After several weeks of drought and freezing cold, low “Wiebke” first brought rain and then snow, which lasted for a day and brought much needed precipitation. Within a few hours the white blanket was gone again and spring took over the next day. Winter slumber is definitely over! Alas, most early flowering plants had already blossomed at the end of an unusually warm January, and where then surprised by the Siberian cold that lasted throughout the month of February. In the end I ran around the garden with a watering can, carrying and pouring gallons of water from the rain barrel in our basement. Meanwhile we missed to empty the second rain barrel left outdoors and of course it burst when the water in it froze completely. To do: buy new rain barrel!
Now, there is still a bit of work to do with preparing the garden…
This has been pointed out to me by an acquaintance from Berlin, and now I went there to see it myself.
No, I don’t do street art. Someone copied my Harvest sigil and combined it with a raven motif. I reckon the raven may be copied as well. I was surprised about the dimension. It seems to be glued unto the door rather than painted directly on it. It is signed “Pyramid Oracle”. They obviously put some work into this project and I admit it turned out nicely. I have to accept that others will continue to copy my work. It contributes to my work and ideas gaining broader impact. I doubt though, the person, who made this, has an idea of who I am or the concept behind the sigil. They probably don’t understand fully the spiritual consequences either. It’s not my business. Rest assured though, if I see you attempting to draw profit or recognition from copying my designs, I will hunt you.
2017 was over before it started. The annual check at the dentist one year before felt like yesterday. On a personal level, 2017 was again bittersweet, with a couple of setbacks. But so what… A highlight was to finally have seen Diamanda Galás in concert, which had been on my wishlist for too long. Another highlight was closing the year with Oliver Huntemann at Dresden’s Club Paula. I also spent rare time with my bffs, something I am looking forward to again and all the more in 2018!
Workwise I just continued and worked harder. My web shop went online in September and since then I hardly had a break. I vended for the second time during the Samhain Celebration in Gotha and also had my first gallery exhibition outside of Dresden. There were several double and triple shifts, at times I stayed up and worked for 2 days in a row. There was too much or too little sleep, but no balance. As a result, I started 2018 dead tired. I am in fact still in a sort of recovery mode. But 2018 has only started, I have already been productive again…
I patched the green house as good as possible and cleaned up a bit in the garden. It’s been raining most of the time, there has been no snow yet, the temperatures are unusually warm. If the ground is not too muddy, one can actually plant now. I finished some smaller graphic designs and pyrographed new pentagram discs in black alder wood. I continued researching gothic architecture and geometry, and found some resources for study and drawing practice. I hope to expand and develop my graphic designs from there. Since we did not experience any actual Raunächte here, I expect a late cold period and frosty spring. This will delay garden work. I also have to finish more ink drawings for collectors of my work. Thanks to demand, I could also expand the series of postcards with my nature/occult inspired photography.
I still have a huge backlog of unedited content I meant to share with you, which include most importantly photos and a report of attending Leipzig’s first grimoire conference…
I would love to go on a vacation sometime. I look forward to Berlin next weekend. I will be there on Saturday, before the “Bad Intentions” exhibition closes. It’s your last chance to see my work at @circle1gallery and an opportunity to meet in person! After that I look forward to celebrating a friend’s birthday and Sunday I will spent some free time in Berlin until leaving again for Dresden in the evening. The rest of January is already full with commission work.
“Bad Intentions” Exhibition Opening @ Circle 1, Berlin
The candles have been lit, the incense has been burnt; my work now vibrates in the rooms of gallery Circle 1 until December 23rd. What started as a vague idea of creating artwork for a list of magical plants, has years later finally taken shape. Now was the point when everything fell into place naturally. It was preceded by searching and researching, trial and error, sowing, growing, loss and gain in the very basic and earth-bound occupation as a gardener and harvester. The first hand study of the actual plants laid the foundation, my rediscovered love for ink became the tool for manifesting my visions.
The installation is hence titled “Harvest” and consists of an earthen altar with dried plants and harvest related offerings: self baked bread, honey from the neighborhood and self-made beeswax candles. The souls and spirits that were contained in the once alive, now dead corpora of the plants, find a new house in the form of fetishistic ink drawings: the “Sigilla Magica” series.
With these new forms I also find an own language, which aims to both entertain and communicate memes to the viewer. 12 ink drawings reference 11 magical plants as well as the ‘queen bee’ – “Regina Bombina” – governing the vital interaction between plants and pollinators. In addition, 2 anthropomorphic drawings depict the Aconite and Mandragora in half-human form, as the armed and poison-dart struck “Wolf Shaman” and beheaded and re-headed “Regina Amandrakina” with her freakish offspring. Lastly, 2 botanical studies of the roots of the Aconite and Mandragora are meant to act as a bridge between abstraction and realism and honor the individual and fascinating shape of each in detail.
Some of the works:
“Regina Amandrakina”, “Wolf Shaman” 2017
“Pathfinder” 2017
“Gorgon” 2017
“Regina Bombina”, “Autumn Crocus”, “Mullein” 2017
“Solomon’s Seal”, “Fennel” 2017
Impressions from the vernissage:
curator Avi Pitchon with the “Harvest” installation
punk legend, writer and curator Avi Pitchon acts in a short film by Keren Cytter
suicide hitler by Merav Kamel & Halil Balabin, suicide bomber by Osama Zatar
not so serious, the “Hourglass” by Merav Kamel & Halil Balabin
Thanks to all involved!
17.11.-23.12.2017 – Bad Intentions,
a group exhibition curated by Avi Pitchon and Alona Harpaz
I am happy to share the news with you that I will be part of the exhibition “Bad Intentions” at Circle 1 gallery in Berlin, opening November 17. You are all invited to attend and spread the news!
This is a unique opportunity for me to bring my plant inspired art to a new audience. I will be showing ink drawings of my “Sigilla Magica” and illustrations, supported by an installation with different magical herbs from my garden and surroundings.
Below a quote from the introduction text, by curator Avi Pitchon:
“Bad Intentions” seeks to modestly contribute a tiny voice to hopefully echo into a massive abyss. The title is a reference to the good intentions of ‘artivism’, and where they lead to: the disappearance of both art and activism. The exhibition does so by staging an absurd tear between art and artist, in the hope that a gaze into the tear might enable a distinction between art and politics. The artists selected for this group exhibition are Jewish-Israeli, Palestinian-Israeli, Jewish, Palestinian and German. However, no artwork in this exhibition forms an explicit mirroring of any social or political tensions formed within the above ethnic/national triangle. The artwork does not ‘speak for itself’; it simply speaks by itself. “Bad Intentions” intentionally ignores the background and circumstance of the artist, in order to destabilise anything that is expected of such a grouping of artists, because all of those expectations are not only tired cliches, they also silence the speech of art. “Bad Intentions” is thus an invitation for the viewer to empower themselves by placing the weight and responsibility of attention on them; by not providing crutches of meaning.
March 07, 2018 
