When one version of this painting was finished, I sat with it for about a year, then decided it needed work. I painted out an entire half of the original and began the revisitation with storms, whips of ink and dye, fire, swordplay, oxidation, and blue and green pigment from Venice. I needed to paint away half of the world in order to re-enter it with near complete freedom.
Around this time my wife was stung by a jellyfish in Cape May, NJ. Though painful, we both felt it was a magical visitation and we accepted a dose of jellyfish medicine which impels you to let go, exit google maps, attune to the entire ocean, and let the universe move you. There is a jellyfish that has the ability to revert back to its polyp form when in distress, then re-emerge anew, theoretically able to live forever.
This painting also helped me formulate the cosmological theory of the Blue Hole, as a creative alternative to the Black Hole-
The Blue Hole
Accepts everything in a
brightening sadness
A coolness of Miles-like heat
holding everything within
and letting everything go
like a storm on the ocean
Water flying into water
and when you’re ready to join
The Whole / the embrace
of your BeLoved / Self
You become the Blue and
Everything saturated with
useless weight drops
into the infinite sky and you
can walk on unencumbered
Everything can move into you
and everything can move out
of you like a silk azure between
the inescapable Deep Violet Heart and the
Birth of New light
