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Origins of Medicine Series
Full Gallery
When preparing copper plates for the intaglio printing process,
I often feel like a primitive scientist of some sort working in
the laboratory; heating copper plates,melting rosin,etching with
acids,dissolving with solvents, all to reach a level of experimentation
that may or may not bear fruitful results.
As life does, this creative process occurs as a balancing act
of attaining control of and letting go of that control simultaneously.
The work is to a large degree experimental, without any more than
a vague outcome in mind. It is driven by intuitive impulses and
decisions...(more) This experimental approach keeps the process
lively and propels the transformation of one image to the next
in the flow of the series. The transmuting of the image from print
to print is largely about discovering a new result from employing
new and different elements.
The connection between ancient spiritual practices and those of
science has captured my interest. The Medieval Physicians and
Alchemists, their practices and symbology, have become the foundation
and inspiration of this recent work. I searched for the earliest
information available and continually uncovered material connecting
Astrology, Alchemy, and the interweaving of the two in relationship
to the Healing Arts (or in relationship to the medical practices
of that time period).
The Medieval Alchemists, those who were concerned with a transformation
and or the perfection of the soul, are of particular interest
to me. For them Alchemy was more of an art than a science, and
its most important and most interesting aim was the spiritual
transformation of the Alchemist himself. For the mystical Alchemist
the art involved both a spiritual process and a chemical process,
both the turning of base metals into gold and the transmutation
of the alchemist from a state of “earthly impurity”
to one of “golden” spiritual perfection.
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