New Work

Return of the Light

Many cultures and religions have a major holiday that coincides with this time of the year. That is because it is the winter solstice, the annual celestial event around which our ancestors invented traditional superstitious practices to celebrate an end to the darkening of days and breaking through barriers between the physical and spiritual world.  

Contrary […]

When a painting fails

I was embarrassed to show this painting until I realized how I could fix it.

One of the creative advantages that I am discovering as I create more artworks digitally is the infinite possibilities for testing variations. 

I painted Threshold #5 over 10 years ago. There are many things I really like about this painting – like the […]

How to Progressives

Awakening #6 is a new original print that I just finished. My usual way of creating these is to start with an image of a painting and rework it in Affinity Photo – my preferred image editing software – and merge in some astronomical photos. It is a fun process that can lead to unexpected discoveries that […]

Origin of Form

The world we know is built on triangles, mathematically speaking.

To determine how space sculpts itself, physicists describe its shape using triangles and their higher-dimensional analogs. To see how this works, first consider that triangle is 2 dimensional and is the simplest shape that can be made in 2 dimensions. A tetrahedron is the 3-dimensional form of a triangle, […]

Parallax View

This new artwork presents two slightly different views of the same cosmic event seen as if through a bifocal lens.

As with all my work, there is are metaphysical and personal development implications. The mystically inclined among us may see an illustration of “As Above, So Below”. Or perhaps this will remind you that when you are faced […]

Etic Landscape #5

Etic Landscape #5 is a brand new painting, the latest in my series of landscapes. (A discernible horizon makes for a landscape because I say so.)

To me, it looks like it might be someplace real. Maybe a place in another galaxy or maybe someplace in another reality in the multiverse where the physical laws are not the […]

Etic Landscape #3

Mixed Media on Canvas, 24″x36″

Prints are available for this artwork

No one has ever seen a place like this before. No one has ever imagined a reality like this before.

Yet such an otherworldly landscape does exist. Clearly. Because here it is. I imagine it, it therefore exists.

But is this alien world real?

I have no doubt that there […]

Etic perceptions of other realities – Real or Imagined?

The impressions that I have of an etic reality go through my own filters. 

Getting back to the anthropological roots of etic and emic: those who study indigenous culture can’t ever be in that culture to experience it. They can try to imagine what it would be like and they may even get the opportunity to talk […]

Etic Realities are brought forth in my paintings

In the process of developing my art, I first get a vision of an energy dynamic or physical presence that is from an etic perspective. This information is not necessarily understandable – because I am outside its defining parameters – but it does make an impression that I feel necessary to bring forth into this physical reality.

I […]

Awakening at Ultima Thule

More strange and exotic things happening in a new alien landscape painting from that distant region of the cosmos unknown to our knowledge and vision: Ultima Thule.

Unknown to vision? This is a  visual interpretation out of perceptions that are not truly visual, or of anything that is part of this local experiential world.

Awakening at […]

Ultima Thule

Many of my paintings invoke an energy dynamic that looks like it might be a place in the cosmic frontier that embodies that energy. Here I have flipped that a bit and we have what looks like a specific, if alien, landscape that is home to strange exotic things happening.

Ultima Thule  (pronounced thoo-lee) was a label used on […]

Incident at the Threshold

As usual, this new work of art is a mixed media painting on canvas. This painting is 24 x 30 inches.

I seem to be in the midst of switching gears a bit.

Anytime an artist makes a horizontal line it begins to invoke a landscape.  I called my last painting a landscape, because of its sense of place. (I just […]

Rift

For your consideration:

A new painting: Rift.

Here I am invoking an eruptive disturbance along a threshold that may be physical, emotional, mental or spiritual – personal or cosmic.

Lots of toothbrush spattering in this one.

This is the second painting completed this year. I’ve been excitedly and actively painting and have fallen behind in posting about them. More […]

Incursion

I’ve finished my first really new paintings in quite a while.

The recent Five Elements Series didn’t feel new to me, but instead a rehashing or maybe even a summary of work over the past few years. In a commission situation, where the client expects a certain look, that does constrain the work a bit.

Here is the […]

Void Element

Here is the fifth and final painting completing the “five elements” series commissioned by my son, Sensei Joshua Copson for his martial arts studio, The Blue Dragon Dojang.

I made the paintings in the traditional order of the Gorintou – the Five Ring Pagoda.  Sensei teaches the 5 elements in a circular pattern: Water, […]

Wind Element

And now we come to the fourth painting in the series commissioned by my son, Sensei Joshua Copson for his martial arts studio, The Blue Dragon Dojang, Five Elements painting for Wind.

These paintings embody the order in which his Oh Do Kwan students progress in their spiritual studies. The shapes are consistent with the five elements of […]

Fire Element

This is the Five Elements painting for Fire.

It is the third painting in the series commissioned by my son, Sensei Joshua Copson for his martial arts studio, The Blue Dragon Dojang.

Fire represents power, intention, endurance, passion, and the indomitable spirit. Furthermore, Fire teaches us to harness power, and build the endurance needed to use it.

The shapes […]

Water Element

This is the second in the Five Elements series commissioned by my son, Sensei Joshua Copson for his martial arts studio, The Blue Dragon Dojang.

This is the painting for Water.

Water represents the fluid, flowing things in the world. Water teaches us to flow in our movements, find the supple center of balance and become flexible in […]

Five Elements Series

Earlier in 2017, I accepted a commission from my son, Sensei Joshua Copson, a 4th-degree black belt, to create a series of five paintings for his martial arts studio, The Blue Dragon Dojang.

He has developed  Five Fold Way framework for martial arts instruction.  These paintings embody the progress in their spiritual studies of his Oh Do Kwan students. […]

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