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La fête de Kavadi est une fête religieuse hindoue où les pratiquants se rassemblent afin d'expier leurs péchés de la dernière année ou de demander des faveurs. Il célèbre au même moment le dieu de la guerre Murugan.
My school's spring musical is "Once Upon a Mattress". We needed some strips of fabric sewn together to form the walls of mattresses around the bedframe, to represent the twenty mattresses the princess sleeps on. And here they are: assembled with my new sewing machine, matched between the bed-end and the bed-side, and tall enough to serve the purpose.
The Kavad in the upper left, gives you some idea how close together the projects of magic and art really are to one another.
I have it in mind to build a Kavad. I saw one based on sacred geometry at Wesleyan University recently, built by Suzanne Wind Gaskell, and I was amazed. I really want one myself.
But what story should it tell? Is it about American history? World history? What I've learned about geometry? Hermetics? I don't know. I feel the powerful idea of it simmering inside of me, and today I built this paper model of one possible configuration. The first stage in bringing any idea of fruition to draw a sketch. But sketches are only part of the story. Sooner or later, if you plan to build a three-dimensional object — especially one with folding panels and secret compartments — you'll have to build a model. And the sooner you sit down with your knife and your ruler and compass, and build what you want, the sooner you can get an estimate on materials and tools and design advice from your carpenter friends.
Here's the eleventh mansion of the Moon. Again. Written on the white board in purple marker. Fast.
I'm getting better at producing this imagery on the fly. The kavad helped, certainly, but it makes me wonder about my abilities to produce a kavad in wood; I might have done better producing small icons in paint on wood grounds, rather than trying to do them all in pen first. Hmm.
One of my students asked why I included all the lines on the background. "to add depth, of course," someone said. But it wasn't me. It was one of the kids in my class. And that was joyful. Because it was exactly the answer I would have given. Because it was exactly the right answer: adding the lines, and darkening the background, made the foreground pop.
The kids are learning about drawing and about art without even meaning to. And that excited me a lot.
I'm at a coffee house right now, and what I've discovered is that I can't work here. That is, I can't draw here. I might be able to write here, but the noise and the smells are distracting enough that I can't draw a series of complex things I've never drawn before. Not in a way that makes me proud of my efforts and results.
An instructive failure, really. At least I have a sense of the image — a woman leaving a beachside cabana where her husband sleeps on a bed, while two dogs threaten each other in the foreground. I'm thinking I'll also put in a man in a kayak or a canoe — a canoe would be better. The image is supposed to be a symbol of rivalry, so the suggestion that the woman has left one man to be with another may be part of the story and part of the way the story gets told. From a drawing perspective, it's complicated. From a storyteller's mindset, it's an ancient tale even if told in modern pictures...
It's supposed to be an elephantine guy, with a stag deer, a calf, and a horse. Getting them all into the picture was a mighty challenge.
Silver drachm of the Sasanian Persian king Kavad I (499-532). The mintmark is AS, which some authorities believe is Isfahan, but others disagree.
The planned image for the third decan of libra is "a warrior with the body of a monkey and the head of a horse with a bow and a quiver of golden arrows, standing in the forest."
I had no idea how to draw a monkey body. So I wound up finding a tutorial online. Only, I wound up doing the whole tutorial, not just the parts I needed. As I noted, though, making mistakes is part of the process here. You have to accept that at times you're going to be distracted or not entirely on your game. On the other hand, your brain is learning stuff and filing it away for future use. It's not the right image, no - but now I know how to draw a monkey, and this adds to my pool of drawing skills.
It's all good.
Here are four of the Mansions of the Moon. I 'm not entirely happy with them yet; and I forgot the helmet on the guy in the upper left. These are the 22nd, 23rd, 25th and 26th Mansions — marked with their angels, their planetary correspondences, and their names in English (their traditional names are Arabic).
Kavad 4.6 is done - all the outside layers now have some sort of decoration on them. Time to begin the "middle layer".
Talking with a friend of mine, I realized that I went about this wrong. Not unfixably over the long haul, but awkwardly for this round. Really, stuff that's common knowledge, like the zodiac should be on the outside — it's public data. But seeing the interior is an initiate's journey, right? So stuff like the signs of Geomancy should go inside, not outside. Hmm.
Also, I realize that I've forgotten which direction the Wheel of the Year turns (which I think, as a sacred diagram, is only second to the Tree of Life as a symbol of divinity — making clear a pattern in time, as the Sefer Yetzirah represents a pattern in space). This wheel, I think is going to make clear the Noble Eightfold Path, as well as the Wicca (Wiccan) wheel of the year.
A storytelling project which toured three rural villages in Essex in August Bank Holiday in 2017 engaging with new audiences.
We invited the Grand Theatre of Lemmings to upscale their Smallest Theatre in World into a large Kavad Box. The traditions of the Kavad come from Rajasthan, India. The Project was delivered by Story Narrative Specialist Seema Anand and was supported with funding from Arts Council England, Essex County Council Cultural Development and was supported by Essex Cultural Diversity Project.
A bronze pashiz, struck during the second reign of the Sasanian Persian king Kavad I (499-531). This tiny coin is 12 mm across and weighs just 0.35 grams.
I have it in mind to build a Kavad. I saw one based on sacred geometry at Wesleyan University recently, built by Suzanne Wind Gaskell, and I was amazed. I really want one myself.
But what story should it tell? Is it about American history? World history? What I've learned about geometry? Hermetics? I don't know. I feel the powerful idea of it simmering inside of me, and today I built this paper model of one possible configuration. The first stage in bringing any idea of fruition to draw a sketch. But sketches are only part of the story. Sooner or later, if you plan to build a three-dimensional object — especially one with folding panels and secret compartments — you'll have to build a model. And the sooner you sit down with your knife and your ruler and compass, and build what you want, the sooner you can get an estimate on materials and tools and design advice from your carpenter friends.
A little later today, I'll try to add in some edited descriptions. I most say, I saved the weirdest ones for last, and they were still hard. It appears that they're challenges to composition, rather than exclusively representational problems.
This one is an ape, a bear, and a man prepared to herd cows. It doesn't say that there are cows, so I left them out... but that doesn't mean they couldn't be here.
Silver drachm of the Sasanian Persian king Kavad I (499-532). The mintmark is DYNAS, which may be Dinavar.
I'm not sure the suit works on him. It supposed to have a woman in there as well, but I'm kind of pleased with the composition as is. The donkey standing behind the man appears to be a nice touch.
The Golden Dawn (English magical society, not Greek fascist party) developed a system of color magic that I've been eager to incorporate into the kavad. It's one thing to be able to produce the color mentally. It's quite another to produce them from tubes of paint and have the painted colors match the intended reality. Not easy.
There are four Golden Dawn color scales. Each scale is named after a court card in the Tarot: king, queen, prince and princess. There are ten basic shades or hues in each scale, and an additional twenty-two colors in each scale. So ... thirty-two colors in each scale, times four. A lot of overlaps, yes... but in essence, 128 hues to work with, each with its own rules and correspondences.
Une monnaie d'une drachme en argent de Kavad I (488-497/499-532) de la dynastie sassanide (226-650) émise à Lyw (Ardarshir) durant l'année 40 (527).
Dimension : 27,48 mm
Poids : 3,2 g.
Référence : Göbl II/1
I'm aware that I should put the traditional sigils of each sign, as well as the binary dot patterns, into these windows. That said, I'm rather fond of "carcer" the prison, and "tristitia" sorrow, because of these images - a prison door with hands hanging on the bars, and a stake being pounded into the ground.
I have it in mind to build a Kavad. I saw one based on sacred geometry at Wesleyan University recently, built by Suzanne Wind Gaskell, and I was amazed. I really want one myself.
But what story should it tell? Is it about American history? World history? What I've learned about geometry? Hermetics? I don't know. I feel the powerful idea of it simmering inside of me, and today I built this paper model of one possible configuration. The first stage in bringing any idea of fruition to draw a sketch. But sketches are only part of the story. Sooner or later, if you plan to build a three-dimensional object — especially one with folding panels and secret compartments — you'll have to build a model. And the sooner you sit down with your knife and your ruler and compass, and build what you want, the sooner you can get an estimate on materials and tools and design advice from your carpenter friends.
"The Swallow" is the name of the Third Decan of Virgo. It shows a woman with a spoon and a vase of flowers, coming from the purification rites to the temple. I don't really know how to show purification rites here, but I got the spoon and the vase of flowers.
Cornelius Agrippa gives a completely different (and non-integratatble) image for the Third Decan, and there also appears to be substantial variation even between ibn Ezra, Picatrix, and Agrippa. SO, not sure what to do about this.
You can read more about the kavad project on My blog.
A little later today, I'll try to add in some edited descriptions. I most say, I saved the weirdest ones for last, and they were still hard. It appears that they're challenges to composition, rather than exclusively representational problems.
I'm discovering discrepancies between the three lists of Decans I have to work with — a Hindu list, a Muslim one, and a Christian one.
Even in casual sketch form I think they're pretty striking, though — striking enough to use as the images in a memory palace.
These are some of the decanates of the Zodiac — the three faces or 10-degree windows of the constellation of Leo. You can read more about the project that these are preliminary sketches for, at my blog, under a search for 'kavad'.
The 16 signs of Geomancy are a largely forgotten oracular or divinatory system that possibly hails originally from West Africa. Adapted and absorbed into western magic, it's always had a visual component, as the 4-bit binary figures or signs became translated into pictures that could tell a story. A whole lot of side information should included in these symbols, though - parts of body, stability or mobility of the figure, relationships to astrology, and more. Bears thinking on.
Sometimes, things just do not turn out the way you want them to. The Falcon, the first Decan of Libra, resembles a pigeon with an ulcer more than a falcon. The pitcher looks silly.
Making mistakes is part of the artistic process. It's part of the magical process, too, as much as we might rail against that.
The 16 signs of Geomancy are a largely forgotten oracular or divinatory system that possibly hails originally from West Africa. Adapted and absorbed into western magic, it's always had a visual component, as the 4-bit binary figures or signs became translated into pictures that could tell a story. A whole lot of side information should included in these symbols, though - parts of body, stability or mobility of the figure, relationships to astrology, and more. Bears thinking on.
A little later today, I'll try to add in some edited descriptions. I most say, I saved the weirdest ones for last, and they were still hard. It appears that they're challenges to composition, rather than exclusively representational problems.
This is Sagittarius 1, being a picture of a man with three bodies — a red body, a white body, and a black body. No, I don't know what it means, either.
The bottom of the kavad clearly needs to be decorated as well, and I've been wondering what to put here. What I finally think works is to do an elaborate series of nested circles of protection, lined with the names of powerful warrior angels... and then within those triangles will be the names of the four "princes of demons offensive in the elements" from Agrippa... the big bad wolves of the Hermetic magical system. At the center will be some sort of divot or compartment, containing a sealed bound scroll with the secret names of my own personal demons. Thus, the kavad will be symbolically and physically holding them down and weighting them down, preventing their escape.
Those of you who practice magic will look at this circle and go, "wow, that's sloppy," and perhaps worry for my safety... but you'll notice that I haven't put the names of the entities in these circles. So they're going nowhere, at the moment.
I like the idea of having the man familiar with weights and measures looking through a scale. I don't think the proportions are right, and I think the chain supporting the scale should hang from an iron hook projecting off the wall.
In the course of drawing the second decan of Virgo, I made a mistake. I put the basket of flowers and fruit into the second decan, rather than the first. It's easy to get this stuff mixed up. So I'm going to be trying to manage the images a little differently in the future in my sketchbook.
Have you ever had one of those moments when you had no idea how to proceed with your next step? Mine was the Zodiac. How does one draw the images that each of the zodiac symbols are supposed to represent?
Thank gods for google. "how to draw a crab" became my friend. And then "how to draw a bull". Leo was sort of cartoonish. Aquarius was rather classical, but then "how to draw an Aquarius" was rather limiting.
All the same, I learned a lot about drawing from the process of copying the drawings. I'll admit that I copied them — I'm over forty, and I'll take shortcuts to help train my brain how to be an effective artist. If it takes ten years and 10,000 hours to be good at anything, I'll need all the help I can get.
What I've learned is that I'm going to have to practice these twelve line-poems a lot to get them right: and I'm going to have to practice them in a limited area of space to get the proportions and framing right.
Apparently this is what artists must do. :-)
He looks a little like a superstar character in a 1970s comic book, like Archie and Jughead or something like that.
A little later today, I'll try to add in some edited descriptions. I most say, I saved the weirdest ones for last, and they were still hard. It appears that they're challenges to composition, rather than exclusively representational problems.
The 16 signs of Geomancy are a largely forgotten oracular or divinatory system that possibly hails originally from West Africa. Adapted and absorbed into western magic, it's always had a visual component, as the 4-bit binary figures or signs became translated into pictures that could tell a story. A whole lot of side information should included in these symbols, though - parts of body, stability or mobility of the figure, relationships to astrology, and more. Bears thinking on.
Because there are 28 mansions of the moon, they are traditionally divided into four septads or heptads (groups of seven. Here is the last septad: Mansions 22 through 28. Mansions 24 (lower left), and 26 (middle column) have figures that are too small for their frame, but the figures themselves are essentially correct in rough outline. More work needs to be done.
The top of the Kavad, with my hand, to show scale. The 'roof' of the Kavad is 9x9", and originally the design was to be a double-cube... the doors on the outside, both front and back, kinda wrecked that plan.
I realized after I laid out the months that in the next version I'll want to lay them out so all the cardinal signs are in one column, fixed in another, and mutable in the third. That's why there are twelve signs after all.
Also realized that my eight circles and sixteen triangles could become — with some wrangling in the next version — the signs of the twenty-eight Mansions of the Moon. Alas, in current arrangement, not possible. Smaller windows for the zodiac maybe.