The Psychedelic Art of Witkacy

Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz (a.k.a. Witkacy), born in Warsaw in 1885 e died - for an intentional drug OD - in 1939, was a Polish painter, illustrator, photographer, philosopher, musician and novelist. I met for the first time this interesting and unusual artist on the pages of the (now unfortunately deceased) Entheogen Review and recently he picked up my interest again repaging that same old issue of the magazine.
The article where Witkacy was mentioned, showed two paintings made under the effects of peyote and mescaline in 1929. The artist extensively experimented with various psychoactive substances - alcohol, cocaine, mescaline and peyote - and used them to get inspiration and access the visionary dimensions he then put on the canvas. Many consider him the first modern artist to work under the influence of classical psychedelics.
Unfortunately I couldn't find the above mentioned paintings on the Web; if interested, one can order the Entheogen Review back issue (Vol. XIII, nr. 1, Vernal Equinox 2004) on their site


You can find other Witkacy's paintings here and bio and exhaustive infos here

The Visionary Art of Andrew Brandou

Andrew Brandou, another interesting pop-surrealist artist who deserves attention. You can find a lot of his colourful paintings on his site, but unfortunately you can't save images there, just see them...

The Psychedelic Sunset Small Pix Gallery

Some readers ask me why recently I don't post landscapes/animals photos as I frequently did in past months...) It seems they appreciate my choices, so I promise you'll find exciting pix in the near future...For this time, please enjoy this 'psych sunsets' selection and remember to click on images to see larger format...
(Since I picked these photos randomly on the Web or received them by friends, I can't mention sources or can't give credit to the pix authors, but I'm ready to do that if someone asks...)

It's Raining Folks!!

Take your umbrella before seeing this...
(thanks Raghu!)

JJ Cale / "Devil in Disguise"

The legendary "guitar man" JJ Cale, his wife and his band playing Devil in Disguise in a Dutch studio, 1994...

The Art of Opium Smoking

The Opium Museum is a virtual museum dedicated to opium history and opium smoking paraphernalia: opium in China, Far-East Asia and Western society, demonization and prohibition and a lot of beautiful images of opium pipes, lamps and tools.
The site owner, Steven Martin, is the author of the beautiful The Art of Opium Antiques, available on Amazon

Adios Don Pablo!

Sad to announce that the great shaman painter Pablo Amaringo died yesterday in the Regional Hospital of Pucallpa (Peru) after several weeks of illness. Don Pablo had picked up a severe infection after returning from Lima.
He was born in 1934 in the village of Puerto Libertad and in 1970 he became a renowned shaman. During a period of six years (1970/76) he cured thousands of people using the sacred brew ayahuasca. After giving up with applied shamanism, in 1985 he undertook a successfull career as a painter, thanks to the input of Dennis McKenna and Luis Eduardo Luna.
In 1999, together with the Colombian anthropologist Luis Luna, Amaringo published the beautiful book Ayahuasca Visions: The Religious Iconography of a Peruvian Shaman, that gathers together and explains his colourful and incredibly detailed paintings, inspired by his ceremonies with the Amazonian entheogenic vine.
Thanks Don Pablo, we'll miss you!

National Geographic Explorer: "Inside LSD"

Thanks to the blunt and criminal “war on drugs”, even therapeutically promising substances like Lsd, Mdma or psilocybin were put in the unscientific and taboo-fueled cauldron of poisons and evil drugs. That put a virtual end to the legal scientific research on therapeutic properties of psychedelics/entheogens. Yet, things seem slowly change nowadays, thanks to the efforts and determination of dedicated scientists and researchers and no-profit groups like MAPS.

The video below is the final part of the National Geographic Explorer documentary Inside Lsd recently seen on TV (thankfully a rather well balanced production, not so full of the usual bias and prejudices.) I chose the final part because it seems to me particularly interesting and moving, but you can see the other 4 parts:

here

here

here

here

The Rick Simpson Story

Rick Simpson is a Canadian man who years ago (re-)discovered a 'miraculous' cure for many serious diseases: 'hemp oil' (effectively 'cannabis oil'.) Since then he have healed himself and many other patients, even people with Stage 4 cancer (absolutely free of charge)...Which is exactly Rick's method for extracting and using the 'oil' from the cannabis plants? And why is the Canadian government persecuting him, why does the media ignore him? Here is the true Rick's story... (first part of 7, find the other 6 on you tube searching for " Run from the Cure - The Rick Simpson Story" )

The Coffee Mona Lisa

During the Rocks Aroma Festival held in Sidney, Australia (July 09), a group of artists made a giant Mona Lisa using 3604 cups of coffee. The cups were filled with different amounts of milk to create the different shades...!!

(Thanks Raghu!)

Auto-Tune the News # 6

Absolutely cool!! See all the "Auto-Tune the News" series on youtube...

The Beat Hotel movie

The Beat Hotel, a new forthcoming documentary film by Documentary Arts, goes deep into the legacy of the American Beats in Paris during the heady years between 1957 and 1963, when Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky and Gregory Corso fled the obscenity trials in the United States surrounding the publication of Ginsberg’s poem Howl. They took refuge in a cheap no-name hotel they had heard about at 9, Rue Git le Coeur and were soon joined by William Burroughs, Ian Somerville, Brion Gysin, and others from England and elsewhere in Europe, seeking out the “freedom” that the Latin Quarter of Paris might provide...
Read further details here

Shiroi Neko T-shirts

'Shiroi Neko' produces nice colorful t-shirts designed in Japan and handmade in Thailand. If you like these few 'samples', please visit shiroi neko to see more products, handmade designer t-shirts, hoodies, caps and longsleeves...

Illusion Village

The buildings in the town of Vercorin in the Swiss Alps contribute to an impressive piece by Felice Varini, called Cercle et suite d'éclats. The pattern was projected on the town from the vantage point, then traced and painted. Photographs from the same spot in daylight make the town look flat, almost like a postcard. What I'd like to know is how he got the town to go along with it; I could see an easily-repainted suburb in the States being convinced, but this quaint (and much older) town in Switzerland seems like a much bigger challenge. Don't miss the panorama picture on Varini's site.