PROCLAMATION OF EXCAVATION

Proclamation of Excavation

By the long moon of the crows

My hands feathers help give the wind a ride

Emptying my many selves

Into one shining flock

Place where we all begin

Late in life - able to see the vastness

This cloud truth of our nature

Dissolving into itself

I put the wafer of the moon

Under my tongue – diamond stillness

I have died here many times before

In this space of power

After the old shape gives way

My white hair fall’s a dream death

Leaving the body sheath behind

I spiral into the ancient gathering

Piercing bone whistle

Through the fevered night

Drums held up for the wind

To play the life song

Of my inner village

Skeletal change humming

Past the invisible cage

See the cocooned mind

Built things up over the years

Now falls away

In tender resolution

For the higher self

What ever we learn comes after

The contradictions of hungry brain

Tethered bird – in a skull of sighs

Reborn between blades

Of whirling thought

Purple wings pass through me

Vacuuming the dust

From my eyelids

Stretching my presence

In fragrant visions

Traffic of stars inside

Glittering pieces of the world

In tender exaltation

This book of wind reads

All worlds inside me

Close to everything now - even this drifting poem

Along the colors of my body

A proclamation of my excavation

Taking the suns glint

In wordless knowing

Artist Statement

My work is rendered in an energetically charged process.  These visionary or shamanic painted stories redress our world and worlds beyond in a communal reciprocity.  Much of my imagery is dreamlike, and comes to me in dreams, visions, and other liminal states of consciousness where the material world meets the spirit world. I am attracted to dreamlike places where tropes merge, meanings shift, and past, present, and future fuse. At these junctures space can become time, and time can turn into space.

Form, structure, color, and other aspects of visual expression both define and defy meaning simultaneously. Work created from and inspired by these states of consciousness often evokes an embodied and participatory response in the viewer. The viewer finishes the story in their head and heart, becoming a part of the work, just as the work becomes a part of the viewer.

AXIS MUNDI

Biography

Brian Brogan was born in 1958 in Brooklyn, NY.  He lived on the Massachusetts north shore for many years.  With great resonance to the spirit of nature he spent much of his time in the woods, mountains and beaches of New England.  Creative, adventurous and a little spirited, he left for the service at the age of 18 years for travel and adventure.  He has lived and traveled around the world for more than 20 years and in more than 20 countries. While on a ship for 2 years he focused on writing and published The Hailing Light of Bees, a book of surreal poems.  He has co-hosted a written literature venue on-line, and writes pieces on art and spirit via his blog and artist face book page.   Spending 5 years in the Far East, his interest developed in the quiet of eastern philosophy.  He disciplined himself to Qi Gong mastery and teachings, and became a Feng Shui consultant and teacher.  Writing for a year at a Buddhist temple, his work took on the form of comic strips for an International Buddhist magazine, done in collaboration with a Chinese art professor and colleague whom he studied  Qi Gong and helped in museum performance/installation art (Buddhist Sand Painting.) Brian Brogan has a great affinity for indigenous/aboriginal peoples and Native Americans, spending time with their teachings.  All of this has greatly influenced his painted stories including his shamanic work.  His painted visions come from the depths and heights of spiritual experience.  The passage from poetry to painted stories was a fluid transition, from one dream world to another.  For Brian Brogan dreams are real.

SOLARIUM OF HEART TALK

I watch the prophesized shipwreck
In the onyx of my ring

Curio seekers scour the earth for her
For the vanishing language
Of untroubled hours

I resurrect the lady leaning against sea and sky
Trapped holy wings in being too human

I find her shoulder sewn
Attached to the swell of wave
Curling back
To the polished bone

This day you find out who you are
In our solarium of heart talk
I pick up ghost pieces of her shine
White foam of her mouth crashes
Along my shore where she’ll always reside

A reckless angel who thinks
“I had my wings folded in”
“Forgot who I was”

Gather these connections
Grow to listen like a plant in the rain
Place flowers in each other
Filling the forest bottom
Of your troubled hearts

Groom the aching painted flower
To be more than arguments with God

Crows in dying light
Where is the wilder influence

Burrow down next to me and listen
Leaves blow inside this perishing body
The elder is lodged in the heart

Wisdoms demand to hold to a child like dust
Knowing the fires magnetism until ash

Wait like a garden of wind
Bring yourself anything to grow
Whatever awakes the sleeping Goddess

My songs to you
Will scatter like ponies in the rain
One will stop by the high leak
Embodied in loves water

For where we drink
Holy fish fly
From where we were
Once without meaning
We feel the rise
Bones splitting into feathers
Amends to the fodder of paradise.

Council Meeting - Wisdom Stories

BOOK OF MIRRORS

I am reading light and shadow from the book of mirrors

In the valley of the wolf two deer hearts bound out
Of the darkness of the dream world
Grace opening upward over the fallen branches
The dead that did not reach their stride
Sleeping Goddess fetal in their veins
Unseasoned with the salt of the hearts blood

The season will come again
When the dead will rise from the compost
Antlers growing to the stars
Mirrors of what we are
Shadows but the turf
From what we become

Feng Shui, Shamanic Journeys, Teaching

Feng Shui Consultations for homes, land and businesses

Shamanic Journeys for healing and greater self-awareness

Wisdom Teachings include shamanic, feng shui, creative/co-creative views and energy transmissions.

Art Exhibitions

Brian is available for all of these services.
cell 978-290-o572
brian@thepaintedstory.com

Theater of the Painted Story

I have been before words
Facing one another
I have seen their meanings
Caught in the middle
Without beginning or end

I have been between words
Hoping life would fill the blank page
Hoping they would go away
Or fall out of order

In their service
Over their riff frontier
In their house of mind tissue
In windows hoping to break free
Of reflection

I attached worlds in their fierce making
And now retreat in words as simple souls
And let them free inside me

A book of wind
Poems of empty space
It takes a whole tribe to feel them
To fulfill who they are

I leave behind these poem shells
Sculptured layers from the sea
I pick them up again
At the shores edge
You can hear the vibration
In the ear of this one
Rearing in the star net

I keep casting in the waves
Haiku mind bee wax heart
Ice slowly melting
Cold fictions of the soul

I walk on the long thin ear of the sea
Where the beginning of vast moving mystery
Is the light greeting clouds
With the theater of my painted stories
With my eagle head of flame
And its memory of forged light
Spirals of my nomadic life
Sing in my palm like a giant
Keep growing in the waves
My names, my many names
I cleanse through the body
Carving my mast
In the terrarium
Of my ancestors

All worlds inside me
My paint blood miracles
And honey jar
For the weight of things
I perch in the fork of birch
Shiver silver branches
Alters space and object with thought

Leave for the unknown shore
Where angels with mirror wings
Rotate galaxies on the sea
Inside me

Womb of scared water
I listen hard for plantings
Surging gestations
Little wings at my door
Purifying rhythm of the old crows
Holding the moon in prayer
In the monastery sea light
I do the feather dance wonder

My space angels know me
As the holy one
With power bundle of antler and stone
Falling out of this world
Into another
This stranger’s strange story
Is our own
Story we can’t see inside us

You might find these words
When I am dead
I am never dead as most
Expressionless missing parts of me go through
My frozen mouth and busy thoughts

Spring snake
With twig I make
The tongue come out
Of the drifting stars

Shed news of our deeds
Tell us what we need
Bearing the earth’s crossroads
Into consciousness
On the brink of god
Cicadas in one song
Rain when you ride
In one drop of them all

Reach, touch, express
Acceleration of heart
Maps blaze in the tea belly
Traffic of stars inside
Glittering pieces of the world
In tender exaltation
Land flow through me
Beyond the hedge world
Rip ride the wind
Stretch my presence
Into blossom

Invisible branch on the window
Moving child to a new world
Remnants of an awkward beauty
Rustle inside us my friend
Labor of a head grown wing
To the nectar of heart

To be more than this
Hopeful awaiting god
And reverse this sentence
For greater wonder than this
Yes, yes
In the electric current
To keep me wanting more

Passage in your floral dress
Dance moves
Of fire and fog
Wind in each leaf
One tree at a time
Single address
Contained in it all

All we know is enough
For where we’re going
You dream you
And learn where you’re meant to

A rodeo of zeros
It is everything
It is nothing
Stringed to vibration
Many selves
In many worlds
My lessons thunder
Thousands of clear visions
I am home far away
Where the entrance keeps going
To be an entrance
Body veins sparkle
Near the vanished state
All edges of life leap
When you are about to be free in life
Stars pass
As floating ships of prophecy.

New Studio at 300 Main Street (downtown route 1a,) Wenham, MA. Across from the Black Cow, look for the clock tower, upstairs. By chance or appointment. Cell 978-290-0572

Tribal Connection

Deep appreciation for Kris Farquhar giving me this opportunity to collaborate with her at EMF Environmental Music Films. Kris's mastery of voice and music/sound communes in primacy of sound. The visceral experience of this conscious heart-felt sound shifts awareness into great depths. Her long time work with this spiritual gift energeticaly infuses our soul, bringing moving experience and tears to those I have shared her work with. Many thanks & blessings

Classes/Workshops & Art Showings

2012/2013 WHERE YOU CAN SEE BRIAN'S ART OR ATTEND A CLASS/WORKSHOP
www.thepaintedstory.com

Classes---------------------------------------------------------------------------

GREENFIELD COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Greenfield, MA
April 18th 2012

Guest Speaker for the course Gender and the Environment. The Divine Feminine/Indigenous Peoples.

Art Showings 2012-------------------------------------------------------------------

See TRIBAL CONNECTION on youtube
EMF Environmental Music Films with Kris Farquhar
Video of Brian's paintings


READING PUBLIC MUSEUM
Reading, PA
June 2nd,
Assisting artsist friend Jiawei Gong www.jiaweigong.com
with Performance/Video Installation
Sweet Salavation
Traditional Chinese Ritual
http://www.readingpublicmuseum.org/


JUSTKIM

615a Congress Street
Portland, ME
ph 978-457-4071
See Justkim Accessories on facebook


RIVERWALK BEAD SHOP & GALLERY Jan - Sept

Amesbury, MA
http://www.riverwalkbeads.com/


INKWELL BODY ART STUDIO Jan - Sept

Amesbury, MA
http://www.inkwell-tattoo.com/

2013____________________________________________________________

ART HEALER Blog Talk Radio Interview, Feb 26th

HOWLING WOLF TAQUERIA (March 1st - Apr 11th 
76 Lafayette St.
Salem, MA
www.feedyourwolf.com


TRUE NORTH GALLERY (Apr 13th - May 18th)
25 Woodbury Street
South Hamilton, MA
www.truenorthgallery.net

Studio visits by chance or appointment.
3oo Main St.
Wenham, MA
# 978-290-0572