ABUNDANCE

Here, stripped of thoughts and feelings of separation and beyond the possibility of loss, all life is outrageously rich, sacred and bountiful. One owns everything because one is everything!

CITY OF DREAMS

Venice, the city of dreams: the inspiration for this painting came from Tony and Joyce Zar, who after traveling to Venice, commissioned me to accomplish this vision as a center piece for their beautiful home. It was the largest and most complex painting I have ever attempted.
Tony, Joyce and I were delighted by the results.
And this is what I've been up to the past three months.
If the picture looks blurry, click on it - the enlargement is sharper.

The Way-seeking Mind

Our frantic human life is a continuation of one error after another (the time and space parade). The comedy and tragedy of our lives always seeks a position of advantage from a tight corral of self importance and self protection. The life of total understanding is a total revolution, and is absolutely triumphant now, beyond time and space. The engine of total understanding is the reality of emptiness exploding beyond all sorrow and fear. The self knowing mind that comes out of emptiness is sacred unto Itself. Here no movement is possible except peace and joy. Here, do what you will; everything is perfect.

NOTES TO MYSELF

Before you understand the truth of emptiness you think you must make some special effort to achieve something. This is hitting the cart to make the horse go. The harder we hit the cart the madder we get, because we can’t get anywhere.

NOTES TO MYSELF

If one really knows his or her true self they can do what they want and always be in life’s totality of joy. Here, morality is a joke that a lost soul always inflicts upon itself.

BEAUTIFUL MORNING

A beautiful morning; there is an infinite baby-blue sky below the stretched fingers of shadows trying to hold onto the receding night's secrets. This morning is the movement of meditation...intense, clear and without motive. There is just he Vast Mind giving Itself to an outrageous display of color and form. In the distance a Crow caws, a hummingbird is a hyphen upon the taut guitar string of a telephone wire. Everything is dynamically everything else; there is no sorrow, no separation, no possibility of longing. Without the brain's constant content there is the indestructible energy to be with this Vast Mind, as its totality of life now! We live in a time and space continuum of problems. We live with agonizing choices, but the man or woman whose mind is on fire with light and love never has a problem, problems do not exist in actual reality.

It was an exceptional night indeed…the L.A. Visionary Art Party at Club 740, in downtown Los Angeles, July 18^th of this year. I met up with my son, Chet Zar and his two friends, Chris and Federico (we’re fast becoming the Four Musketeers who attend various art shows).

Club 740 is an awesome space; it looks like an old, ornate balcony structured theatre that was maybe constructed in the 30’s or 40’s.

The arriving guests gave me the feeling of participating in a costume ball based on the Arabian Nights. There were young men with muscular arms, young women with beautiful body illustrations, and some of the women serving at the buffet were dressed like belly dancers. I just loved it; it looked as if some of my painting characters had come to life and were visiting me in a festive dream sequence!

Alex Grey and his wife, Allyson, showed up about 9:00 and were busy setting up the stage where the talented guest artists would paint throughout the night against the background throb of delicious recorded music which was amplified throughout the theatre’s inner sanctuary

My son, Chet, introduced me to Alex (who is probably the foremost ambassador of the visionary art movement) along with his beautiful and talented wife Allyson. They are both great painters. Alex is also the author of the book, “The Mission of Art”. While attending the San Francisco Art Institute in the late 60’s I studied art history and I must say with frank sincerity that Alex’s book is the most important investigation into art as the expression of higher consciousness that I have ever read. I found the couple to be warm, down to earth people…in fact everyone there that night seemed aglow with a friendly, fun loving attitude.

My son, Chet, gave a moving talk about his motives for following the passion of his art - I had to laugh to myself, remembering how my wife and I had watched him as a little kid, constructing outrageous inventions, drawing incredible monsters and now here he is a famous visionary artist talking to a huge audience about his work and life. And what a life it is!

As the night wore on and the various guest artists gave talks about their work I found myself joking and talking to a great guy, who it turns out was Adam Jones lead guitarist for Tool. Adam told me he had first met Chet on an FX movie set.

When the talks ended, the artists began their live painting performances (which went on until four in the morning). Wild dancing and painting continued the entire night and it was magical!

Many thanks to all those who made this fun, informative night possible. And as for the great photos, thank you Michele Marlo and Michele Wortman (I hope I’ve spelled the names correctly because they do such outstanding work - including the above photo of Chet, Alex and me).