Uncategorized

On exhibitions at Oslo National Museum and Fine Art Tjuvholmen.

This spring saw two simultaneous epochal exhibitions: From Darkness to Light, Modern Gothic and William Heimdal «Volcano». The second attracted a crowd of spectators so huge the queue which gathered for opening stretched all the way into the harbour. The artist is the probably youngest member of Memoriosa collective initiated by Odd Nerdrum to educate the youth in Renaissance tradition both in regards of painting technique and world view and the presented artist is an enthusiastic agitator for both by both being a reality show participant and protagonist in tv documentary Renaissance Prince. Often sounding in accord with ideas of Maestro Nerdrum and other members, his art is much darker and fully falls into cathegory Gothic rather than New Renaissance. The cut out bleeding heart on the table (the topic i had rendered in painting “Forbidden Fruit” now in Salem Art Gallery, Massachusets), self portraits as Clovis and Jesus on cross and allegoric set of drawings ranging from Black Milk sketch scribble featuring a nursing catwoman with a frame taken from famous spermcell frame of Munchs Madonna to portrait sketches – it was a talk of town and commercial success.

We enter the William Heimdal exhibition, a dark hall with just paintings being brightly lit, from a bright exhibition of fully lit rooms by a contemporary graffiti artist and skateboarder.

Modern Gothic with headlight From Darkness to Light is chaotic. I understand the concept of Middle Ages being seen as as Dark Ages, nevertheless the multiple exquisite intenselysharp and bright Lucas Cranach paintings it starts as «dark» part, and Gothic Cathedral topic contradict it. While the end of exhibition is Triumph of Lucifer relief by Vigeland leading directly to Edward Munch hall and The Sun as central piece referring to The Light part of exhibition, sardonically enough painted by dark author of Jealousy and Scream having had himself a contradictory and personally tormented life.

Last year is spent in Rostov-on-Don, former Cossack County, on the border between Russia and Donbass, Ukraine, where i was born and where i was taking care of my grandmother at sick bed who passed away in Autumn 2021.
Her last months were very traumatic, both because she was in horrible pains and developed gangrenes from lying in bed, but also because when on painkillers she was constantly tormented by sighs of war, as we thought recollections of WW2.
She came from a family of city administration workers of Kursk by last name Bulgakov/Sychev, and when germans were approaching Kursk the family had to retreat. They ended up in a village where nobody knew them when germans entered, and they put all citizens in line and inquired to give out “communists” so local peasants of course pointed at strangers from town. Her parents, not communists, were shot while children (her, 13yo and a year old sister and younger brother) were hiding in woods. They returned when everythng was calm to discover unburried corpses of their parents and had to manually burry them. Then they made a long journey through woods, several days no food so shelter, got miraculously saved from barn they slept in being bombed, by brother needing to pee outside, and finally got picked up by orphanage where they were sent to schooling and to manually dig trenches.
She did not die piecefully tormented by visions of explosions of bombs and human suffering around her, serenity and sainthood showing on her face only after the spirit left.
Now, a year later back in Norway, i suspect she was not reliving WW2 but was tapping into future, in Ukraine war noone, especially her, expected.
Her side of family was ethnically russian while my fathers side were ethnicaly half german from lithuania half ukranian from Pyatihatki, now as i googled up, suburb of Kharkiv famous for Victims of Totalitarianism Cemetry.
I went to same Uni and my parents worked in, Rostov University on border with Ukraine, where Solzhenitsyn had studied.
I was returning to Norway by train as Rostov airport was closed because of military operation.
Before that two months i could not sleep because of military jets flying low during the night but never day, and waking us up. There was no bombing or terror acts in Rostov, luckily, well managed under local Cossack militia having really strong connection with Donbass and Ukraine, both familywise and historcally.
On my way back in train i was listening to released that day Fear of Dawn album by Jack While while watching from train window endless raws of tanks, and other military vehicles on reserve tracks, soldiers busking in early spring sun, and sharing restaurant coach with returning from frontline still not showered properly and swearing a lot yong men.
Which is why my project Ghosts of Mariupol is more of act of breaking the FEAR.
I used two collectable Fear of Dawn lps which i manually loudly broke and melted, the sound of breaking record was alike a gun shot and woke up neighbours dog.
My Act One of breaking the record was performed on St.Mary Magdalene day when a new record by Jack White Entering Heaven Alive was released, which i was listening while painting a dead female ukranian soldier from archival photo, thinking of her as she called from beyond the curtain between the worlds.

Ghosts of Mariupol, Act I

I had been a member of Spiritist Church in Oslo for a while, it is silly, we were chanting Robby Williams Im loving Angels Instead while waving hands, and their channelings are inaccurate. I have had three personal occurences of being contacted by dead, two of which happened 2 weeks after they departed, and one was Mr.Aleister Crowley who i dedicated my short story also in this blog.
The second painting, of dead ukranian female olympic champion wearing medals, i painted on 27.07.22 while listening to Jack White live in Roschilde, Denmark.
Same time an hour or two after i finished it, a footage appeared on twitter of Jack White meeting with olympic champion in Japan, live, where she first makes him hold her three medals, then hangs them on him and he is basically impersonating the person i am painting wearing same three medals.

Ghosts of Mariupol, Act II

To note, me breaking Jack White collectables Fear of Dawn is by no means act of sympathetic black magic trying to harm him inspite of us keeping to opposed political platforms (Hey, he is on Barack Obamas playlist!). I avoid his song If I Die Tomorrow out of superstition and commented on his fb to chear him up that he was never going to die, as the next album implies.
It is an act of getting rid of FEAR, for him through act of sympathetic magic, for me, for soldiers on frontline.

Only The Dead Have Seen The End of War, Plato.

“You could grieve endlessly for the loss of time and the damage done therein. For the dead, and for your own lost self. But what the wisdom of the ages says is that we do well not to grieve on and on. And those old ones knew a thing or two and had some truth to tell, Inman said, for you can grieve your heart out and in the end you are still where you are. All your grief hasn’t changed a thing. What you have lost will not be returned to you. It will always be lost. You’re left with only your scars to mark the void. All you can choose to do is go on or not. But if you go on, it’s knowing you carry your scars with you.”
Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain.

Summer months I have been attending the studio of prominent Rostov, my birthtown, (Russia) sculptor Dmitry Lyndin, who had graduated first from Grekov (Rostov), same art technichal school as director of Russian Academy in Florence, then Mukhina Sculpture Academy in Moscow. His monumental works are installed over town, from huge commissioned war themed patriotic pieces to poetic bronzes of schoolchildren and animals like dogs or huge horses.

https://xn--d1aihic4f.xn--p1ai/eskizy-rabot

Sculpture of writer Anthon Chekhov, Taganrog

Our studies started by him making me draw 3 min gesture sketches from live model. Again? I thought. As i found out, i was doing everything wrong. I was focusing on contours while he worked with huge geometric archeforms, encouraging to exagerrate.

Same happened with portraiture, when i was drawing a fellow moviemaker who volunteered as a model, in that starting with measurements and outlining shadowshapes.

Lyndin showed me how to start his way. Big movements with graphite in multiple lines, so to find the right shape somewhere in middle, also starting with geometric construction of cylinders, balls including invisible sides and quadrates.

I found this article, and it explains. (c)missoulafineartstudio.com

We had a few questions about what makes a Russian method unique.

Two Ways, Optical vs Conceptual.

What we do in class is based on what we see. Our basic Studio method is primarily based on What it looks like.

Meanwhile the Russian method is concerned with What it is.

They do this by conceptualizing the form, thinking primarily in 3D.

My model Zina

WIP day one

Pulpit at St.Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh (c) Natasha A. Kimstatsch
The forgotten part of scottish hidden history is the legend of St.Giles and the lost clan of MacGregors.
MacGregors officially claim heritage from ancient kings of Royal Ireland, that is High Kings of Tara, and are the main official carrier of Gaelic language, sealed in the crest by Royal Is My Race in gaelic while other clans use Latin or Scots, have a Lion in Crown d’Or as logo and are known as inventors of Scottish bagpipe parallel with Basque one. Their affiliate clans would be Irish Guiness, and Scottish last names Gillespie, Gillies used Irish way without Mac, and MacGhee written the Scottish way. They also are known to be related to Kenneth MacAlpin, known as Kenneth I the first official King of All Scotland, and the eponym of notion of Dynasty, according to wiki, Clann of Chinaeda, or Clan of Kin in modern English, quote “He left a sown ewes call’d Kyned”. Basically word Kindred and Kin and personal name Kenneth are same word, Cinaed.
Kenneth is known to have owned the Monymusk Casket with relics of St.Columba the holiest of holies of Scotland made in the exact shape of Arc of Covenant, golden, to be carried around, but smaller.
The legend says that name Scotia given origin to Scotland as seen in original form in Nova Scotia originates from daughter of Egyptian Pharao, Queen Scotta who escaped through a Greek island and the continent to Ireland where she is buried. At the same time name Scotland is referred to in Declaration of Abroath to have originated in name of Scythian tribes forming at one point unconquerable even by Alexander The Great Scythia Magna, Greek Islands being part of to some extent with senter in Tanais. Either Scotta was named after Scythia where she was exhiled on an island before coming to Ireland, or Scythia after Scotta of Pharaos kings, the word scythe attributh of Death in robe and skull for head, is discussable, as cult of death was big in both Egypt, Scythia and Scotland through Knights templars who often chose Skull and Bones or Scythe as symbol.
Other peculiar coincidence is something I discovered a week ago on a visit to Holyrood Palace, at the painting of Moses found by Daughter of Pharao and audioguide proceeding to, by the way, Scots claim their origin from a Queen Scotta who was a daughter of a Pharao, which made me ask for explanation from staff what exactly does one Daughter of a Pharao have to do with another Daughter of a Pharao, just to remind, the Monymusk Casket native to Scotland being made to look as a smaller replica of Arc of The Covenant Casket in guilding, ornament and handling manner, without exact descriptions in OT?
Another legend says that MacGregors are direct descendants from Adam unlike other ethnicities descendant from Cain after primary bloodshed, while Eve the temptress is not mentioned, they also are often dark curly sharp brown eyes, a bit like Nicola Sturgeon and are often confused with someone called Tatters or Irish Gypsies, people living on edge of law by theft and fortunetelling, but are in a way the very opposite in the double Janus or Lugus as called locally effect, that is have highest pride and honor.
They were prosecuted and excommunicated by other local Clans. Rob MacGregor started a legend of pauper kings later floating into honourable robber as in Robin Hood, after his claim on local Clan leadership was declined by Campbells, Romantic epithet Children of The Mist being conjured by admiring locals.
In 1603 after a huge MacGregors revolt James VI issued an edict that proclaimed the name of MacGregor as “altogether abolished”, which implied that anyone who bore the name had to renounce of suffer death. Quote, As a result, the Clan Gregor was scattered, with many taking other names such as Murray or Grant. They were hunted like animals and flushed out of the heather like bloodhounds.

There is little evidence proving direct rather than legendary connection of MacGregors to Adam. One obscure link, and there was another that I lost, is the quote from Etymology of principal Gealic Names National Names, 1911 by Alexander Macbain, on St.Adamnan, author of biography of St.Columba and Law of innocents, quote “St.Adamnan (died 704 A.D. ), “little Adam”, a Gaelic diminutive from Adam. Hence the personal name Gilleownan (1495), Giolla-Adhamhnain, father of Somerled (twelfth. cent.), Gilla-Adamnan (1467 MS). To explain, this is a list of last names in same entry, where both singular Adam root and singular Gilla root as in Gilleownan are put as variations of one family name together with two roots connected in double name.
From here to the legend of St.Giles to who the biggest cathedral of Scotland, home of Kinighthood of Thistle Ceremony and Chapterhouse, is dedicated. Strangely, there is no such saint. I spoke to a devout catholic from Milano, local to Edinburgh, he repeated: St.Girolamo? St.Giovanni? And agreed. There is no Scottish early saint by this name. The Cathedral, according to official record, is named after a Greek hermit, not saint, whos only deed was saving a female deer who was feeding him with milk with the palm of his hand from an arrow. Of course a deer represents a Royal preson, but the funny part is that there is no historic record of who it metaphorically was, and that St.Giles has a completely different name outside Scotland: Aegidius, nothing in common with St.Giles, althought has a cult dedicated to him under French St.Gilles name around old templar areas of Lanquedoc.
Further on to Gog and Magog, secretly venerated in UK, like in case of Peter Gabriel of Genesis who would dress as Gog and sing a 20min epic Guardians of Gog and Magog finishing with entering New Jerusalem.
“I sall be sanctified in thee, o Gog”, Ez. 37.16, says the Lord.
Further Lord gives “unto Gog a place there of graves of Israel, the valley of the passengers”, last word repeated upon several occasions. At first sight the scene seems like a slaughter of Gog, Israel is re-molding his/their weapons and burying corpses. Nevertheless the most powerful and supernatural scene in Ezekiel and probably whole Bible is Dry Bones passage, namely detailed resurrection of the dead description, illustrated by Gustave Dore. Now, it is referring to Israel, but Gog and the Passengers are by proxi included having received a place for the graves in Haman-gog, Israel.
According to genealogies Gog is of family of Magog, son of Japhet, son of Noah. Japhet is known to be associated with magic by mentions of goat and altar with goat horns, and as founder of Mediterranean culture with Cult of Delphi Oracle.
Gog according to Wiki is a king of Lydia, known as Gyges from The State by Plato, also practicing Oracle of Delphi tradition, who uses The Ring of Invisibility in marriage. According to George Fraser my friend from Knights Templars local tradition places Lydia, the site of Apocalyptic Battle, in Leth.
Thus Magog could be a dada spelling of word Magic meaning magical arts tradition, wthile Gog…St.Giles as why such a huge Cathedral?
Here is a video which I saw when it came out having no idea who made it as I was fond of all italian, strangely dwelling on story of a deer and a ring, rather of invisibility than or Mordor.

Valhalla. Hall of heroes, according to folklore meant to room in fixed amount of dead warriors for eternal bliss and participation in final apocalyptic battle.

The Nordic folklore gives fixed number, 432000 heros, by coincidence the length in years of Kali Yuga, as well as Sun radius in miles, quoting other researchers who noticed this before me.

The Apocalypsis of John fixes the number of Saved as 144000.

Max Bruckner (1836-1918), The Walhalla, backdrop for the scenic design of The Ring of the Nibelungs by Richard Wagner (1813-1883). Bayreuth, Richard-…

Nevertheless I came up with following calculus.

Vikings used not a traditional hundred by something called “long hundred” equal 120, same way as scythians used 12 as fixed quantity same way as we now use 10.

Valhalla comprises of 540 gates. If we take 100 for viking 120, we get:

5×120 plus 40 equals 640, and 800 heroes with viking long hundreds 8×120 equals 960.

Further, 640×960 equals 614400.

We remove the 6 which is considered mystical number in front  and adding zero which is an abstract number not known to jews or vikings, and we get exactly the apocalyptic 144000.

“Six is a number perfect in itself, not because God created  all things in six days; rather. the convert is true: god created all things in six days because the number is perfect”

Saint Augustine, The City Of God.

There exist 4 “ideal” numbers: 6 – 28 – 496 – 8,128.

6 is the number of Venice, the Sixth Sence.

Here is the explanation for phenomena of Valhalla versus Bible mystery.

In the process of ragnarok there awakens The Wolf Fenrir who was created of Six Things That Do Not Exist and is enchained in magic chain which gets dissolved when things that do not exist materialize into actual Zero:

1. The sound of cat walk
2.  The beard of a woman
3.  The roots of a mountain
4. The sinews of a bear
5. The breath of a fish
6.  The spit of a bird

Thus the Six turns into a Zero.

Divine Marchesa
The moment i saw his bed, his spartan hard one-man bed, it flashed like lightning through me: I love him. The bed was antique, covered with hand-woven arabic carpet and decorated with corduroy cushions in bloodred, it stood on a heightened parapet like an altar in a tiny-small sleepchamber filled with oriental god sculptures and weapons in self-erected castle in Northern Italy. The bedroom belonged to long departed rebel and poet Gabrielle d’Annunzio. It was him I loved.
Oh, I was just sightseeing with a heavy camera belted across my shoulder like many others, having payed entrance fee. No, no concert on grand piano in big private concert hall with private portraits today, that is after extra fee and only once a week.
Earlier on I got a memory which led me on discovery journey through Riva del Garda villages, through white stone Limone and Salo, yes Salo that sounded like the title of Pazzolini movie about Sodom and Gomorra which I was too scared to watch, too red, sin or politics colour?
The memory was bright, it was a big mansion in Piemonte, and I was a guest, a female middle class writer, swiss or german but rather American on surface, Herzog…Hirzig…the name was vague memory as I was tiny unlike me now a century later, who was invited over to the nobility’s outpouring of excentrism grand extravaganza. The mansion was owned by Marchesa Casatti. He was there.
He was short and bold, and missing one eye which he had lost in a shooting episode. Right before was when Mussolini came to power. With black shirts and taste for la vialenza and extremism, he divinified Gabrielle. He saw him as a mouthpiece for his own grand-marche to save Europe from barbarians. He built himself a casle nearby, down by Garda lake, which he called “Italian Victories”, with a half buried in earth submarine and eclectic collection of world artefacts, as well as personal performance stage, on the money received from private benefectors and as payment for attempt to revive italian theatre and movie industry launching most ambicious in the scale of set decorations and length of narration mythology based story of a kidnapped child oracle. Yet when Mussolini came over to express admiration and took off his hat in the entrance hall, did not let him in and called “pleb”, to afterwards set a plaque over the hat hanger saying “Mussolini did not come beyond this point”.
I was there. She was there too, the divine Marchesa. I wanted him. But his heart belonged to her.
I did not go into regression, but after visit as a nothing suspecting tourist, the memories came clear as a movie You had starred in. I knew both the two of them, indeed many others at the mansion, like the futurist artists gang who wanted to manifest the arrival of the iron beast who came to capture humans in his claws to transform them into centrally controlled robots. Socialism was on expancive in Russia, so it was in Italy. Mussolini was inbetween Scylla and Harybda, flatsquashed between the two threatening each other cliffs: cultural nationalism and socialist democracy, but to the difference from Odysseus or Ulysses he “Did not come beyond that point” and was sqeezed and annihilated by the self-opposed two.
Right before that there was gathered by Gabrielle, like by Mussolini, a little army of young home-runaway nobility offsprings and artists and announced an independent state, held alive with supplies of cheap high quality wine and cocaine, on the border between Italy and Jugoslavia, an independent bohemian political formation. They did not last long, when italian government directed a proper army and forced them to capitulate.

It is then, after homecoming, I saw them both, at a costumed masquerade honouring heathen gods in a lakeside mansion in Piemont.
Sandy beach was losing itself in clear water, further pillared entrance of limestone shade of yellow palazzo, with upper chandeliers light illuminating the beach brighter than moon and stars, fortified from the rear with high rock, leaving only steep serpentine road access by a tiny automobile, by no means one of those huge monstrous five person royces needing own driver.
Marchesa Casatti was an eccentric person deeply caramelized in occultism, she was both a friend and a mentor for versatile range of personalities within Futurism, a laboratory of cosmic architects, and Golden Dawn, a black magick sect run by Aleister Crowley who kept to daily invocations to angels, demons and everything invisible inbetween the dimensions we know or we do not know of, was nearby in Sicily and was always seen around, but never face in face. Did I know him? Was I staying in Sicily, former capital of Renee d’Anjou holy kingdom, the one who brought to people the legend of Arcadia, the underground kingdom, entrance to which treasure and paradise hunters claimed to have found in Naples one time or another throughout centuries? Was I the one who famously made The Beast Himself eat my poo after he in his turn made me poo in public on a porcelain plate and serve it to his friends? I do not remember that. But I was here, in Piemont, an intoxicating italian evening, as one of Marchesa Casatti freuleins.
Costumed party. I was dressed as A French Maid, La Belle Chocolatierre, “the pretty chocolatemaker”, in apron over short wide dress with petticoat and with a silver chocolatecup as a prop to carry around. I could have chosen something more frivolous, but was reserved by nature of character and was at such an event for the first time.

She was there as well, she was orchestrating the party. Wrapped in golden draperies, with a skull in her hand and a living python snake around shoulders as a moving boa. Her hair was wild and unmanageable, nose and whole profile sharp and directed forward, like of a priestess. A tiny orchestra of orphees with lyres was built in a circle. She made an entrance when the sun went down into the sea horizon and lit a circle of tall wax candles. She threw a handful of herbal incense in the flames and the terrace filled itself with fumes of illusive character creating unreal shapes of smoke, and kindling the fantasy as firework cascades to endless heights, creating the fog of lust and creatures in the shadows. Phantasmagoric poetic fume, which triggered our most subtle wishes and dreams. Then started the dance. The wild heathen dance, under the pillars of marble enspiralled in ivies, and the grapewine terrace. In the middle stood a huge several litres grail with wine in it. Everyone were coming over and filling their cups from it and joining in the macabre dance to lyre music. Those were the Greek goddesses, the wariors and the historic heroes, as well as characters from Marie-Antoinette and Louis the Fourteenth Court, and The Natural Kingdom characters: animals and birds.
He, Gabrielle, showed up last, calling upon whispers and hidden attention. He was dressed as pan, the forest god, in fur pants and with horns on the bald head. He took a sip of wine from the grail, and the whole scene transformed immediately into a metaphysical orgie.
He was asked for a dance by Marchesa. A sexual ecstatic dance. Their bodies enfawned each other and hands were wandering over sensual parts. All invited were watching, but when Marchesa went around with a cup offering with something more ample than ordinary wine, were joining the group dance, in circle.
Rhytmycal music, rhytmical movements. Rhythm, rhythm. Rhythm embraced the terrace, white marble terrace over the seashore, encircled in grapewine portals and seps disappearing away in the garden. More guests were wandering in the labyrinths, yes, both physical labyrinths of fertile garden, and the labyrinths of subconscious, of psyche. The dreams embraced the space like a dawn, as fog appeared in front us antique statues and shadows of antique heroes, of Heraclus and Andromeda. The Grail, the epicentre symbol in the party. The live and youth source, which has an ability to turn time and turn everyone drinking of, into antique heroes, dressed in courage and inspiration, beauty and passion. Grail, which in its ultimate search brings eternal life and eternal salvation. Grail, hidden, lost but not forgotten, though owned by her, real or fabled? We will never get to know.
The head went in a dizzy spin, the wine was acting upquicking and uprising. I was swept away by a roman hero in a toga in a similar rhythmic dance, the lyre players were supported now by Greek drummers in a rhythmical cacophonia.
In a pair dance, caleidoscopically swapping between the couples in a spontaneously fractal dance pattern, our pair bumped into Gabrielle, me being touched by his upper thigh in fur part of Pan pants. The fur was electric, or was it me being a cat with fur uprising in electric currents rubbed by igniting wand? The electricity of fur made me forget where I was.
I was facing a goat. No, not Pan, a creature with muscular goat thighs and human chest and head, not the devil, a similar one with horns on top of human head. An actual goat. I was pressured by someone’s command to go down on my knees and he entered me from the back while going up on back limbs, as if in an impulse to match a human two-legged way, and yes, he had his way.
I tried to remember who the commanding voice staging the obscene scene belonged to….it was familiar almost like a relative, a husband, a father….Aleister. It was Crowley’s scenario.
Is it the reason for me making him publically eat my poo at a public dinner, after he made me poo on a porcelain plate? Was it revenge act?
Then another dimention in time opened up. I was a priestess, one of the Grail Women he made walk around naked and be eventually worshipped in a half an hour long ceremony, but never get physically used for quenching lust. This time he did. It was not about lust, it was about virginity. He wanted to initiate someone into sex magick and selected me which he never did, but unlike other rituals, I had to have my eyes blindfolded. I reconed he was someone hugely important for secret services on this or that side of La Manche, all of which Aleister had dealings with.
The Male Virgin was strangely mature for his age, I would give him over 30, even with eyes closed I felt him being not that tall and absolutely not dignified in gender attributes, but with intensity I never sensed before, it was quick as well, it was over quickly, too quickly for me to understand anything, and I was let retreat to my own devices. His name was sounding in my ears, but I could not discern it…Adonai, Delphi…Adolphi? Yes, that was what they were calling him.
I flipped forward in time to the table scene, and my poo on a porcelain plate. I remembered The Male Virgin and his zeal and intensity. I realized I had polluted him with orgones of a goat which I was made to copulate with before the Sex Initiation ritual. I realized it was a set up from Aleister, something that could cause anything from madness to ruin. I felt sinister plan of the Most Evil on Earth from inside and made him eat my poo.

And Gabrielle? He sensed it all, he heard rumours, he was watching over all like an archangel he was named after, without being one, maybe like a man-poet. All was happening near his heart of Italy.

I came back to now.
I was in a castle dedicated to Italian Victories, by magnificent Garda lake together with other tourists from around the globe. It was nearing sunset. The sun was hanging low over gabrielles historic garden as an eternal and unreachable Grail.

A Mausoleum was a prominent burial tradition dating to ancient Egypt, when the remains were placed in a specially designed building, mostly pyramidal.
But it got paid tribute in our time as well. We all know that communist leaders would balsam the body of a leader, be it Lenin or Mao, and place in a special air tight construction with tourists walking around in a line inside a granite serene looking construction meaning to create flair of recognition and overnatural admiration and costing a fortune to maintain.
This is not what I would like to focus on, it is a modern western phenomena in art world, a way for an artist to immortalise himself.
Here in Dean cemetery in Edinburgh we see a crypt shaped as a pyramid. Dean Cemetery is a famous resting place for prominent figures of culture, and although the owner of pyramid is unknown to me, he paid tribute to Egyptian tradition in this obscure way.

Another famous example of a Mausoleum is burial of Emanuel Vineland, brother of sculptor Gustav Vineland famous for Oslo Sculpture Park in Frogner, himself a prominent artist. He created a crypt before his own death, decorated it with vast profound frescos dealing with topics of mundane and eternal existence, and ordered to place his ashes in a sculptured egg in the middle of mausoleum after his death. The construction holds special temperature and acoustics, making it a perfect place for preservation of his fresco artwork and ashes, creating a glorious solemn atmosphere of eternal.
Www.emanuelvigeland.mausoleum.no
Another interesting experiment which caused lots of contradiction was Bjarne Melgaard#s sketches House To Die In, presumably a post/mortem artwork who want to build mausoleum on the grounds of studio of another, alike Emanuel Vineland, iconic Norwegian painter, Edward Munch, in Ekely. The project caused lots of controversy because it would erupt romantic surroundings by post/modernist vision of unrelated to Munch contemporary artist.
I myself quite liked the sketches. Formed as a asteroid, it reminded of that cosmic connection we all have. Every Man and Woman is a star. A meteorite was used to decorate burials by ancient melts, are dedicated own sales at Sothesbys and is featured in closinames Bond Spectre, being a matter of pride and collectable of a billionaire villain.
In Bjarne Melgaards case the Meteorite shaped glass structure is surrounded, or rather held like titans, by something looking between extraterrestrials and Japanese anime figures, in contrast white/black. Whether he is planning to put his remains or ashes there, I do not know.


I visited Bjarne Melgaard exhibition in Fine Art Gallery in Oslo and in Tadeusz in London. I was perplexed by hypnotic soundtrack of something reminding poetry “Thelma, tell meg, Thelma feels meg” *Thelma, tell me Thelma save me. Thelma was a heroine of new Norwegian film production about teleportation, waking same topic.

I was in a bit of artistic limbo, when a guardian voice, funnily, of an american president, asked “What is the strongest artwork You had done in your childhood or teens which had been lost?” I said, “Truly illustrations to Temptations of St.Anthony by Gustave Flaubert”, to which he said “Why dont You redo it then”. Some people talk to guardian voices, You know, like character of Stendahl’s Red and Black talked to Napoleon, which is fine if they come with good ideas and do not get You into trouble like Stendahl’s character.

So i went to the library, ordered Flaubert and got mesmerised by both advanced occult depth of the play and the fact that my edition was illustrated by Rochegrosse, my otherwise recent artistic passion.

Unexpected link lead to this work. While working on biography of Marchesa Casatti i learned about scandalous Paris production of Temptations of St.Anthony to music of Claude Debussy, starring Marchesa as Queen of Sheeba and bisexual malelooking Sarah Bernhard as St.Anthony, taken down by police and even attended by Marcel Proust, otherwise never leaving soundisolated room.

So Queen of Sheeba was decided as central motif. So was Orphic Egg, both having origins in the play plot.

A friend suggested, why not use St.Anthory chapel ruins on Arthurs Seat, Edinburgh, as setting. Too touristy, i thought, too obvious. But that led me to knowledge that hermit St Anthony was one of favourite saints in mediaeval Scotland. I searched and found Chapel og St.Anthony in Murthly, dating to 14 century, ruined and rebuilt in late romantic period, but remaining catholic throughout time. It is situated on the grounds of Murthly Castle, rebuilt in same time, now being venue of weddings of like of Middleton family friends, but going back far enough to be mentioned in Macbeth.

Murthly is spelled in gaelic as Mortlaich. Mortlake, thought i? How accurate is the fact of immortal Mortlake of John Dee being in Richmond, not Scoton river Thames and not Tay, sounding similar to be confused that early in history. I have not checked and promise to do that.

But i came to another interesting train of thought. Same friend mentioned that hurricane, causing scattering of Spanish Armada, was conjured by scottish witches, not by John Dee as common legend says. Scottish witches? I got into studying navigation maps of Armada, and came to conclusion that hurricane’s epicenter could not have been Richmond, London. Fifeshire in Highlands indeed.

The castle belongs to a family called Stewarts of Grandtully, as well as the St.Marys chapel of Grandtully in Pitcairn, Grandtully being placename where clan originates. Grandtully is spelled in gaelic Gar-An-Tulli, yes, the last part possibly rendering Thule of germans. ‘Gar’ dictionaries translate as anything from ‘little’ to ‘sword’, giving root to name Gary, but same friend enlightened: In esoteric gaelic Gar means ‘light’, yes, he said, like in ‘Gar-U-Salem’ (Jerusalem). Salem is known to be the place of Tabernacle of Melchizedek, and later merged with Jerusalem. Merged, but not alltogether, as according to Latter Day Saints, it disappeared, as they call it, ‘translated’, into higher realm. Light of Salem teleported into Light of Thule, the ultimate fronteer, for safekeeping till the latter days?

The motifs of S.Anthony’s hallusination bubbles are frescos from St.Marys of Grandtully in Pitcairn, a secret gathering place of Kinghts Templars built as far back as 12-13, frescos dated as 16th century, humouristically, or esoterically, nicknamed by researchers as “pregnant angels’, ‘Queen of Heaven holding a blond or ginger babygirl instead of a boy’ and Black Madonna (yes, known from France and described in latest Michelle Huillebecque dystopia Submission) with grail and egg, all of which i discovered, unfolded and sketched live after i painted in the models in the triptych, all authentic.

 St.David of Menzies caves and stairs, Weem

The left part comprises the pictish stonecarving. It was a high climb and it is located some climbing steps towards St.Davids well, featured in central piece. I insist it is a star map of constellations Orion and Taurus, the brightest being Betlegeuse known as the star of Bethlehem as it is brightest in Rome on 25. December, the Anchor known from Fisher King (grailkeeper) symbol, very obvious, The Three Kings, here not so aligned, leading to Aldebaran in Taurus known as Masonic Tau, buildingstone. The location is village of Weem, archaic for Womb. Does the map show towards the birth of Savior?

Interesting fact. Temptations of St.Anthony was painted by many: Bosch, Dali, mostly featuring distorted cosciousness. It was, unnoticed, painted by Tennier, yes, the one mentioned in Abbot Sauniere scrolls together with Poussin, also off public knowledge. Teniers interpretation indeed features a pregnant woman.

I was not planning to paint a pregnant woman. Thus happened that two scheduled models could not participate, and only Tanya Fraser, a former artist and Dundee art college graduate, agreed to pose. She gas a rare condition, unoperateable cysts, that make her look highly pregnant while she is not. Pregnant angels were led upon after.

I am opening all information I encoded in the triptych in writing, because unlike with Poussins paintings, not sure anyone would be able to decipher it precisely.

Another thing. While sketching the Betlegeuse pictish stone, my clock winded backwards. I did not notice it until I came late for a train, after waiting for it with two coffees. It was a Michael Kors mechanic battery driven clock,it was not as suggested by someone winter time automatic adjustment failure as the clock had not only different hour, but minutes, the battety was new and the watch was running smoothly before and after.

Family crest of Clan Menzies on Mausoleum in Weem

This evening i had one of my revelatory trances when i had to process lots of linguistic information.
A visit to little Perthshire village called Weem, archaic for Womb, would not allow it to leave it. The village is the heritage territory of clan Menzies, rumoured to have been family of mother of Pontius Pilate (father being a roman officer) and according to long lost friend Barry Dunford claiming bloodline of Mary Magdalene primarily, rather than Sinclairs or Stuarts known for DaVinci Code.
Here are my results.
Magdala or Magdalena means a person from Magda or Magadan, also spelled Mageddon. Yes, same word root as in “Armageddon”, where Ar (hebrew Har means mountain). Not widely known, but term Armageddon is mentioned in Bible only once, and only in Revelations, which is not part of Old or New Testament, but a later addition.
According to hebrew scholar Abraim.publications, proper hebrew name is thus Har Megiddo, referring to Canannite town of Megiddo or Megiddon, of which prefix Me- the scholar omits, and root Giddo he traces to name of Tribe of Gad, translated as “fortune”.
Here is what i came up with. Gaelic is rumored by locals to be a form of semitic, which any linguist would put to laughter, but me, having lived in Scotland for five years, seeing how many, coincidential might be, phonetic similarities words have, would not deny it alltogether.
Gaelic for Misfortune is Mì-àgh, where iagh is root for “fortune” and mi is negation, possibly linked to latin mal (malady, malnutrition).
Hebrew scholar Abraim omits explanation of prefix in Me-giddo, could it thus be not just “fortune”, but Mis-fortune, an event we traditionally see as Armageddon?
Here is what i further came up with. Family crest of clan Menzies comprizes two letters M, could be just initials for Menzies, but why twice? Mary Magdalene initials? The name of clan did not let me go and i had a revelation: Menasseh. Menzies derives from Menasseh, lost brother half-tribe comprising together with Tribe of Ephrahim the House of Joseph. Surprise:wiki quotes Talmud depiction of the flag of the Tribe, being that of black background with A UNICORN on it.
By coincidence i looked at a map of ancient Israel and had a shock: Megiddo is historically situated on the territory of Tribe of Menasseh.

House of Cards and Local portrait by Stanley Cursiter

Skech from early period, Stanley Cursiter

Stanley Cursiter is a person not known to modern audience. I stumbled upon his grand painting House of Cards in Museum of Kirkwall, was mesmerised by subtle merging between cubist architectural sense and classical softness and fluidity, and stepping stone by stepping stone, his story unfolded.

Born in Orkney, he had vast knowledge to strange and soaked in mystery history of Orkneys, to later, in spite of not having academic arts degree, become in 1948 director of National Galleries of Scotland, be appointed as His Majesty’s Painter and Limmer, and initiate foundation of Scottish Modern Art Gallery, now occupying two buildings in Dean Village.
He has given the grandfather of a person I had a chance to meet, the mansion owner next to Scara Brae Megalithic Village, a strange Viking artifact, presumably a calendar; called his permanent house guest herring gull he was feeding, “Sigurd”, and invested in reconstruction of St.Rognvald’s chapel in St.Magnus cathedral, Kirkwall.

Viking calendar, private

I need to take a tiny swing back in history. Old days Orkney, rumoured by historian Neil Oliver to be as fertile and vastly populated that is was the actual capital of prehistoric Europe, was invaded by Vikings under king Harald the FairHair, who added the islands to Norway, while making his cousin, Earl Rognvald, the first Earl of Orkney, who’s cousin in turn, St.Magnus, is still venerated in Norway as one of Catholic Saints, having amongst others a dedicated shrine in Trondheim Cathedral. Later on, the Orkney Earls participated in Jerusalem Crusades which were depicted in poetry of Earl Kari Kohlsson of same family, took up family name Rollo deriving from longer version “Rongvald”, married to French /Norman nobility on way back from Jerusalem and took up family name Sinclair, under which Earls of Orkney, Caithness and Roslyn are known to present day, not the least through famous polpularisation in Dan Brown’s “Da Vinci Code”. All the family timeline is recorded in Orkneyinga Saga, of islandic origin.

Stanley Cursiter knew this story well, and was captured by it. Here is an abstract from his biography: “Throughout his busy retirement, Cursiter was also broadcasting regularly on local and national radio, and writing many articles, and even some short stories. He was resident celebrity; the spokesman for Orkney, turned to whenever information was needed on cultural or historical questions or any kind of public debate required a rational and architectural response.
The project that probably meant most to him, however, was when he was given the opportunity to make a significant contributing to a building he had loved all his life. In 1965 he proposed and designed the St.Rognvald’s Chapel in the east end of the choir of St.Magnus Cathedral; a labour of love which stands as a permanent memorial to his contribution to local heritage. He designed a pulpit, a communion table and lectern, incorporating some wooden panels of 16th and 17th centuries, and the three distinctive figures that stand behind them representing the founding fathers of the Cathedral: The Norse earl Rognvald, his father Kol, and bishop William the Old, first bishop to be associated with the cathedral. Some of the wood used for new carvings had been found in the Cathedral crypt by Cursiter. “

During his time as a youth in London, he dedicated himself to study of illuminated books, amongst others, Manuscript of Henry III and Arthur, King of Britain, and illustrated in Arts and Crafts style George Eliot’s scenes from Clerical Life.

His portraits of local persons of prominence and their family members are still decorating many private collections throughout Scotland.

His portraiture in a step away from gentle realist society style of Sargent portraits towards more graphic Scottish Colorists like People, who he wrote a monograph about. Still in the time between two World Wars his painterly style retains incredible cerenity and vital stability.