The Transitional Image

Wound Of the Dragon

I viewed a 16th century alchemical illustration directly after Pranayama to see how my freshly charged brain worked with the obscure symbolism. After contemplating the image I went into my studio and splattered this collage with red ink. The idea of a dragon's wound...it turns my mind in an unexpected way. It's the wound itself that captures my interest; stigmata of the mystical beast, Achilles heel, the vulnerability of metaphysical tissue. We can pierce the divine body. What does that mean?

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This Image 'Wound Of the Dragon" Elena Ray Copyright 2007. Mixed Medium Collage with traditional Chinese Warrior papercut. After finishing this post it came to me that I never cut paper shapes for my collages. I think this is usually one of the first things the beginning collage artist does, but I've purposefully avoided the practice of using scissors and X-Acto knives for some reason...Excited by these thoughts this morning at 3 AM I got up, took myself some beautiful batik paper, and cut out a dragon's tail.

I pierce the body of Paper-my metaphysical tissue.

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(P.S. After some time I decided that the dragons tail over loaded the visual impact of the image, so like many of my collages, this image will continue to transform-the tail will be removed, the torn paper beneath it will reveal another option. Original finished version shown here. )

Spirit Leaping

The deer skull has a noble architecture. The bush skeletons hold the expression of wind and heat in their forms. With these two symbols I imagine myself leaping dimensions with deer spirit in my psyche and entering the sacred hall of the wind which leads to the ceramic chamber of the celestial voice.

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This Image "Deer Spirit" Elena Ray copyright 2007. I have been trying to pair this deer skull with one of my bush skeletons for a long time with no success; the complexity of the two forms competed with each other and the resulting images were always messy. Within the context of the monotone though the two forms embraced each other.

White Starfish

I let the beauty of the materials lead me. It's like having a secret invisible magician friend.

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This Image "White Starfish". Elena Ray Copyright 2007. The background is plaster of paris on a wallboard. You have to work fast. Tim spread the plaster down and I went along after him adding the circles and some additional textures. This image was photographed in my natural light tent with a scratched up mirror placed in the direct sun outside the tent to pop some hard light onto the starfish. In Photoshop I worked in channels to refine the contrast without shifting the color. I'm just getting into channels. My friend Win got very excited when I told him about my white-on-white project and he spontaneously poured out technical information that has revived my relationship with the universe. I'm loving this project. I'm so so so grateful to William Waldron whose exquisite photograph in Elle Decor originally inspired me.

Being Energy

Where does the initial impulse to create come from; the heart, the stomach, the brain...or beyond? And then what emotion shapes the energy that forms the work?

The essential states of being that the creator draws from, is that all their art can ever be?
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This Image "untitled" Elena Ray copyright 2007. A montaged photograph in process, still only in digital form. The concept is: hands drawing in Prana. Qi. Ki. Energy. Light.

Headache Cure

Small bowl of brown rice with butter (don't be chintzy on the butter).
Eat and wait 2O minutes.
Walk briskly for 40 minutes.
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It works! I'd forgotten about this remedy my chiropractor in L.A. gave me years ago when I was having lots of headaches. But as I was sitting there yesterday eating some rice, with a headache, it came back to me.

White on white is turning out to be technically exacting. I've begun hitting the manuals; big learning curve...I just want to rush ahead and make images-thus, the headache. Image making is sensual, it's like making love and having babies. The technical aspect of it is like setting up house and paying bills...I've never been good at that...

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This Image "Lime Fusion". Elena Ray copyright 2006. I did actually have some images of brown rice, but when I opened them up I couldn't bear to post them here-pretty bad...no wonder nobody downloads them.

White Wind Mind

I may be able to sustain a process of producing white imagery now that I understand that it is a state of mind. Ultimately that is the decisive factor in how far I will be able to go; how long can I maintain a mental space of positive white? Without meaning to, I change tonal values within. I have two days in which I have nothing scheduled. It doesn't seem enough, but I have to laugh at myself thinking I can hold it for even that (long) short of a time.

All the leaves I just photographed blew away in an unexpected wind. They were cherished objects for me. Skeleton leaves are a rare find. You can buy beautiful Bodhi leaves in any craft store, but I found these Cottonwood leaves in a deep canyon far far away. I recovered one leaf, this one...it is so small, maybe 2 inches in diameter. The loss reminded me of why I have chosen paper as a medium. The leaf itself is the essence of paper...paper blows away.

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This Image "Study of Skeleton Leaf On White". Elena Ray copyright 2007

Shakuhachi

I am Japanese. I have decided. I will be everything I am as bamboo flute, played by the master whose mind rides the wind.
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This Image "Zen Elements" Elena Ray Copyright 2006

White (2)

Here I have begun my study of white on white.
The amateur poet strives for perfection.

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No word, it seems to me, is made for a single tone. Every word carries within it the possibility of the entire range of tonalities.

It is the underlying beingness of the writer that charges the words with their light, and then lays their shadows after them.

This image is my poem. I like the words in it: "bone", "stones", "leaf"...but that's not really a poem, is it?
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This Image "Study Of White". Elena Ray Copyright 2007

The Anguished Heaven

I see now, clearly, how I fail to see myself. A conundrum, exemplified for me by others that I feel overlook their own particular significance, their own unique message, which if turned to, turned on...

But it doesn't happen. Or, if it has, the experience seems to leave one clinging to the effect long past the meaning of the original manifestation...grabbing at the shadow of a past reality.

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This Image "The Anguished Heaven". Elena Ray Copyright 2007. Mixed medium photograph of an anonymous nude woman with her hands twisted around her face. 16" x 20" pigment ink print on an InkAID prepped Kinwashi Japanese paper. Hand stamped Chinese seal pattern at bottom. Mixed Asian paper collage at top right: the Chinese character means heaven.