Sketchbook Page 33: Burning Man Outfit

Playa fashion: 

Leather helmet with goggles, painted palm frond breast plate, shrunken head medallion, long-sleeve cloth tunic, velvet pants with floral embroidery, robe, boots, bamboo staff

Sketchbook Page 32: Heisler Park, Laguna Beach, California

A beautiful spot not far from my apartment, Heisler Park, has manicured lawns interspersed with floral gardens and native desert plant life: yucca, aloe, agave, etc.  It is gorgeous and home to many species of birds, to which Laguna Beach offers sanctuary.  This is a popular spot where Myrtle Street meets Cliff Drive, with these four landmark palm trees.

Heisler Park Palm Trees
pencil
2014

Burning Man 2014: Spontaneous Play with Light-up Frisbees and Balls

One night, my brother Daniel, aka Fango, and I saw some of the large-scale sound camps along the outer edges of the city.  Having had our fun, we were starting to head home along the Esplanade, the main drag of the city.  Up ahead, we saw, among the mishmash of colored lights, a particular group of lights that seemed to be moving around independently.  Getting closer, we saw they were Frisbees, all lit, presumably with LED's, which would slowly cycle through the color spectrum.  People were flinging the disks back and forth, and they remained lit, creating a beautiful effect of flying and hovering colored lights.  We felt the joy rising in us, and soon ran to join the fun.  There was some camp hosting this party, who had supplied the disks, and participants were running in from every side, drawn by the dancing lights and the sound of playful laughter.  We would chase the disks, attempting to catch them in this wide-open expanse, and throw them back towards the host camp.

After a bit of this, they came out with another toy: a set of softball-sized rubber balls, also lit from within and cycling colors.  These they simply threw out towards the playa, and they bounced and rolled far on that flat surface, being chased and thrown back by participants.  With about a hundred objects flying, bouncing, and rolling all over, there was always something to chase.  No rules were needed, except the idea of keeping the toys in the general play area, throwing them back towards the camp.

This was classic Burning Man: Spontaneous, simple, but irresistibly compelling.  We moved on after a time, panting from the exercise.

Sketchbook Page 31: Wheel of Fire Mandala

Same whirly pattern, but with a stroke resembling flames, woven into a directional wheel symbol.

Wheel of Fire Mandala
pencil
2014

Sketchbook Page 30: Whirly Design Gallery

Inspired by the walls of the Paris Salon during the period of the Impressionists, I drew this salon wall of whirly designs.  

Whirly Salon Wall
pencil
2014

Sketchbook Page 29: Psychedelic Landscape

What do all the whirly designs, grid patterns, symbols and characters add up to? Hell if I know, but for now we'll call it "Psychedelic Landscape."  Warping grids show alien topographies of the mind.  Odd symbols defying meaning suggest an other-worldly language, extra-dimensional syntax.  Entities and ghosts pop in and out, cartoonish faces suggesting and interacting, guiding the eye. 

Psychedelic Landscape
pencil
2014

Sketchbook Page 28 More Scribbling and Whirlies

Just filling up the page with lines, patterns, value (shading), shapes, symbols.  In ink.

Scribbly Whirly
Ink
2014

Sketchbook Page 27: Ink Scribble Design

More of the same style of whirly abstract I've been showing lately.  This in pen.

Whirly Scribble Design
Ink
2014

Sketchbook Page 26: Chaotic Array

The essence of drawing is lines.  Lots of lines.  The idea is to start drawing lines and keep drawing them. Lines combine to create shapes, symbols, forms, textures and topographies.  The viewer's eye interprets these with no further effort on the part of the sketcher.  Meanings emerge independently of the artist's intent.  

Try it!  It's fun!

Chaotic Array
2014
Ink 

Burning Man 2014: The Man Burn and the Temple Burn

The Man Burn

I went out to the Burn this year with my two brothers, Phil, aka Nostrildamus, and Daniel, aka Fango.

The Man was huge this year, so big that its legs were logs about two feet by two feet thick. Previously, the man used telephone pole-sized logs as the mainstays for the legs, so this was new.  As a result of the thicker legs, the Man stood for some 45 minutes as it burned.  It seemed to go on forever, whereas usually the Man collapses within twenty or so minutes, followed soon after by the collapse of the structure that the Man usually stands on.  

When it finally did collapse, the whole thing just toppled forward, rather than collapsing in on itself.  The legs were not burned through, and ended up as two huge smoldering smoking logs sticking out from the bonfire.  

The tradition is to surge forward and surround the man after it falls, swarming in a counter-clockwise direction around the fire.  I wanted to swarm around the fire at least once, having missed doing it the previous two years.  It took us some time to maneuver in the tight crowd, as everyone else had the same plan.  At some point, we were stopped, and there was no room to move ahead, as the crown was pressed together tightly.  At some point, it became clear what was slowing down our movement: a giant smoldering log was in our path, and the smaller and less agile members of our swarm had some trouble getting over it, needing a hand, or at least patience. 

Then I heard from behind me, the voice of a young man saying, "Just put your arms in front of you and PUSH!"  And indeed, soon I felt the pressure from behind, as no doubt several people had followed this direction and were pushing the crowd forward.  This was a dangerous situation, as it threatened to push people into the smoldering log.  I reacted without thinking, turning my head and screamed at those pushing to stop.  I made it clear to them that I meant business, and felt myself ready to fight.  They quickly relented and apologized, and as I calmed down, I saw they meant no harm, but just didn't consider the consequences.  

Then we were up and over the log, helping others do the same, and then again for the other leg.  The logs put a major damper on the swarming.  Eventually, we had made it around the fire and were ready to move on to the next thing.

The Temple Burn

I got no pictures of the Man Burn.  There are plenty online you can find.  I did capture the Temple Burn, so I will tell that story through photos:

The Temple of Grace. The Sharpie Shaman, in the orange robes,  maintains the perimeter.

People surrounding the now-closed Temple

Looking back from the Temple towards where the Man had been.

Darkness falls as we await the Temple Burn.  Fango and I went nice and early, so had a front row seat.

My brother, Daniel Ari, aka Fango, looking a bit forlorn.

Fango & Freerad

Cherry pickers are great for watching the burns.

They light it up.

It burned quick.

All that lacy woodwork provided plenty of surface area for the flame.

As often happens, whirling dust devils full of red hot embers come spinning off the fire, trailing into the desert, sometimes spilling hot ash on the crowd.

The blaze climbs up the central tower.

Now that's a fire.

The fire is past its peak, and now we wait for the structure to fall.

The surface texture has burned off, revealing the skeleton of the structure.

The crowd is introspective.

Silence reigns.

The structure has fallen.

Dancing around Rolling Thunder, mobile drum circle, after the burn

Fango, left, and Tabias, right, tearing down the camp.

And then it was over... the 7:30 street Monday afternoon: mostly deserted.

Well, that concludes my pictures from Burning Man 2014.  More stories to come.

2014 Burning Man Stories Menu Page

Sketchbook Page 25: Spirally Composition

Just doodling on a pad for long enough can lead to some compelling designs.  

Spirals and Lines

Sketchbook page 24: elderly one-eyed man

Rebuttals to Common Prohibitionist Arguments 6: "Do you want your surgeon operating on you while high?"

"If you are for legalization, do you want your surgeon to be high while he operates on you?  Or your pilot to be high while he's flying the plane?  Or your bus driver, child's teacher, etc."


The rhetorical question makes many unsupported assumptions:
Assumption 1: Prohibition prevents people from getting high.

                Prohibition fails to prevent people from getting high, so the odds are the same my surgeon will be high with or without legalization.  Any decrease in drug use due to prohibition is negligible. 

Assumption 2:  A substance that is made legal will, as a result, be used by everyone.

                    Currently many thousands of substances are legal and on the market, yet everyone is not "on" them all the time.  Though alcohol has been legal since the mid 1930's, there are many millions who manage to avoid being drunk as they do their job.  Ditto for pharmaceuticals, all of which have side effects. 

Assumption 3: Using cannabis prevents people from doing their job well, or even adequately.

                          There is just no evidence of that when it comes to the vast majority of jobs.  Naturally, no one wants a service worker whom they rely on to be impaired, on anything!  It makes no difference if the impairing substance or activity is legal or illegal; cannabis, or modeling glue. 

Assumption 4: Cannabis couldn't possibly benefit anybody's health or work.

                              Do I want my surgeon to have used cannabis before operating on me?  Well, let's see,... is he epileptic and prone to seizures if he doesn't use cannabis?  Then, absolutely, YES, I unequivocally want him to use cannabis before he operates.  Why, would you want your surgeon to skip his vital anti-seizure medication before operating on you?  That seems a bit, well, reckless.  

  That's just one scenario, but others come to mind: muscle spasms, chronic anxiety, depression.  Any of these might negatively affect a surgeon or pilot's performance, so if these conditions can be mitigated by the use of cannabis, and without any serious side effects, then that is clearly a positive.

In the end, this argument boils down to the same old simplistic moralistic screed: "drugs are bad, mm'kay?"

Just two shamans hanging out downtown.

Yep.  Sometimes I wear my Burning Man clothes out on the town in the "default world".  This time I happened to run into a statue of an old shaman from ancient times, in front of Weiland's gallery in Laguna Beach.  Back in the day, this kindly old figure would slide down the single entrance and exit to the teepee-like homes of tribal villagers, which doubled as the chimney of the snowed-in dwellings.  He would come with a sack of goodies to give away.  What were the goodies?  Amanita Muscaria mushrooms, aka Fly Agaric.  These would grow in the winter and give the cooped-up villagers some much needed entertainment.  Reindeer are known to consume the same mushrooms, and thus "fly."  Santa's outfit, with its trademark red hat with white puffball is designed to resemble the caps of the Fly Agaric mushrooms, which are red with white puffballs.  

Yes, that's right, I'm hugging a large doll.  That's how I roll.

Later, Christians co-opted this folk hero and made him a saint, whose omnipresent watchful eye judges all, as worthy, or not, to receive cheaply-made toys made by children in other countries.

Incidentally, the first theme camp at Burning Man was Christmas Camp, whose host would dress as Santa, set up a tree with decorations, and do the whole bit.

The holidays have passed and I'm glad!