Come and meet with me at the Mind Body and Soul show
Finally If you have never watched or heard tim Wheater or Barbara Meiklejohn Free perform this will be a great opportunity.
Opening Times: Saturday 10am – 6pm Sunday 10am – 5pm
Athenia – the best kept secret
I met so many wonderful people at the winter mbs fair in Lincoln a week ago. I just wanted to mention a group who played at the show called Athenia. They have produced a wonderful album called ‘the best kept secret’ This CD made the long trip home to Clacton Essex a joy. In fact it has a very apt track on it which has become one of my favourites called ‘coming home’. The other track that deeply resonates with me is ‘goodnight, sweet dreams’ It is quite beautiful and just perfect for a cold winters night cozy by a crackling fire. September song is also very special.
I greatly admire any musician that has the dedication and patience to both write, perform and record a whole album. As a visual artist, I never have to stay in the creation process for more than a few days at a time. Musicians often have to keep returning time and time again to their composition until it is finely tuned perfection, something I simply couldn’t do. What’s more Athenia have dedicated all this time to producing a cd that is both positive and uplifting which demands praise in a world where so many wish to dwell in the negative.
I hope to see Athenia at more MBS fairs very soon.
Why not take a look at Pete and Sarah’s website www.atheniamusic.com to find out more about them and listen to their well crafted tracks.
Hanging Man by Peter Ulrich and co
Finally I can show you the short slideshow/video I put together for my good friend Peter Ulrich.
For more info on Peter see my previous blog:-
http://tonypinfold.wordpress.com/2009/06/09/hanging-man-art-work/
*Video quality thanks to the mashing machine at Youtube.
Winters Night
Winters Night by Tony Pinfold
below are the words that this image inspired :-
The moon reflects in yet another puddle, it is all so simple yet so unknown.
Is the wonder of night lost on you, my anxious friend?
unconditional love 2009
For more info on this see http://www.myspace.com/thewave1111
Namaste Tony
Life
A week or so ago, I created a work called ‘Life’. It was unusual for me in that it was not created from photos I have taken but by mixing a number of photoshop filters together. While some of my works take days, even weeks to created this at the most took an hour or so. I found it amazing how complex the image was and yet for me anyway easy to create. It was so simplistic a creation that my ego demanded that I not put it in my range of work as it wasn’t creative enough. Well as you can see I have brought it to you for that very reason.
Life just is
This image is like most of my work a visual metaphor. From a state of mind, life is very complex but from a state of being, life is easy, it ‘just is’. I find that when life becomes over complicated it stops being enjoyable and stress builds. We fight against the simplicity of life at every possibility, as a result the problems we find our selves up against are caused by our simple inability to ‘just be’.
Let’s go a little deeper
Why do most of us do whatever it takes to make life more of a drama then it needs to be? We at times pick verbal and physical fights with friends and loved ones or even complete strangers. Despite all we know most of us will have times in our life when we start down routes of self destruction via too much booze or drugs or we simply push the sexual boat out further and further until what we believed was fun becomes a nightmare. Humans do all these things and more to scupper our chances at being at peace Why? Do we even know?
Natural beauty is rarely enough, a picturesque view can seldom still the heart for long. Many beliefs and religions refer to this restlessness as suffering, sin or ‘Dukkha ‘ monkey mind. It really doesn’t matter what we call it or why we think we act this way, we just do.
Life ‘just is’, but the human mind has made a game that layers over life that makes us believe that we are small, separate and lost. This as a concept would appear totally ludicrous to even the smallest cell that relies on and is part of everything. Not one thing in the known or unknown universe can function without anything else. Yet Humans stand in direct opposition to what ‘is’. We believe that we are apart from life, that we are separate from each other, the elements, the planet, the sun, the universe. It is no wonder we all feel so ‘wrong’ – how absurd we are. Life is visually very complex but it all works with the greatest of ease. Even death is perfect life in action, It is not a failing, a separation, it is but more food for life. So above as below we are the cells of the universe in this never ending dance of life.
OM (AUM) New image.
OM is everything
The overview
The most sacred symbol in Hinduism. Aum (OM) is the sound of the infinite. This is representative of the Trinity of God in Hindu dharma Bhrahma Shakti (creation), Vishnu Shakti (preservation) and Shiva (liberation) Shakt
The three portions of AUM relate to the states of waking, dream and deep sleep and the three gunas (rajas, satva, tamas)
The three letters also indicates three planes of existence, heaven (swarga), earth/mortal world (martya) and netherworld/hell (patala)
My Thoughts
The sound ‘AUM’ that many people chant in meditation practice is just one of many ways to anaesthetize the mind and reduce the chatter. Indigenous people across the world all have their own way of doing this, for me other good examples of this are Tibetan gongs, singing bowls and even it the wonderful didgeridoo.
While I agree than chanting ‘aum’(om) refocuses the mind back to our natural state of being for me the effect is most powerful at the end of lets say 10mins of chanting then for just a few seconds even minutes a profound peace settles. I tried very hard in my image to convey the metaphor of the Om symbol. It seemed obvious to me to use a photograph of a gong at the core to this image. I have tried to convey vibration, a coming into form, a creation. The repeated circular grid pattern serves to take the viewer on a journey into the picture and so into themselves the longer the pattern is viewed, more zoned out one feels. The more one returns to a state of ‘no thought’ or at the very least ‘less thought’.
What has this to do with nonduality?
The vibration of “OM” symbolizes the manifestation of God and so everything, it is a reflection of the absolute reality, without beginning or the end and embracing all that exists, for me that is nondulism. While any talk in the above overview of heaven,earth and hell may seem like duality this is just a limited view point, for all these supposed separate parts lie within the one whole, no point in the seen or unseen universe, multiverse, the everything lies separate from any other and so ‘Om’ is another metaphor for the truth of oneness.
Om must include our supposed solid world just as much as perceived mythic realms like heaven and earth. While I may sound like a broken record oneness is everything including every thought or no thought, every word or no word, every action or no action. If you attempt to exclude anything from oneness, then it is not oneness it is duality. Duality is an illusion set up by the mind that believes in the concept of separation and opposites .
Om is unconditional, eternal and perfect. Om is union. Om is one.
