The Road to Degree Show - 4

The Shamanic Principle

"Only psychos and shamans create their own reality"
— Terence McKenna

In my dissertation I spent several thousand words discussing how the shamanic traditions in the Putamayo took fact and fiction and constructed its own reality from it. I wrote that dissertation because that was the area I was exploring in my paintings.

Specifically: I was looking at how a landscape could be painted in such a way that it confounded the viewer's ability to locate it in reality and therefore encouraged the viewer to adopt and accept a new reality. The painting could not be too realistic, nor could it be too abstract but it had to occupy that liminal space between fluid and solid. Furthermore my exploration of this lay in the use of paint - brush mark vs. smooth, colour vs. black and white, accident vs. control, surface (of the painting) vs. content of the image etc. Namely I tried to take the tensions available in the medium of paint and use them accordingly.

I believe the shamanic space I have sought to create finds its closest pop-culture comparison in the ideas of Terrence McKenna and his description of a psychedelic world. If you are not familiar with McKenna's work then I suggest you familiarise yourself with it because it is one of the fundamental building blocks of our contemporary world whether people realise it or not.

As my pieces for the degree show have been developing I decided this weekend to push the boat out and conduct a shamanic ritual before setting to work on the paintings. The aim was to throw my mind pretty far into a psychedelic perspective, furthermore I wanted to unhinge it from the systems of control and safety that I have subconsciously constructed over the span of my life.

If this is all getting a little new-agey for you hang in there. Open your mind ;). If you are finding it a bit pretentious - give me a break! I am supposed to be a boho art student.

I settled on the shortest route to achieving this state (I am sure most of you can predict where this is going) and decided to smoke some drugs. I used a herbal high blend (legally purchased over the counter) which I obtained in one of Brighton's many fine establishments. I smoked it from Ozymandis which is my crystal skull pipe (pictured above - generously gifted to me from Steve) and subsequently settled back to enjoy a subtle shift of my perspective.

In my experience the herbal highs one may purchase can be strong but tend to be very mellow. I am not sure whether this particular blend differs or whether my intention to remove some pretty deep-rooted blocks in my consciousness affected my experience, but the stuff knocked my entire mind sideways. No chilled out reflections on life for me, no, instead I get Dr Who style lacuna spots followed by rapid mind progressions and disembodiments.

I have always stated that one of my common experiences in my short and brief history of drug use has been that my perception of time changes to only include the present, the past and future becoming unavailable to me. This makes speaking in sentences very difficult as I can remember neither what I have just said nor what I was intending to say and this time was no different except in so much as it was intensified. I therefore humbly apologise to any one I spoke to that night as I imagine I talked a load of utter gibberish. In fact I distinctly remember deciding with the sober part of my brain (who remains present during these experiences but takes a kind of back seat-Woody Allen style commentary role) to talk as little as possible as I could not gaurantee any quality control over the words that came out of my mouth.

Anyway, I could go on for ever (as many have before me) about the details of my experience but I imagine for my readers that it would induce disgust for those with no experience of drug taking and boredom for those well versed in it. So suffice to say it had the desired effect and I consequently engaged in a very productive couple of days painting.

As an end note to this particular chapter I would say that I do not believe drugs to be necessary to an experience of the psychedelic and having done the ritual I do not intend to use them again in the production of my paintings for the degree show. They have served their purpose and I can return to my everyday perceptions (which are psychedelic enough as it is) having recieved a few system upgrades. At the end of the day my greatest hope is not that my paintings convey a drug taking experience but that they operate independently of that fact and bring to the viewer their own reality. Looking at my paintings as they currently stand the prognosis seems favorable - fingers crossed.