Liminal Spaces

In keeping with the theme of dissolving the rules of the board, turning a heavily regulated square with distinctly outlined, limited possible positions into, well, wonderland, I am here posting a few of my paintings:

Winter Queen Rides the Baku

The Baku is a mythological character, which, according to Nicholas Christopher, has a lion's head, a horse's body, and tiger's paws. He eats bad dreams. Here the queen rides him off the board, or the edge of the world.




And then there's the member of the court that never bothers with the court rules, or cultural rules:

Court Jester

This is the joker, present on three levels of life or three universes: the "normal" one; the emerging reflection from the water (i.e. the emotional realm; in dream theory, water usually represents emotions, and then supposedly every person and thing in your dream represents some aspect of you, the dreamer, and so it's as if the physical world is only a reflection of the emotional world inside you-- so actually, which jester here is the reflection?); and the distant reflection-- so far away, it's a constellation, like a macrocosm version of the pair (jester and female mask), again like in dreaming or like fractals: snowflakes, for example, are set up the same as fractals, meaning one snowflake is made up of a gazillion miniature versions of the whole snowflake-- so here, the entire universe is the same jester and his female mask or consort or presence, replicated however many times until it makes a constellation, and then the constellation is replicated however many times until it makes a universe, and so on. Like the way myths are reflections, and they have their representatives in the stars, and how the jester normally carries a mirror so he can show us our "true selves' " part in his behavior. Or the way sometimes you have to look at something a million different ways before it makes sense.

I put a few of my paintings into a video called “Liminal Spaces,” which I'll post here:









Set to Air's "Empty Houses," and guarded by Gabriel's "Dreamland Security."


liminal |limnl| adjective technical 1 of or relating to a transitional or initial stage of a process. 2 occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold. ...exploring the space between dreaming and waking, between universes, between "streams" of reality, between the subjective and the objective, etc....

And, According to Wikipedia:
"Liminality (from the Latin word līmen, meaning "a threshold") is a psychological, neurological, or metaphysical subjective, conscious state of being on the "threshold" of or between two different existential planes, as defined in neurological psychology (a "liminal state") and in the anthropological theories of ritual by such writers as Arnold van Gennep, Victor Turner, and others. In the anthropological theories, a ritual, especially a rite of passageinvolves some change to the participants, especially their social status.

The liminal state is characterized by ambiguity, openness, and indeterminacy. One's sense of identity dissolves to some extent, bringing about disorientation. Liminality is a period of transition where normal limits to thought, self-understanding, and behavior are relaxed - a situation which can lead to new perspectives.

People, places, or things may not complete a transition, or a transition between two states may not be fully possible. Those who remain in a state between two other states may become permanently liminal."