The artist Mister Copyright (Christian Pierini ) hails from Rio de Janeiro where he creates art out of every day objects. For more information on his impressive works please see MisterCopyright1 on YouTube and on Facebook.

For 2000 years Apelles of Cos was known as the greatest of painters. Praised for his grace and sensuality – he was not only Alexander the Great’s exclusive portrait painter, but was the single greatest influence on what we know as the Renaissance and Baroque.

Albrecht Durer was known as the “German Apelles”. Botticelli bragged he was Apelles reincarnated and repeated his compositions. Rembrandt, late in life, adopted the four color “Apelles palette” striving for his graceful harmony. And Titian unabashedly recreated Apelles’ “Armor-bearer” which now hangs at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The Old Masters were proud to be “behind the times”, unoriginal, and earnest pupils of Apelles.

Hillestad, Knodell, and Molesky have each apprenticed with the living master Odd Nerdrum – a man who, for fifty years, has boldly painted pathos. Together these four painters have sought out the lessons of Apelles – the tradition of the Old Masters. A tradition not isolated to the 16th century, but one that for more than 2400 years continues to return.

Copro Gallery is proud to present Odd Nerdrum, Luke Hillestad, Caleb Knodell, and David Molesky – the living Pupils of Apelles.

Opening Saturday, November 15th @ Copro Gallery – Santa Monica, CA.

http://www.lukehillestad.com

More examples of Luke’s work can also be found at: The Paintings of Luke Hillstead on Van Gogh’s Ear

What If

What if any one singular thing in the past would have been different, how would it have affected everything else that happened thereafter? It is obvious when you think of it in terms of what if I got that job, or what if I married Bob, but it even goes down to the slightest things you have no control over. like, what if your parents didn’t ever meet…or what if a different sperm cell got attached to the egg..instead of yours? You’d never even been here at all.

So you see, it’s all part of a greater thing. a bigger plan, or, maybe not plan, but a picture created by destiny. Every second, that destiny changes. It moves, becomes something else, makes you wiser, dumber, more instinctual, less trusting, more trusting, better skilled, or…any other zillionth of a way different than you are at this very second.

Everything happens for a reason.

That reason is to not only affect you and make you a better person, but it also affects every person, animal, insect, plant, everything, everything around you…if a fly buzzes around you, annoying your otherwise wonderful picnic, you swat it, it dies…maybe that was the lord of the flies, and so, all its constituents lives will change, maybe that bee that you killed with the bug zapper was supposed to pollinate a certain plant that now, will maybe never blossom the flower it was originally intended to create which was going to be the most beautifully perfect flower of its kind, ever…

Ya never know…

A Thousand Miles Sublime

Let there be light

so we can howl at the sun!

Let there be warm tendrilesque days

upon which to kiss the flowerpetals

strewn across the street and yards

like softpink snow! Let there

be bloodflowing and rejuvenation

and a rush of euphoria through the veins!

Let there be moons so bright

they cast shadows on midnight’s grass!

Let there be wine-soaked life blooming

and yelling belligerence into the fully-alive last bit of pure Earthly air!

© Ganga White

From Yoga Beyond Belief

www.whitelotus.org

Ganga White is the founder of the White Lotus Foundation and co-director of its 40 acre Yoga retreat and training center in Santa Barbara.  He is the author of Yoga Beyond Belief—Insights to Awaken and Deepen Your Practice.

Moving From You To We; Trapped

We live in a pain dwelling, a place where climbing out you’re sure to cut your hands, little cuts that burn and sting their way towards healing for days. Scars can be a nice reminder that your body is still existing, there’s that positive outlook we’ve been trying for. My mind is so deep into lockdown I’m lucky to form simple sentences, I can barely form the words to tell you we need to get some air. We have to go outside and breathe and walk and feel air and breeze and breathe it all. We are the living oxymoron, the prisoner and warden in one, our minds. Wrestling to control the unsalvageable halls from which we can never escape, you can’t escape yourself. At least we can break outta this shit hole, and let’s, we do, we pierce the encasings and sneak out towards the sea.

For us, there’s no such thing as sleep, it’s a kind of freedom we can’t afford. Because as we lay to slumber they feel us relaxing, and they reach out with their spindly claws, long unhappy vine fingers, interloping and meandering, sneaking stealth of spite, one prick and you’re lost, sound all alarms, we will not be caught unawares this night. So we walk, we may as well walk, we may as well be nearby the opulence of the sea, the only divinity and splendor we know.

Our defenses cannot be fortified, our walls left unmeasured due to exhaustion, a warden without sleep can’t order barbed wire. You can’t keep them in, you can’t let yourself out, you can’t escape yourself. We walk aimlessly, and you throw stones, maybe your bad thoughts will fly away and drown with the rock in the sea (thankless secret-keeper).

We may as well be underwater with that stone you threw, we can’t get to fresh air from the deep end. We need perspective, clarity, to be genuine- it was a good plan, to be genuine and honest, but how do we stop for a moment, how do we breathe? Staring at the sea we know what to do but we still cannot do it. We have no country, no homeland, no home, we don’t even know where we are it’s absurd, you can’t go home again I read that in a story and someone miles ago said lost generation I hear it through a cloud and is that us, because we are lost. It’s not coping, it’s not thinking, and you do the most insane things it just doesn’t make any sense, me too, I know, we do the most insane things, we can’t escape ourselves and I don’t understand, I don’t know why you don’t just give it a break and stop inviting people in.

This house is too dark, this ocean is too deep. Even if you let the right one in, they can’t let us out.

Allison Fabian is a writer of impressionistic fiction and poetry, and serves as Editor-in-Chief at The Insomniac Propagandist, an art and literary magazine for the strange at heart. She is an avid supporter of intersectional feminism, which she promotes through writing, volunteering, and the occasional flash walk, most recently at Ignite Chicago. Allison’s favorite things are creating much needed words, alliteration, collective nouns, and dogs.

The Adoration

Passion of the Christ

The Letter

The Widow

Day Dream

Spellbound

The Painterly Photo

The Wonderful Women of Oz

Sisters of Light

Vermont Landscape

Thomas Dodd is a visual artist and photographer based out of the USA who has developed a style that he calls “painterly photo montage” – a method he employs in editing software in which he crafts elaborately textured pieces that have a very organic and decidedly non-digital look to them. His work often has mythic and quasi-religious themes that pay homage to Old Master art traditions while at the same time drawing from psychological archetypes that evoke a strong emotional response from the viewer.

Although his artwork resembles paintings, his pieces are entirely photographic in nature, fusing many images into a cohesive whole. His larger works are often presented in a mixed media form that adds a depth and texture that complements the photography beautifully.

Thomas has had numerous exhibitions of his works in many cities in the USA and around the world. He also has work on permanent exhibition in Paris at the Galerie L’oeil du Prince and at Art Gallery Constantin in Senlis France. This year (2014) he has shows in Poland, Germany, Romania, New York City, Mexico City, Orlando, San Antonio, Seattle, New Orleans as well as in his hometown of Atlanta. Dodd’s photographs have been featured in many magazines, on book and album covers and he is also the subject of an upcoming documentary film on the art nude and censorship in modern times.

http://www.thomasdodd.com/

Sing, silver-silent stars,
Sing this dear one to sleep;
For the day has been long and trying,
The tasks heavy and difficult.
Whisper, chalk-dust moon,
Whisper this precious spirit to rest.
For night is here, with offerings of
Stillness, patience, and recovery.
Surrender, sweet friend,
Surrender to the arms of gentle darkness
And drift into peaceful dreams,
Knowing that you are loved.

Elizabeth Massie is an award winning horror author and short fiction author. Her works Sineater and Stephen both gaining her Bram Stoker Awards. She has also written historical fiction for young adults, media tie-ins, and non-fiction for American History textbooks, educational readers, and testing programs. The preceding poem can be found in Night Benedictions: Gentle Thoughts, Poems, and Meditations For the End of the Day, due for release in print in late October 2014.

When Will The Whirling Stop

When will the whirling stop and vertigo subside

I wonder where my place is and where I put my life

In self-made seclusion achievements stand like shadows

I can put my fingers on but never really touch

Then somewhere close behind me someone calls my name

If I turn and look who will I see

“Turn around. Turn around and see who you are in the light

Turn around and see who you are to me.”

When I flee to my museum I have inside my head

I walk halls where joy springs up like something made of lead

I question the curator on construction of new wings

I press him for details and touch a shell of skin

Then somewhere close behind me someone calls my name

If I turn and look who will I see

“Come out. Come out and see who you are in the light

Come out and see who you are to me.”

I stumble through ruins

Of my own design

And I fall

When I favor bruises and seek solitude

I scratch at old habits and open old wounds

I study scars like trophies of pain

Where a whole history in flames inside

Then somewhere close behind me someone calls my name

If I turn and look who will I see

“Rise up. Rise up and see who you are in the light

Rise up and see who you are to me

I will always love you

I will always

Love you.”

©Copyright 1991

by Peter J. Stahl

“I understand that my work is unusual and in some ways indefinable; people don’t know which box to put it in. And I’ve fought with myself over the years, like, why couldn’t I be a painter like everybody else? But, for better or worse, this is what I do.” — Alan Wolfson