Category: Spirituality

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A sunset framed against the desert horizon, a sign that special moments are about to begin: it’s a brief interlude before the light of the day becomes the light of the night.

Moments like this are sacred, I want to believe its time like this that connects me with the spiritual realm, allowing me time to explore and commune with something greater than the dimensions I exist.  “I want these moments to last longer,” I say. Much harder to explain…easier to experience.

The Promised Land AAA

There are times in the studio where I experience a spiritual stillness and humility. Love those desert nights.

When I let go, I guide my thoughts into prayers. ..and somehow the prayers become a spoken layer in my work like an image of an invisible God. My night encounters have become sacred rituals, connecting God and my work.

Interesting where thoughts arise as I imagine that I am creating healing pieces focusing on the themes of the restoration of health and harmony. The curative properties of my work are expressed deeper in darker settings where somehow the prayer layers are visible as light energy. I imagine the light energy collected and stored in a sacred vessel during the day and dispensed into the night and the darker the setting: this light protects the night and connects to God.SuperPhoto_Creation_2018-04-04_082445.jpg

“Within the process of creating my work, there is a time that the work  brings me to “places” that fill me with the spaciousness of the universe while my artificial boundaries are disolved. It feels like freedom, and Exodus from life tethered in four dimensions”

Larry OrtegaSuperPhoto_Creation_2018-03-24_Regal AAA+++

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Fish and BreadGliding over a canyon drawn by eerie lights penetrating the darkness. The spirit world beckons the arrival of the new light. It brings new meaning, new thoughts of well being, prosperity and peace. The hope that Light illuminates the hope in our lives. 

  “The most precious light is the one that visits you in your darkest hour!” Mehmet Murat Ildan

The arrival of this Light emboldens us to search and find new strength from a revived faith.  The Light allows us to experience a renewing of mind and spirit, bringing new ideas into unfinished parts in our lives.

koi in a circleI continue the theme of Light penetrating the darkness. My pieces act as ” lenses” diffusing LED light through the translucent layers of cast resin. Hidden layers of light come alive in dark settings, creating and emitting their own light illuminating our world.

Mixed media. $350 to $500 .

11″ to 15″ in height- 4″ to ” wide. Cast resins-wood-LED light and steel mounting hardware. The art of Larry Ortega

 

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Exodus A Collection WEB

Seeing the final phase of these pieces: final resin casts, the LED lighting location, additional airbrush detail, sanding, engineering hardware to attach the steel rod to a base.

Flying and hovering and strange night lights all part of the story of Exodus. Freedom is the theme of the Exodus and wings provide a unique freedom. I often have dreams of flying or hovering outside my body. Freedom is a spiritual feeling and is associated with light. SuperPhoto_Creation_2017-10-06 WEB AAAA Wonderful

The cast resin pieces become a lens diffusing LED light through the wing and surrounding area. It’s a soothing light, a light you might see in the distance of the desert wilderness. Exodus is a story of a flight to freedom through a desert wilderness. The journey is illuminated at times with a column of fire or clouds for the masses to follow during the day and during the night. A journey in the desert at night avoids the heat of the desert day and the stars of the night illuminate the desert floor.

New pieces-Cast Resin Wings: 34″-38″ wingspans. LED light-wood and resin bases. Series of 12 available this fall. More at: Online Gallery Website Exodus

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In my dream, I am alone in an ocean desert. The moonless sky helps shield the pitch black sky protecting it from celestial lights. The sound of silence is deafening. I am lost, helpless and desperate for a sign. Hope becomes fear as the wilderness becomes unrecognizable and my faith is my only assurance until the Encounter.

“The Encounter I” is the working title of this mixed media piece. The cast resin molded wings are cast with phosphorescent coloring-aqua-sky blue and green. The wings are airbrushed with pearlescent lacquers and additional clear resin cast is cast on top.  

I like the idea of the mixed media pieces hanging on a wall with the LED lighting illuminating the work. I love how you can apply a “fade” on the lights as the LED lights cycles through an array of colors. One of my personal favorites is the yellow-orange colorization.

This particular suite of work is entitled “Strangers in a Strange Land”. We all experience the unknown in our daily walk of life, some through a death experience or in a meditative state. When we are lost, we seek the familiar and in our desperation, we cry out for a sign. This the first in the series of these sculptures. The each wing is 17″ and it the photo above, the wings are verticle emulating that angelic being that becomes a light we follow.

http://www.stor-ybox.com  @anObliqartist

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Our personal journeys take us to many places. At times we find ourselves along paths that are unmarked and without light to guide us. We are forced to confront fears that only darkness can produce. But we are driven to explore, it is part of our DNA as humans whether it is reaching to the stars or the depths of the ocean or… the boundaries of our imagination. We begin the journey as children: bringing natural curiosity as artists, scientist, and philosophers.
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A new series of work titled “Beneath the Darkness” reveals imaginary desert and ocean realms. Places and moments of time where light penetrates the darkness providing hope, security, and inspiration. A concealed LED light illuminates the cast resin layers in the cross-like shape and radiates a light within the steel and plexiglass base.

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“Seeking the Sacred”

I had a sense of creating something sacred, perhaps a holy vessel, something that can produce a sense of peace and maybe miraculous healing. My own faith says that is possible. Some say that prayer is talking to God and meditation is listening to God. I hope the piece becomes that beacon providing the light into a voyage to a sacred harbor.
Two in a series: Resin-Steel & Light       19″x 11″x4″ See at the Ice House
First Friday April 7th 2017.

www.stor-ybox.com
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Shrouded Lights 7″x 15″x17″

Latest series of mixed media work: cast resins, recycled wood, steel, and light.

Imagine the last vestige of light, it empties its energy into the desert sky. The illumination pierces the translucent layers of clear blue skies, layered with purple and orange clouds, followed by the clear blackness of space.

My mind wanders between the darkness and the light at times entering a dreamlike tranquil realm of desert-ocean images and mirages.  The light energy of a passing “soul” infiltrates the darkness with an energy from within not from without.

“The desert and the ocean are realms of desolation on the surface.The desert is a place of bones, where the innards are turned out, to desiccate into dust.seekin-the-sacred
The ocean is a place of skin, rich outer membranes hiding thick juicy insides, laden with the soup of being.
Inside out and outside in. These are worlds of things that implode or explode, and the only catalyst that determines the direction of eco-movement is the balance of water.
Both worlds are deceptive, dangerous. Both, seething with hidden life.The only veil that stands between perception of what is underneath the desolate surface is your courage. Dare to breach the surface and sink.” Unknown

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Seeking the Sacred II 7″x 12″x 12″

Seeking the Sacred

The last of light empties into the desert sky illuminating translucent layers of sky blue, purple and orange stratum. Cold, brilliant light surrounds and penetrates the blackness of night.

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My latest pieces explore the contrast of elements; where sky and earth meet
and where light penetrates the darkness. Translucence layers accentuate the
glimmering hues of color that shift in the light. Layers of translucent resins
create dream like landscapes and mirages. Mirages are deceptive and the small
nature of these pieces can deceive the viewer looking at the objects. I like to
imagine vast vistas of the sky and layers of clouds captured in a moment of time.
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“Desert Passages”
Inspiration for this new work comes from the desert and the
sea and where the sky meets earth and where light is
captured in a space of “luminous colored layers”. It
also comes from deeper inside-from the DNA of the
desert and sea and from the inner being of who I am.
“Am I a mirage”…Is a question that comes to mind.
4 Seasons Nice
“Desert Seasons”
Summer is passing in the desert and the light is shifting
higher in the sky…we transition to fall-then to winter-back to spring and then to summer. The seasons of the desert have one thing in common…Light.
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“Mirage”