Empathy!!

We are all connected!

MOCA: Art in the Streets

On April 23, 2011 I went to go see the exhibition at MOCA: Art in the Streets in Little Tokyo in Los Angeles. I was really excited to see the exhibition. It had been getting a lot of press from The New York Times and the Huffington Post. It seemed it brewed up the age old controversy and debate of folks perceptions on what is ART and what is not ART.

As we approached MOCA the lines of people waiting to get in was off the hook. We decided to go to lunch and check out the other ART that was being created on the streets. Here is what we saw outside the doors of the museum.

The coolest thing was Little Tokyo was a mad house of people. The Sushi houses and stores were filled to the brim with folks either waiting to see the exhibition or who had just finished. Studies have shown that at art events individual people spend around $27 each. And who said Arts bring nothing to our economy? I think that was the Republicans.

JR'S eyes. I thought graphiti artists did not tag over others art? Maybe it was collaboration.

JR's great talk on Ted, I was happy to see an artist win this award.

I felt this key was placed there on purpose. What does it mean? Art?

Space Invader...

A man checking out the art.

Next I will go into the exhibition inside closed doors of museum.

Art Review by JJ Levine

WiThin Places
JJ Levine

Sitting unassumingly at a crossroads like a seeker awaiting their next life path, the
artist watches the art exhibit unfold. Patrons arrive, some familiar with the territory being
presented, some just to immerse themselves in the creative atmosphere they love so

much. The space held together by the works of MFA graduate student, Lisa Rasmussen.
Her paintings, photographs and installations on display this evening straddle the realms
of inspiration, inner sight, and cross cultural phenomenon.

With healing light as the chosen medium, the artist openly invites anyone brave or
willing enough to trek mountain ranges of the psyche, whether that is perceived as
personal or collective. Voyagers around the room are spotted preparing to depart on
guided expeditions with individually assigned sherpas of the light, inter-dimensional,
spirit guides, wielding paint while walking between the worlds. Operating in the neo-
shamanistic world of creativity as ritual, Ms Rasmussen assigns art materials to their
appropriate posts. Lines, stains and fields come alive with pigmented intention, making

. l .

the p~rceiver's reality feel like the rug just got pulled out from underneath them.

\

Lisa's ~acred intentions are painted multi-dimensionally, making marks on canvases with
ancient symbols, and then layering over with an image that the viewer finally sees. The
'presence of the Earth Mother herself is felt sweeping to and fro on a ground of pre-
meditated archaic ecstasy'; an intersection between Spirituality, Divinity and the space-
time continuum. Her artworks, whenfeeling into them like portals, open up like
windows into alternate possibilities. While standing in front of one of Lisa's paintings, I
fell into it, falling into a wormhole showing another time and space. I saw a tunnel with a
bear's sleeping space similar to one I had seen while recently visiting Aillwee Cave in
Ireland. Upon returning to present reality, I could feel that my vision and the painting
were connected somehow, through the energetics of place and time. Some would say that
that space holds a frequency that is both emotionally and spiritually familiar.

However, be weary, young travelers, for there is a dark side to the Thin Places that we' are
shown, that may not be otherwise realized. Another side privy to the naive, the
courageous, the initiated, or even the uninitiated is that of the darkness of man's ascent
away from nature. Viewers intending to spend "Sunday afternoon in the park'", are
instead confronted with reflections of the black waters of their earthly existence..

•

Lisa Rasmussen has that angle covered as well; with artist's integrity, and angel's
guidance, she skillfully breathes life into the void. Taking the mirrors handed to
unsuspecting purveyors, the artist smashes them with subconscious, yet idyllic, imagery.
The artist personally guides the viewer into her private life of meditative memories,
artistic discipline and spiritual discovery.

1 Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. 1964; reprint, Princeton,
N1:Princeton University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-691-1.1942-2

2 http://en.wikipedia.orglwiki/Sunday_in_the_Park _with_George

Response to Art is Magic!

I had to post this comment of Vikrams words, he posted this on my Blog on Saturday. His words are so poetic and ring of Rumi. The web of connection. When I read this I was inspired that I am on the right path. I am so happy to connect with a fellow mystic. Namaste

phoenix said...
Hello Lisa

if I can have your ...a few minutes
Not more than I felt shall I'll express
To express self to selves; I carry the only fear
Of failure, of conflict; Of the lack of divinity
In my eyes, in words; in my visible self

Holding on to 'mysticism', I landed on your land
To find the right themes burnt in bright games
Not surprised I am to find a wandering soul
Wrapped in blue, red,pink brushes; living in the green abode

Burning with a desire to wish you a hello
Believing in words to hear, some skins to tear
I beg you to share your light of a Being
Who seems to be on the path I tend to begin

Why I'll write to you,perhaps, is mysteriously unknown
Like when mirage turns for a thirsty to an ocean of love

Only if the social fabric and the unsure strings be broken or redefined, I'd be much more of myself.
I'm a 23 yr old bachelor graduated (engineering) from the premier institute of India. I'm earning now and I am thoughtful. I am a believer, a traveller who believes in a purposeful living. And thus, extraordinarily attracted, in a dress of desperation, to anything which seems to associate itself with Truth. Though the inner waves have not yet manifested to my exterior domain to the extent I would have liked, a certain chain of events are accelerating its burst.

Your blog (description, about me) had enough life to grant me the breath to explode myself here. Thank you :)


Not a way is what I see here
But the 'light of bright passion' painted in colours

Vikram
PS: Animism is a faith which yields a reason to live