..As I die unto myself..

Something in the air today has reminded me what I felt the week of my birthday--that my New Year has already begun.As as I jogged today I took in all the scenery around me,and I found myself thinking about how far I’ve come since I moved up here almost 3years ago. That journey’s purpose was to find out what I was made of all on my own and to find some hope once again. That journey has completed itself and I’m onto a new one. As such, I’ve I realized I feel myself, in this season of fall, saying goodbye to what’s around me..I’ll be moving on from this place and into a nomadic lifestyle again…

To burn myself down then be born again…

The fires of purification are not about “cleaning” oneself in a puritanical fashion, but letting go of comforts and artifice, including one’s pain, turning the voices in one’s head around into friend from foe. To burn in the fire and see what parts of self are left afterwards, then to begin again, realizing that all choices I make are declarations of who I AM and who I want to be.

Some of my wishes when I moved to NoCal: to find out what I’m made of all on my own, to fight down my demons in the proverbial desert and cast them off forever, to go to jungle in south America and study with shaman, to reach enlightenment or some sort of breakthrough out of the vicious cycle of the phoenix, to have positive people come into my life to whom I could give back, to be released of the darkness that has haunted me since I was a child so I can examine it without suffering its disabling grip.. .and I received all my wishes in one form or another.

Since I was a child, I wanted so much to have a little place called home, with a warm lamp to read by, yet it’s never come to me. My life once again seems determined to remind me that my home is within myself.

“The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot yet be reborn. In this interregnum, a great variety of morbid symptoms appear” -Antonio Gramsci, "The Prison Notebooks.”
I remember finding this quote in a photo book at photographer Richard Hobbs' apartment. I was working on Crisis’ “8 Convulsions” album artwork at the time and was looking for something..something that said it all. When I opened Richard’s book, the first page showed a black ann white photo of a cemetery, with Antonio’s quote underneath it. The words hit me so hard, I immediately screamed “That’s it!” and copied down the quote. (And then later read his book).

Now that the oldness within me has died, and the huge amount of morbid symptoms have disappeared in the light of my rebirth, I am excited at the endless choices I am now making to create my life from this point onward...

My World Of Earth and Aether

I've finally slayed this beast of a painting. It's the first large-scale acrylic painting I've done in quite some time. After the lovely and hypnotic blendability of oils, it's been difficult for me to accept the rigid quality of acrylics. Of course I like that they dry much faster, so between layers of paint I don't have to wait days and days until I lay down the next. During this painting, though, I began to accept them for what they are and learned to like the fact that translucent layering can be done without mediums even.

Throughout my music and art career I've delved into both worlds of light and dark, and I believe in order to know one's true essence, one must experience the opposite of what one is. The yin and yang, earth and aether, light and darkness..these dualities exist in each one of our souls and much of my lyrics have documented my journeys into these worlds. This painting represents my dualities and the doorway through which I can leave them behind.

Painting is 16" x 20" on canvas stretched over 3/4" wooden stretcher bars.

Completed 24th November, 2008.

Welcome to my Blog...

..So Welcome to my Blog..My website (www.KarynCrisis.com) is down for a while until I can update it...which it sorely needs. For now, I'll be writing updates here and on my Myspace pages: Myspace.com/KarynCrisisMusic and Myspace.com/Exorsister. BIG NEWS coming tomorrow..For tonite I am trying to get away from this computer and get back to working on two more acrylic paintings..Sweet dreams...

"Labyrinthine" acrylic painting for sale

I've just completed this new acrylic painting, "Labyrinthine". I painted it on Canva paper, which is an acid-free archival paper with a thicnkess similar to Bristol Board. It's been texturized to resemble linen. Back in my middle-school years, acrylics were may favorite paints, and at times I globbed them on for texture, since they hold their thick shape so well. I'd even paint using paintbrush stems and ballpoint pens. I got into oils in high school and loved the mysterious quality the colors have and the blendability. I began working with watercolors (the ones in tubes) when I started the "Methodology" graphic novel. The only oil painting I did in the 1990s was on my painted black n white photos. "The Contract" was the first oil painting I'd done in years. So, now I'm trying to get into acrylics again. I find them difficult and stubborn after working with oils for so long..at the same time, they dry fast and you can layer as much as you want without worrying about the "fat over lean" rule of oils. My camera definitely doesn't capture the subtleties of color, unfortunately!For more detailed photos of this painting, go to www.Myspace.com/Exorsister.It's on sale on EBAY.com. Go to Ebay.com and search:Karyn Crisis, or use link:http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&item=320317577480.

"Squaring the Circle"

"Squaring the Circle" is a concept I became fascinated with when I was studying Sacred Geometry. The first version of this painting focused on the concept via one of the mathematical formulations for "squaring the circle", which is the idea of Oppopsites being One at the same time (yin and yang, the meeting of heaven and earth..) After my Reiki I attunement, I tried to sell this painting, but it didnt' sell. This was the first painting I put up for sale that didn't end up selling! Then I received a "message" that the painting wasn't completed...and as I sat looking at it for days on end, I realized the focus of the painting, for me, shifted to the concept of "opening" to enlightenment,and I therefore reworked it to reflect not the mathematical representation of two becoming One, but a representation of the actual "process" of this happening, which I now understood from personal experience.
The "blue" verison is the BEFORE and the gold, more Byzantine style version is the AFTER. I do want to find a way to use the original "blue" color again, though.For more detailed pictures of this painting you can visit: www.Myspace.com/Exorsister".

Paintings I've sold since 2007...

As this year is coming to an end, many projects I've had in the works for a while are coming to fruition. So I took a look back at the paintings I've made and sold since 2007...and I think how ironic that I almost gave up painting at the end of 2006 and into 2007 because I found it so frustrating. I could see the paintings in my mind, but attempting to give birth to them on the canvas was so damn difficult...like a math problem. I remember getting so angry that I couldn't "figure out" how to paint..because painting for me had always been something that happened when I "plugged into" the moment of "now"; it just happened, like channelling, and I didn't have to "figure out" any part of the equation. One day I had a breakthrough regarding a dry brushing technique that became the solution to my previously "unsolvable math problem", and painting became effortless again. I've got a lot to learn still, but now at least the painting is happening, as is the growing and learning, and that's what's important; not the outcome, but the journey..In fact, I always think I'm not being productive enough. When I take the time to look back I see this isn't true; yet the bigget picture still is that no matter how productive you are, it will never be enough. You will never know everything...and in the end, it doesn't even matter. These matters are but tiny human worries that distract us from larger joys. It's all about the journey...

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