Forging Workshop

Forging - Beginners to Advanced with Ed Brickman

Saturday & Sunday, February 4 & 5, 10am-4pm

Learn forging from Ed Brickman of the Florida Society of Goldsmiths. Forging is a way of stretching, flattening, curving and shaping metal.

Workshop fee is $95 for Florida Society of Goldsmiths members,

$135 non-members (includes FSG membership).

Lunch will be provided. Ask for supply list.

Call ArtCenter Manatee at 746-2862 for registration and information.


For registration or a complete list of classes and workshops, call (941)746-2862 or www.ArtCenterManatee.org. 209 9th Street West, Bradenton, FL 34205

saraswathi range

saraswathi2, originally uploaded by _william.

reflection on tarot cards

#408080

My sister started reading Tarot back in the Eighties. (At least she said she did.)
A th the time she followed the Gratfeul Dead's unofficial entuorage, and like many other dead heads, she would do anything for money.
She told me a lot of things about being psychic.
Tarot readings had to be done by someone who was psychic, or able to "be Psychic."
She knew many readers who were psychic and gave people accurate readings. At this point, i felt that i was loseing touch with a person whom i had grown up with.


I read a book on tarot by Mouni Sadhu.
Un|Fortunately this was after I read something by a guy named Gurdjieff.
The whole nine yards, including the postage.

Long to short, I started reading Tarot for myself and others.
Typically I started by hacing the Querant shuffle the deck or just hold it.
Then i told Him or Her about the layout that i would use.
I usually let people choose the type of reading that they wanted.
I also made an effort to make it clear that the 'readings' were based on book learning, where I could show the references for an interpretation of the cards.
Most of the readings that i gave were spot-on accurate.
In one case i spent several hours arguing with an ex-girlfriend at a party.
She had dumped me and taken up with one of my 'friends' who had also slept with my sister, after my EX had gone away to college.

Suzy said psychic is crap.
We ended up playing mental chess with the cards. No one else could understand what we were talking about. Through all the metaphors of Tarot, it was clear to me that she planned to leave her current boy-friend. We disscussed this in a language of metaphors.
I could also see my future, but i could not act to change it.
I'm still kicking my self for the things I saw and could not act on.
That was in the cards too.
{picture of me kicking myself}

I also had the opportunity to work on a 'psychic' construction crew.
Somehow building a house lends itself to psychic activity.
Everyone knows where the nails go and what the blueprints look like.
Someone had a vision and the job is for the crew to 'make it so.'
These guys tried to demystify psychic phenomenon. They didn't discount it, instead they just said "gee wiz howdya know I was out of nails?"
Or something.

Any how you live-an'learn.
I'd rather not interpret things and label them psychic.
I think it's dangerous to feed the impression of supernatural phenomena.
If it happens, It's natural.
no external locus of control, if you please,

Schizophrenics have diffiiculty discerning the difference between real and 'psychic'
Mystics see evidence of trancendence in the ordinary.

A Music Minute

Dancing on the Shore

Karst

Karst, originally uploaded by _william.

I tried out a program called World Machine which uses mathematical processes to generate landscapes. The program has an interesting interface where the user can switch from viewing the process engines, which generate the 'world,' and dive right in to exploring the terrain. It does not have the sophistication in renering found in Terragen
, but the basic version is probably quite limited compared to the full package.

This is about the most detail that i could render in with this version the full version should offer all the detail one could ever need.
Its advantage over terragen is the ability to explore terrain and the ability to model the process that shapes a landscape.

Terragen and World Machine's proffessional package allow users to import georaphical data files for rendering models of reeal landscapes.
one feature of WM is it's abi;ity to import native terrain files from Terragens format.

I personally prefer programs like terragen which have broad capacities in the input/output department but less in the interface. This has mostly to do with the limitations of my machine. The rendering process of either of these Programs will tax system resources on any computer. Terragen allows users to render to the higest resolution that they can afford whereas WM provides immedeat gratification.

I have yet to try Terragen's new public release which promises to incorporate most of the plugin features and a friendly user environment... for me, the non commercial application is sufficient for rendering and creating synthetic landscapes.

Silver and Silicon

Silver and Silicon, originally uploaded by _william.