving. Later the curator chucklingly told me that some of them noticed the paint was still wet.

Rainbow Cloud

In East Asia this would probably be referred to as a 'five-colored cloud'. I don't know why it has to be five colors, but that's the traditional term. Maybe there were thought to be five primary colors..? Or maybe it was one color each for the traditional five elements (fire, water, wood, metal, earth)? Or for the five notes of the pentatonic scale? Maybe the five basic flavors (sweet, salty, sour, bitter, hot/spicy). Or the Five Relationships of Confucianism/五倫 (sovereign and subject, parent and child, husband and wife, elder sibling and younger sibling, and friend to friend -- I hope I got 'em right). There are probably many other groups of five. Of course, it could just be that the number five was imbued with a generic mystical significance. Anyway, Asians have always loved to group things in numbered units:



Addendum: This is neither here nor there, but anyway I just noticed that the skeletal 'fossil' fish I made many years ago bears a certain resemblance to this photograph of a skeletal cloud-dragon from the Nov. 8th post (I did crop the original images for clarity):



Worm Rescue Update: It rained last night, and this morning I rescued 5 worms! The two in the photo below were found near each other in the middle of a huge parking lot. I don't know what made them crawl so far out from their homes, but I do know now that having a pair of earthworms squirming and writhing in your hand tickles like crazy. I remember it also tickled when this snail kept kissing my fingertip. Maybe it was trying to decide if my finger was something edible or not:



And the next photo shows another of the lucky quintet, whom I found vainly trying to crawl to safety, all covered in debris and getting dried out on the porous cement of the sidewalk, poor thing:



Number of worms rescued so far: 16

St. George, A Dragon, St. Agatha

Another old piece from way back when. I planned it as a kind of faux-triptych, with two painted panels set apart by a niche that contains a sculptural element.

This piece was included in a show at the Simard & Halm Gallery (which no longer exists). The curator told me that at the reception a few people had expressed surprise at the fact that the artist was a young Asian guy; based on the traditional, Northern Renaissance-type imagery and the fact that my last name, Suhr, looks German, they'd expected an older European (or at least white) dude^.

[Once I got a call from a guy who said he was researching his family tree. His name was also Suhr, and when he saw my name in the phone book he thought he should check me out, in case we were related... but he was German^; speaking of which, Hahn and Ohm are a couple of other German names that also resemble Korean names]

Again, the photo quality could be lots better -- the lighting situation in my loft is far from ideal, and no matter what I did I couldn't get a full-on shot without glare spoiling something somewhere. Finally I took parts of different shots and reassembled them to obtain a semblance of the original whole.

I'd known of St. Agatha for a long time from the painting by Zurbaran, but had assumed that the objects she carried on a platter were lemons. Then I found out they were her breasts. One of the tortures she endured was the ripping of her breasts, so in art she is shown carrying them, as a symbol of her martyrdom.

And no, I'm not Catholic.

Something Really, Truly, Is Going On Up There

Is it just me or is there a truly extraordinary amount of weirdness going on up there in the skies lately?

One evening last week, as I was leaving work I saw a beautiful sunset and snapped a few photos in the parking lot. I was checking them out just now, and when I came across this one I noticed something odd straightaway:

I heightened the color and contrast, and saw exactly what I thought I saw;  a skeletal dragon with outstretched wings, swooping down -- or perhaps falling down, like a certain angel who fell and became known as a dragon.

Alternatively, if you turn the image upside-down, it looks like a fiery red dragon rising from the depths of the dark waters toward a flaming sky, carrying a serpent in its crocodilian jaws..

If anyone does not find this apocalyptic image disturbing, they must, like Siegfried, be totally ignorant of fear;  either that, or they're already under some glamour worked by this leviathan to make humans selectively blind. In fact, that latter could well explain why no one else around me seemed to notice it. I must be somehow immune to the spell...

This fact adds a new urgency to my mission as Monster Scout; whatever these otherworldly creatures' purpose, it is clearly something that affects us, probably adversely -- why else would they take the trouble to mask their existence from our sight?

And the recent increase in their activity may well mean something big is coming up. I haven't a clue as to what that could be; all I can say is, it fills me with apprehension...

Speaking of Dragons...

More Old Art from back when I still painted somewhat regularly

For a non-(formally)religious guy, I sure love religious imagery. I was trying my hand at a version of the Fall of the Rebel Angels. This is the upper half of a very long painting, showing Michael the Archangel triumphant over the Devil (in the guise of a hydra-like serpent/dragon); I'm not sure if it's proper to show the Devil beheaded, though -- wouldn't that imply that the Devil was not just defeated, but completely destroyed? Maybe I should have just shown him stabbed through the eye or something.

Yeah, I know the photo quality is crappy. It's partly because the surface of the painting was deliberately maltreated to make it look like an old, peeling fresco, and partly because I took this shot in situ at a gallery, where it was impossible to control the lighting conditions.

Oh wait, I forgot that the Devil in this painting has two heads -- it's hard to see in this image, but it's there, right below that severed head. So it's O.K. -- the Devil may have lost one of his heads, but he has another in reserve. Wouldn't want Ol' Scratch gone, you know...

"Dracovolans australocaliforniensis maximus"

Surprisingly enough, there is a subspecies of the Asiatic dragon living in Southern California. The recent warm weather has led to numerous sightings of these majestic giants in the skies over Los Angeles.

BTW, anyone who spots an error with that 'scientific' trinomial is invited to correct my Greco-Latin.