BABALON information and inspiration

If it isn't obvious, I'm running a couple of days behind in releasing BABALON, the February image for the Magical Calendar project.  The main reason for this is that I feel it is an image with a great deal of history, and I've been fussing over a multitude of tests to ensure that I feel I've conveyed this in the finished image.

Detail images of two tests:

This are both fairly quick and loose, mainly acrylic paint applied over photo collage. 

I will be releasing more information in the next couple of days.  In the meantime, here are some of my references and inspiration for this image.

Babylon, as described in the Book of Revelation
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+17&version=NIV

Which in turn Aleister Crowley adapted as BABALON
http://thelemapedia.org/index.php/Babalon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babalon

"Lust" card from Crowley's Thoth Tarot deck, as illustrated by Lady Frieda Harris

Which in turn Jack Parsons further adapted, invoking her as a goddess in his Babalon Working
http://hermetic.com/wisdom/lib49.html
http://feralhouse.com/sex-and-rockets/


Kenneth Anger's Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, starring (Marjorie) Cameron Parsons, Jack Parson's widow, as Babalon

 Similar imagery was used in Fritz Lang's 1927 film Metropolis:

William Blake

It's been said that Jack Parsons's Babalon Working symbolically opened the floodgates for modern witchcraft.  Whether you agree with this or not, the figure of Babalon as a powerful goddess certainly brings to mind certain images of witches and witchcraft throughout the ages.  I couldn't help but draw parallels between images of Babalon riding the Great Beast to some of my favorite images of witches riding to the sabbath.  

One of my favorites, Falero's Departure of the Witches:

 

LILITH preview

A detail of the first image from the Magical Calendar project.  The full image will be revealed first to those who purchase the print, available this coming Friday.

The image is a silver print, hand colored and painted.  Other details for the calendar are rendered in india ink and paint.

To be notified as soon as this print, limited to an edition of only 13, is available, please email rikgarrett@gmail.com with the subject "magical calendar."

The inspiration for this image comes from a long history of portraying the figure of Lilith as a serpent figure, bearing knowledge. 

Possibly the most famous representation of this is Michelangelo's Temptation and Fall from the Sistine Chapel Ceiling.

For more images of this throughout history, visit here.

I'd been fixating on this subject while on our honeymoon in Vienna.  While there, we visited a museum of Medieval armor and chanced upon this:

It was at this point that I decided that it made perfect sense for Lilith to be the first month of this year in magic. 

starting over (again)

After much work on the most recent incarnation of the Symbiosis series, I decided to start over.  Again.  I've lost track of how many incarnations there have been in the past 8 months.  There have been 11x14 photographs with oil pastels, 4x6 foot collages on unstretched canvas with oil paint, 11x14 photographs with oil paint and 16x20 photographs with acrylic paint.

On Wednesday I photographed artist Steven Johnson Leyba.  Wet plate portraits.  He was in town for an exhibition he was in.  We've been friends for around a decade and have worked on collaborations a few times in the past.  I'll post images as soon as I'm able to print them.


Later on Wednesday, I took more color photographs for the Symbiosis series (which, to be honest, I'm thinking I need to re-name).  On Friday I got into the color darkroom to make test prints, then did some quick painting with acrylics.  I'm very happy with how they're turning out so far.  A very different feel.

I'm thinking that I'm going to keep them small.  Intimate.

Tonight Jane and I are planning on seeing Wolvserpent and Locrian.  Last summer I photographed Locrian in anticipation of their upcoming release on Utech Records, "The Crystal World." 

Look at the Utech website to see Justin Bartlett's great cover artwork for "The Crystal World."