A Touch of Color

Well, today I'm wondering how many of you are wasted on the bi-cameral brain topic. Fortunately, I am not quite done with exploring the associations, the rights and lefts, the blacks and whites. But here comes a little variation: a touch of color. Just a bit of color, like a piece of chicken in a lettuce sandwich.

How's your chicken today? Well, Tanda's left brain, like yours, processes data in a serial manner I'm told. You can see where that leads him. His right hemisphere processes the world in parallel; notice the difference? At full size this drawing presents a true challenge to keep your feet. Wiggle, wiggle. Enough for today!

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Time to test another touch of color. Just for fun I decided to extract some residue from an empty ink jet cartridge. A few drops of Cyan ink were coaxed onto the drawing paper to begin the next ink therapy session. 

What, may I ask, is the imagination for? OK, so you compose your reality there; so do I. May your realities begin and end with big smiles. May your life be full of fun.

Mushrooms, Balloons, and UBOs

This drawing evolved from the ink washes mindlessly applied to the page. The rest derives from my RoarShock associations with forms and may have something to do with my time as a seminarian.

Below: Another wash beginning. Fruit, cuckoo bird and balloons Must go somewhere ...

 

I made this drawing a couple weeks ago. Yesterday, while paging through Carl Jung's Red Book at a friend's house, I saw a similar sharp toothed creature eating.

We attended a Multiple Sclerosis informational dinner last week during which the speaker, Dr. Aungdin, told us that MRI brain scans show not only the black holes of demyelination, but also UBOs. The meaning of these Unidentified Bright Objects is unknown. 

Tanda Impostors to P Q

Click to enlarge.

Seeking the unconscious can be mind numbing. Just when you think you've arrived, con men trickle out of the forest to pimp the impostors. Later you realize these interpretations are only ways to affirm that sanity exists ... somewhere.

If one expects reason to prevail during ink therapy doodling sessions ...  hahahahaha!

This doodle makes me think about the many good things that come out of nowhere. Of course those good things are hidden in symbols that my affectionate readers can only guess at. So please go ahead and interpret the rest of these ink therapy doodles for yourself. The best story wins a free print.

Equilibrium Means Temporary

All of my inquiries into Oriental philosophy have informed me that CHANGE is at the Center of the Universe. 

I recall a similar physical science maxim: Equilibrium is a temporary stage in the life process of a river. Of course, I know that because I have drawn many profiles of a river’s life.

Here are another few profiles … 

Click to enlarge.

The Wader

Don't worry, Tanda. The wader has your bill.

Tanda’s links to the unconscious mind are being courted, it seems. It’s transparent that the wader must love to pay the bill for change.

Batman’s Guano

Batman’s guano sofas made Tanda sleepy

It seems there exists two kinds of wisdom in the world and one kind is bat wisdom. That is why humor is the only Virtue one must defend to the death. 

Sous-chef Tanda

The subconscious mind does not have to worry. That’s the rooster’s job. This should clarify the blending for a peaceful mind.

pax vosbiscum

Conflict Resolved

The other day I had the great, good fortune to sit down with Carl Jung’s Red Book for a few minutes. Within three or four pages I came across the description of Carl’s latter years during which he forsook directed thinking to explore the fantasies of the unconscious mind. 

Carl took the same intended journey that occupies my drawing labors, but over a hundred years earlier than I. Jung’s drawings are in color, while mine favor the black ink of an old map maker. Jung’s drawings tend to be geometrical and iconic. My drawings erupt from the who-knows-where with surprises for my startled eyes.

Old conflicts resolved, some clarity appears on the page ... for the moment. Tanda Shadowself’s inky blackness drains into a gravy boat crucible where it awaits further transformations, while my bloody fingerprints give texture to the leafy tops of skinny trees. 

Click picture to enlarge.

Tanda's Ink. My Blood.

I never know where an ink drawing will start. If I can’t find an area to begin doodling, I might pour an ink wash onto the paper, then start looking for shapes to extend.

Like Jung pointed out, I’ve noticed my thinking switching back-and-forth between directed and associative or imagistic thinking. I am aiming to convene with my unconscious mind while drawing. This kind of drawing feels like a dance for equilibrium. 

Patience is a Virtue when Courted

My third, self-administered ink therapy session started with great enthusiasms. Fantastic things were about to happen. Or, so I thought. 

It turned out that habitual thinking was locking me out of the drawing space I wanted to occupy for most of the night. I was poised above the paper, but the ink pen did not want to move of its own accord.

Blank-minded and anxious to start, I finally borrowed a pattern from one of Pam’s latest art quilts. Thereafter, I turned the beautiful abstract pueblos of the quilt into a winless kind of tic-tac-toe game. 

Sheesh! What to do? 

I called on the Cavalry. Soon my old, pen-headed friend Tanda appeared, but almost begrudgingly he stood at the edge of the page. We stared at each other for a long while. 

My representative of the subconscious mind was not ready for my prime time. Just before bed time, however, Tanda’s tan tien opened into a flower out of which a snake-like, pixie-eared muse came forward to show her/his face. Was this a message from my subconscious regarding mind games?

Click on drawing to enlarge.

Did you notice that the pixie-eared muse has one eye closed and the other eye only partly open? 

It seems the intended collaborators in this ink therapy session (the conscious and subconscious minds of Gerry Zeck) were not working in unison for much of the evening; we struggled with control issues for hours.

At the end of the session, this ink drawing seems to be telling me two things: 1. Sometimes enthusiasm can destroy equilibrium and, 2. Sometimes the subconscious knows better than the conscious mind. 

Next: Learning to listen.

Ink Therapy Resurrects Old Friends

My hope is that Ink Therapy saves us from this crazy, greedy, violent world. And that's just as good a reason as any to spend hours doodling with black ink on white paper.

My second inking session (Doubting Tanda) started at the top of the page with a series of short, parallel lines that eventually turned into a wooley creature with a noble probiscus. How do these things happen? Do these wooly creatures inhabit my brain? yours?

Grab a pen and paper and start doodling. Just make marks. Lines, circles, chevrons, dots, whatever feels good. Don't think too much. My ink therapy is not an activity that depends on plans or forethought or ego. Just the opposite; I simply doodle until the pen starts moving by itself.

Click on image to enlarge.

Before long a formally attired, pen-headed character and his strange dog-like buddy appear at the bottom of the page. Nothing too intimidating for a 70 year old inkster with viagra in his pocket, however. 

The pen-headed character is Tanda, an old friend from previous ink therapy sessions. Tanda always shows up with weird baggage; that’s his nature. Tanda is my psychological Shadow; his full name: Tanda Lobit Shadowself. He's here to amuse me.

But Tanda's first appearance was one of uncertainty on the page. He was dubiously amused when he showed me how he's changed during the past 16 years. He had been resting in a near visible sofa world waiting to make a reappearance in india ink. 

I told him he looks like a full professor on his way to a brandy sniffing party. 

Doodle Therapy

Doodle Therapy now rises from the depths of my digital archives. When one begins doodling with nothing on their mind, their pen and ink often times arrive at unexpected destinations. Here are a few more sessions from long ago. 

Easter Sunday

Subconsciously praying for a resurrection, perhaps, my doodling brought these results. Below, I find myself in a suitcase [ready to move?], the sleeping man [me?] lies waiting for the sunrise [Easter, spiritual resurrection?], under the partially folded umbrella [Florida?]. 

See how easy theraputic analysis comes? Who needs a shrink when pen and ink is so easy?

Buddha Saint-Turtleman

During one doodling therapy session a new character emerged from the ink well named Tanda. Tanda was a straight man, a mobile pen-headed fellow, who seemed to occupy ethereal realms. Here Tanda is sleeping. Note his eyes are closed. I'm sure everyone has heard of Buddha Saint-Turtleman. 

Poison Damsel

Tanda was quite adventuresome, showing up in the most exciting places. This particular drawing was colorized and printed onto tee shirts to advertise one of the Open Studio art shows we held at Florida Avenue Studios during the Nineteen Nineties.

Moleman's Map

This may well be the last pen and ink drawing I exhibit in this blog. It was also one of the early doodlings that progressed beyond unrecognizable squiggles. A Prince of a Fellow, Moleman the Familiar lives in the psyches of many men all over this fractured world of ours. This drawing came at the end of a long, long novel writing session in my old basement office.

I suspect this is the end, but I can't make any promises.

There is an off-chance more doodles will appear here.