12.18.2012

Okay, I had a crazy coincidence today and you can make of it what you will. I swear I had no hint of this story until it happened.

So, I was just sitting and drawing 'work' images today. I was trying to design frames for my show next fall, when I got a funny feeling that I needed to put that work aside and make an improvisational drawing.

I switched my mind to use my 'automatic drawing' technique where I basically doodle blindly and make up a story about the marks. Okay. Whatever. The design work was hard and boring. I could use a break. I got a new card, put a pencil in my left hand, relaxed into the chair, closed my eyes, cleared my thoughts, and followed my breath. Eventually, as I got deeper into a meditative state, my hand began to move, that's normal. Then I kept my eyes shut and let my hand move until I felt like I had made enough marks. I opened my eyes.

On first glimpse, absolutely no story came to mind. That sometimes happens. I considered tossing the card in the trash and starting over. I was ready to call this one a warm-up when I saw a shape that looked like it was waiting to be filled in with cadmium red. I decided to stay with it. Painting colors on the card sometimes helps me see the story. I worked with colors in the same automatic fashion, relying on intuition, but the story still didn't appear to me.

I could see that, for some reason, I was not following my normal color sense. My tendency, as you may know, would have been to turn this scribble into a tree or cover broad areas in shades of ultramarine blue. But today I sensed very strongly that the colors should be bright red, orange, and yellow - so I squeezed out fresh gouache and went for it.

After finishing all the colors, I imagined I saw a figure, but it was vague and the head looked animal-like and funky. Who was it? No clue.

I went to dinner and an hour later, returning to the drawing table, I saw it - Quetzalcoatl was here!

I have never given serious thought to this myth but here he was - the winged serpent, part man part god. And, upon searching his history online, I found out that he is the deity behind the Mayan prophecies for 2012; the very entity that is supposedly due to return at the Mayan calendar's end... which happens to fall on the winter solstice 2012...in three days! How odd that he shows up in my drawing today?

Apparently, as predicted, Quetzalcoatl has returned on time!

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