Octopus Garden

This is the fifth painting on this one canvas. I often paint and paint, until the final product appears. There are 6 to 10 layers of paint, and about 20 hours of painting. “Octopus Garden” represents my love for my autistic partner David. He is the bird holding up the nest — of protection/home. I am holding his beak. There are many other symbols that have deep meaning. It also represents ‘as above so below’ and many other complex thoughts.

It was Bird Man’s Dream from a previous post. And before that Layered.

The Trinity

I usually don’t know what I am painting until hours of layering and removing of paint.

After the painting is done, I sometimes analyze for symbolism:

Dandelion:

Healing from emotional pain and physical injury alike
Intelligence, especially in an emotional and spiritual sense
Surviving through all challenges and difficulties

Veil:

Many meanings, including the veil between heaven and earth and the white veil of Jesus.

Purple cloth and white heart and dove/spirit:

Lydia made purple cloth in the Bible. Lydia heard the gospel of Jesus Christ, and the Bible says that God opened her heart to pay attention to what Paul was saying (Acts 16:14).

The bird in sky, the snake like animal, the beast in the field

King James Bible Hosea 2:18

And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely.

Psalm 148:10
wild animals and all cattle, crawling creatures and flying birds

 

Bird Man’s Dream

“Bird Man’s Dream” was painted over yesterday’s painting (previous post “Layered”).

I usually paint and paint, until the energy matches my energy. Painting helps me process many depths of emotions and energy.

I noticed he is ‘shitting’ on the current life picture.

Layered

An artist’s mind being peeled away.

The painting above was done over another painting.

The Monster and the Wise Man: Painting through emotions

As Above, So Below. The painting can also be turned around. Above, what is sewn in the alternate plane of subconscious and intention is planted on the earth level. Below, aliens are admiring the universe with wonderment.

The Monster and Wise Man. From a distance the wise man is a woman, up close, you can see his ‘wise’ beard and ancient face. The Wise Man is healing the monster. The monster is also the wise man. There is the earthly plane between them. 99% of the time I do not know what I’m painting. I paint as a type of prayer, meditation, and therapy. I did not paint the face on the wise man or beard — it popped up when I was wiping the canvas with a wet towel. The sapsucker or woodpecker to the far left was also not intentional. The monster appeared on his own.

Bird Man and The Lady. I painted this over an old watercolor that had images of love. Atop the layers, on the left, is my honey, David. The Lady is protection, light, and represents my love and admiration. I was also contacted by a Facebook friend stating a baby bird she found. and tried to save, passed on right before I finished my painting. If you look to the far right, there is a little girl standing sideways facing the left (her sleeve is rose) and pointing to the left at a mushroom. Not intentional.

The World is Broken

The world is broken, and I am a shell, forging through the shards, legs through holes, with opening, stepping over brittle bones, a walking egg

a moving embryo, forgotten in harsh land.

The world is broken, and I am a shield, stampeded through the armies, in warrior’s wrist, with leathered-timber, clashing against talismans, a symbol

a shining glory, protected in fierce combat.

The world is broken, and I am a youth, hunched in the corner, sockets of tears, with memories, slashing tender flesh, an innocent

a weeping dove, folded in lost man.

The world is broken, and I am a woman, launched on platform, voice of need, with determination, professing victory, a leader

a gentle dweller, enveloped in light.

The world is broken, and I am a watcher, pierced by dwellers, swords of greed, with blindfolds, screaming jesters, a danger

a sworn enemy, tarred in horror.

The world is broken, and I am a lover, diving in waves, rivers of lust, with longing, merging ecstasy, kissing bride

a charmed doll, swept in morrow.

The world is broken, and I am a passenger, hitching a ride, clinger of hope, with caution, whispering warnings, a knowing

a sweet someone, caped in caution.

The world is broken, and I am a seamstress, sewing a tale, tailor of cause, with rhythm, creating patches, a covering

a downy blanket, spread in truth.

The world is broken, and I am a bard, bleeding an immortal, seer of agony, with temperance, trembling syllables, a note

a humble beckoning, scribed in grace.

Samantha Craft, 6.9.19

Autism Angel

I was trying to represent an angel. I ended up tearing up napkins to create her. It represents all the people I have meet that are on the autism spectrum.

As Above So Below

I know what I am not but not what I am. I know when to stop but not when to stop starting. I can inch my way into the middle and get stuck in the molasses of neither here nor there. I don’t know how to swim upstream without pounding pain, and instead, in alternate route, float downstream away from the waters where all else abounds.

Somewhere I have forgotten myself, and I search to find her, thinking I have arrived, only to once more find I am at the backdoor looking into what was and thinking I had known then.

I cannot remember who or where I have been, anymore than I can visualize where I am going. I am lost, in a time maze of confusion, falling upon a self I cannot fathom or detect.

She is there, in the shadowed-tunnel, collapsing and reborn into another, faster than humanly feasible. She is multitudes unopened and reopened—an anomaly in form. To be and not to be. To care and not to care. To unravel into the very depths of reason and peer down into the pond of ‘me.’ Only to question what it is that stares back with such disregard and wonderment.

I am but enough and then I am unequivocally lacking, never measuring up to the enforced standards absorbed from the path I walk. I clamor for explanation and find a thousand books untouched, though in some fashion taken into the realm of reason. I can feel the words: the spoken, the whispered, the silenced, the ones that never came and ones that never speared the element that is I.

They make me. They form me. They penetrate me into something I know not. Clay to my mind. Dirt to my heart. Scattered residue of earthly wants and needs. Goods that I am neither capable of grasping or acquiring.

I am this existence that the observer watches. Reformed with the passerby. Morphed into their reality and then left, unscattered and splattered, broken and unbroken, in a pool of endless duality.

I am what I am—yet only for a fleeting moment; a chance to take glance towards the outline of my palm, the beat of my heart, the opening of a billion universes. Everywhere I am, and at once I am alone. Isolated. A loneliness no less difficult to explain than the essence of what I have become. ~ Sam, 7/24/15

Of She…
She mounts, as the tuft ribbon, torn
Riding the circumference of questioning
Mind turned, trembled-wavers
Across endless cause
I cannot, I can, I will, I shan’t
And over the mountain terrains
She treks
Feet, aching soles
Upon beaten battleground
Heart opening to the chasm of reason
She is, and she is not
Twisted and reborn into
This something new and un-new
Opened and closed
Reexamined and brought into the light
Distraught and brilliantly aware
Carrying the global basket, woes
Torrid tears racing down bones
Outlining, this shadowed-speaker
Born into prism
Walls, resurfaced and reshaped
Made into what almost is
Until fleeting moments weep away
Left idling, still,
In creviced thoughts
Of what has come
Fragmented semblance
Slivered whispers
Claimed identity
The torrential gathering
Of she
~ Sam, 7/25/15

Awoken

I am as last sunbeam, awoken

Dancing amongst the violet petals

And you, the fragrance

Sought between