Sunday, September 11, 2011

"I See Dead People"

We were at the opening of Aman Smith’s show at Gallery 14 last night. It was not very well attended when we got there. Except for the portrait of his daughters, and of the little girl with her hands across her face that he did for a charity that fights against human trafficking, all of Aman’s subjects/models are dead. They are iconic entertainers who died before their time. There are such notables as Jimi Hendrix, , Tupak Chakur, and other rappers, There was also a dead graffiti artist who looked for all the world like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Stephen’s favorite was the one of Jimi Hendrix, while Tegwedd’s favorite was the one of Billy Holiday. The one of Heath Ledger recreated his deeply dhasisturbing last role as the Joker in “The Dark Knight.” The one of the rapper with all the bling had eyes that seemed to follow you around the room.

In the 70s and again in the 90s and early 2000s, a whole passel of rockers and rappers died at age 27, a year before their 1st Saturn return. If you can get through your first Saturn return, the next hurdle is your 2nd Saturn return at age 56. Tegwedd was finally first published during her 2nd Saturn return. Saturn was popularly known as the great malefic, but Tegwedd thinks he should be known as the great manifestor because he sets limits. In order for you to manifest your Will/desires, you have to limit them as to form and bring them down from the realm of Spirit to the material realm of earth.

This is something that Aman has done very well. He even incorporates earthy substances such as art sand and and coffee grounds into his paintings. They give the portraits a dimension they might otherwise lack, almost making them sculpture-like. But his use of light and shadow adds to the dimensionality of the portraits. He does these portraits of these iconic performers because he feels that they should be immortalized. He did the one of his daughters just because they’re cute. He doesn’t want to part with that one; it’s NFS (Not For Sale). The others are definitely for sale at very reasonable prices.

Mr. and Mrs. Aman Smith are a pleasant looking black couple in their 30s. Aman’s been doing art since he was 9. He started with pastels, then graduated to acrylics and oils in his 20s. Tegwedd didn’t interview him. She found out this information from overhearing him talk to the other viewers. Stephen found him to be very congenial. Tegwedd liked his hat because it had a picture of a dragon on it. Julie was more than a little disturbed that the Smiths showed up to the show more than an hour late, nor had he sent her a price list so that she could label the paintings. When they finally arrived, he set up his laptop, and prepared a price list for Julie. The show runs through October 1st. If you fancy art that captures iconic dead entertainers, this is the show for you. Gallery 14 is at 3960 14th Ave.

We’re still searching for a house mate. Now if you are willing, able, and ready to to do some hard physical labor like Stephen is doing to get the house and yard in shape, $100 will be taken off your rent until the work is completed, then the rent will go back up to $400. So you will be paying only $300 until the work is completed. .

Our friend Caitlin ni Manannan has people bringing her wood from when they prune their trees in their yards. And we are shortly going to be making rune Rune and Ogham sets. So if you’re local, bring us your branches. They should be at least the thickness of your thumb.

All you hard-workin Pagans should stand solidly with labor and against the Tea Party. As James Hoffa Jr. said, “Recall those sons of bitches! Go to your ballot boxes and vote them out.” The 75,000 Verizon workers are on strike, and we stand with them. Solidarnosc! as the Poles would say. Verizon management, all Republicans, have made 100 unreasonable demands, and refuse to negotiate, but are paying scabs to cross the picket lines, and work for them. All the workers want, is to keep what they have, a small cost of living increase in wages, their health care, and their pensions. Management wants them to pay $100 per month for health care, while they get it free. If you were thinking of getting a Verizon phone and account, don’t, and do tell them why you aren’t, that you are boycotting them. If you have a Verizon account, close it, and go to another carrier, and tell Verizon why. If you want to piss off Stephen, abuse or oppress the workers. Tell Verizon that you refuse to do business with an employer who oppresses its workers.

Soon we may be selling pendants of the lady and the tiger worked in silver. If you reading this are a silversmith please call our toll free number 1-888-611-7982, and we’ll do business. Coming soon--prints of the Lady and the Tiger by Lizet. Rune and Ogham sets worked by Stephen. Tegwedd has started to crochet cellphone holsters of her own design. They are of acrylic yarn, in assorted colors. She is obsessed right now with making holsters for the Pagan Pride Harvest Festival, but she will make you one to order for a reasonable price. She has some right now in assorted colors for just $9.95+S&H. She is working with yarn she has on hand, so a custom one will cost more because she has to obtain the yarn to make yours. It will cost $14.95 + S&H The smallest container for US priority mail is $4.95.

We are offering a new service. For just $19.95, you can have spell-coaching. We will take you through the construction and performance of a spell. It’s very simple. If you want to perform a spell but you don’t think you know what you’re doing, hire us to coach you through it. The fee is payable to our PayPal accounts, to either abbotts_inn@yahoo.com or tezra.reitan@gmail.com .
We will coach you using strong ethics. Tegwedd has a couplet she will teach you which you can add to your spell that will ensure that it is ethical. Abbott’s Inn International School of Magick is over 40 years old, having been founded in 1970 in Berkeley, CA. It went cybernetic almost 9 years ago. Lizet has been helping us put the school on a more commercial footing, and with her inspiration, Tegwedd has started packaging the classes into manageable packets. Ms. Freeman did a 3rd website for us almost a month ago at http://abbottsinn.wordpress.com. From there, by clicking on two of the graphics, you can go to either of the other two sites: http://abbottsinninternational.com/ and http://abbottsinn.com/ . You can also get to our network http://abbottsinn.ning.com/ . With her help, we also salvaged some things from his old website, including the mission statement: The Abbott’s Inn International School of Magick aims to provide a gentle nurturing environment that promotes education in both the atmosphere and the specific tools of magick. Our research arm is called the Magickal Research Institute or MRI, not to be confused with the medical MRI, or Magnetic Resonance Image, which Tegwedd had on her right ankle about 10 months ago. Stephen and Lizet came up with the name almost 9 years ago. The three of us have become a very effective working team. Stephen has his cell phone, and we are both enjoying learning how to use our cell phones. His cell phone number is 916-467-6393. He’ll have access to the Internet on that phone. He says “I’m not very good at texting because of my glaucoma, so please be gentle with me.” Don’t forget to call 888-611-7982 for all your divination, learning class, and research needs.

Monday, August 15, 2011

Art for Pagans, a Natural Pairing

Welcome to Art for Pagans! We’re glad you could make it! This is a new group, so no clones as yet to check out, but soon there will be. Saturday night we went to a very interesting art show at our favorite art gallery, Gallery 14, 3960 60th St., Sacramento. It will be there until September 2nd, 2011. The name of the show is “Art by Ninja.” The art is both whimsical and gothic. She has lots of zombies in her art. Funny thing Stephen can’t stand zombie movies, but he seemed to like this art. We even found a picture that looked like what Stephen looked Friday night when he had a fever.

“Don’t tell Ninja that her art looks like that of Tim Burton. That only makes her mad, and any fool knows you don’t get a redhead mad,” according to the announcement cards we got early last week.

Her art is very much influenced by comics (she inks a comic herself), anime, and cartoons. When we saw the artist, she had dyed her red hair black and was dressed in a sundress that reminded Tegwedd of a ballerina’s tutu, except that it was longer, did not expose her well parts,
and had a comic type print that was a cross between goth and punk. She’s very tall, almost as tall as Stephen, who is 5’11”. Lizet, who was with us, bought Stephen a “putty card.” Ninja signed it with a silver pen, so now he has a signed piece of art.

Tegwedd was chatting with her friend Snoodlady, and described the art as having a “certain dark whimsy to it.”

Art, especially modern art, is an extremely subjective field. What we like, you may not care for, and art critics do nothing to enlighten the consumer. Many critics have built up a certain artist, now dead, and we view the art to discover that these “masterpieces” resemble nothing so much as the rags an artist might use to clean his brushes and hands.

Saturday night when the artist’s mother was describing how the critics had reacted to her daughter’s work, Tegwedd told her about the scene in Mel Brooks’ movie “History of the World, Part 1” where the first artist has finished a painting on a cave wall, then a guy comes along and urinates on the piece of art, thus becoming the first art critic. Getting to meet these artists, and asking them about their process has been very enlighening (or since she’s dark, should we say “endarkening?” for Tegwedd. She has found out about our friend Walter Rhoads’ artistic process, then interviewed each artist she’s met at the gallery about his or her process of creation. Julie and Walt actually had meat at the reception. It was pork fajita mix Walt had obtained from La Superior Mercado 2 blocks from us. They have a Mexican deli in the back of the store. Walt and Julie also had berry lemonade, fresh strawberries with whipped cream, mini-cinnamon rolls, macaroons, M&Ms--both plain and peanut, chocolate covered almonds, 3 kinds of sliced cheeses and crackers, uber hot salsa and tortilla chips, and watermelon chunks.

Stephen said about the art, “The art is very dark, I like it because I’m really dark.”

Ninja’s musical tastes are also very similar to Stephen’s; punk and goth rock. We both quit eating at 8 pm. It’s a discipline thing we do. The food was just there for the opening, it won’t be there when you come to look at the art. Next month there’ll be a new show, so we’ll keep you posted about that show.

How many here like Frank Frazetta’s and Boris Vallejo’s fantasy art? Both of us like both artists, and they both have very Pagan themes and motifs.

The 75,000 Verizon workers are on strike, and we stand with them. Solidarnosc! as the Poles would say. Verizon management, all Republicans, have made 100 unreasonable demands, and refuse to negotiate, but are paying scabs to cross the picket lines, and work for them. All the workers want, is to keep what they have, a small cost of living increase in wages, their health care, and their pensions. Management wants them to pay $100 per month for health care, while they get it free. If you were thinking of getting a Verizon phone and account, and do tell them why you aren’t, that you are boycotting them. If you have a Verizon account, close it, and go to another carrier, and tell Verizon why. Tegwedd used to be in favor of management like her father, who was a staunch Republican until he died, until she tried to live on the wages she got as a temp office worker. The she got in with Doc, who was a member of the SEIU Health Workers union. Stephen was a strong union man since he was 20. He’s a member of the IWW (International Workers of the World) aka the Wobblies. Janvier was a little Wobbly when she first started walking. If you want to piss off Stephen, abuse or oppress the workers. A very wise person once told Tegwedd years ago that you know you’ve successfully negotiated when nobody leaves the table happy. Tell Verizon that you refuse to do business with an employer who oppresses its workers.

Soon we may be selling pendants of the lady and the tiger worked in silver. If you reading this are a silversmith please call our toll free number 1-888-611-7982, and we’ll do business. Coming soon--prints of the Lady and the Tiger by Lizet. Rune and Ogham sets worked by Stephen. Tegwedd has started to crochet cellphone holsters of her own design. They are of acrylic yarn, in assorted colors. She is obsessed right now with making holsters for the Pagan Pride Harvest Festival, but she will make you one to order for a reasonable price. She has some right now in assorted colors for just $9.95+S&H. She is working with yarn she has on hand, so a custom one will cost more because she has to obtain the yarn to make yours. It will cost $14.95 + S&H The smallest container for US priority mail is $4.95.

We are offering a new service. For just $19.95, you can have spell-coaching. We will take you through the construction and performance of a spell. It’s very simple. If you want to perform a spell but you don’t think you know what you’re doing, hire us to coach you through it. The fee is payable to our PayPal accounts, to either abbotts_inn@yahoo.com or tezra.reitan@gmail.com .
We will coach you using strong ethics. Tegwedd has a couplet she will teach you which you can add to your spell that will ensure that it is ethical. Abbott’s Inn International School of Magick is over 40 years old, having been founded in 1970 in Berkeley, CA. It went cybernetic almost 9 years ago. Lizet has been helping us put the school on a more commercial footing, and with her inspiration, Tegwedd has started packaging the classes into manageable packets. Ms. Freeman did a 3rd website for us almost a month ago at http://abbottsinn.wordpress.com. From there, by clicking on two of the graphics, you can go to either of the other two sites: http://abbottsinninternational.com/ and http://abbottsinn.com/ . You can also get to our network http://abbottsinn.ning.com/ . With her help, we also salvaged some things from his old website, including the mission statement: The Abbott’s Inn International School of Magick aims to provide a gentle nurturing environment that promotes education in both the atmosphere and the specific tools of magick. Our research arm is called the Magickal Research Institute or MRI, not to be confused with the medical MRI, or Magnetic Resonance Image, which Tegwedd had on her right ankle about 9 months ago. Stephen and Lizet came up with the name almost 9 years ago. The three of us have become a very effective working team. Stephen has his cell phone, and we are both enjoying learning how to use our cell phones. His cell phone number is 916-467-6393. He’ll have access to the Internet on that phone. He says “I’m not very good at texting because of my glaucoma, so please be gentle with me.” Don’t forget to call 888-611-7982 for all your divination, learning class, and research needs.