https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=wAvF5te2gsw
And so what is your, because I’ve so I’m looking at a bunch of images of you that you’re doing, and you really seem to be exploring more and more kind of Christian symbolism and you’re you’re using. So you even made an icon of St. Herman, like a St. Herman of Alaska, tell me a little bit a bit about what attracts you to St. Herman. Oh, nice. Yeah, that’s a cool one. Well, yeah, just just off the bat. I mean, some people listen to this probably don’t know me. I’m not famous yet. Just kidding. But yeah, all my work is Christian for sure. Even if I’m just drawing like a flower or something like that, like I’m doing it like in like a Christian context. So, starting that out there. Yeah, well, I made this image of St. Herman because for a few reasons, I guess working backwards, I’m really into Sarah from Rose. He was a really big like influence on me. Partially because in case people aren’t familiar with his work, one of the main inroads for me was, he has a book called orthodoxy and the religion of the future. And even before I ever would have thought about Christianity at all. Someone told me this theory that UFOs were related to demonology and that like UFOs were extension of, you know, the demonological phenomenon from the past. And that just totally blew my mind. I was really kind of into the paranormal at the time and I was like, well, I never would have thought of that. That came from Sarah from Rose. I read the book and he’s a really cool guy even outside of that. I don’t want to pigeonhole him as like the UFO demons guy. And he’s associated with St. Herman’s monastery in Alaska. So I started looking into it and I just thought he was a really cool figure and I really liked the idea. I mean, I’m American also in case people don’t know. I just really liked the idea of Christianity coming to America in the most general sense, whether it was orthodoxy or Catholicism or anything really. And so it was a really interesting figure in that context. I’m pretty sure he’s this patron. I wouldn’t say patron saint, but he’s like called the wonder worker of the Americas or something in the church. And yeah, he’s a really cool guy. I really liked his life story, which I kind of illustrated like in this image here. And yeah, I just felt kind of a kinship with him. I guess you could say not that I’m like similar to him, but I kind of felt an affinity for him. That would be the real word. Yeah. And the image that really, I guess this is related to what you’re talking about. So I’ll bring it up because the image that someone posted and then I saw that really kind of struck me and then got me connected to you is the image of the mother of God cutting off the alien’s head. Yes. Yeah. If I had like a greatest hits album, that would definitely, the crowds would definitely put that on there for sure. I love it. And I love the fact that you see also you see like the sea serpent. There are many images in that there are many things in there where you see the sea serpent getting his head cut in the in the waters. Totally. Yeah, this image is actually a really good encapsulation of like what I’m about just in general, honestly. When I when I drew it just so also I feel like I should just like qualify a little bit like I really do take the creating imagery that would be perceived as religious or spiritual thing like really seriously. So like when I drew this, I wasn’t thinking like, oh, this is a picture of Virgin Mary. I just kind of drew it as like a somewhat generic like holy woman. So just so people know I’m not over here like doodling like you know and kind of taking it very flippantly I guess you could say like rendering like holy figures and stuff you could see actually the same Herman of Alaska image is like totally different than this one because he’s like you know, a historical person. This is just like a generic figure. So I should clarify. Well, I wouldn’t say I would like for sure I wouldn’t say it’s an icon, especially in my Orthodox context like I don’t know this as an icon of the Virgin Mary but it’s obviously a figure which because you put a crown on top of her head and you start in the heavens. It’s the illusions are very strong. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, this image would be like a really perfect encapsulation of my vibe. Honestly, you have this like holy woman like beheading this alien over on the left is like the angel coming down with like Noah’s Ark. I was thinking about the Nephilim and stuff like that that this guy getting abducted in the bottom right. I guess yeah, you could say that part of part of what I’m about is really like integrating all of these things into a view of the world that is theological. I guess you could say, you know, I was into conspiracies for a long time, but nothing nothing too crazy. Just saying maybe like, you know, Bigfoot UFO, nothing too crazy there either. And, you know, little things like that. And then I feel like when I started getting a more theological understanding of the universe, even just little things like, you know, why is evil happen and why are things the way they are, it all becomes integrated in this way. So yeah, pairing the theological imagery with more unexpected things, I guess you could say is probably a big part of what I’m about. So the one weird thing about that image, the one which I’m wondering about, I’ll be honest, is just the image of the ladder with the devil like atop the ladder. Yeah, totally. Yeah. So over on the left, there’s the I mean, sorry, on the right, there’s the guy getting abducted from his house. Yeah, into like the night. And then above that, he’s getting led up this ladder and there’s like the devil there to like snatch him like at the top of the ladder. And there’s also Saturn over there. I kind of like intentionally put that symbol. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically, what it’s about is that I felt like there’s this whole aspect to the UFO and paranormal thing in general, where I really do feel like part of it is kind of designed to like ensnare people and maybe lead them down these like wrong roads. There’s a lot of stories like that. I mean, I could go into it, but there’s some many, many stories where someone will get like just obsessed with like particular minutiae of alien abduction experiences or they’ll start seeing UFOs everywhere. And often it’ll like totally destroy their life on it. Yeah. Or things like, you know, beings like that kind of leading people into like a weird like sciencey, Gnostic, cosmic, new age religion worldview. So that’s what I was thinking over there. It’s like the guy gets abducted and then he’s led up this ladder like to the devil. And I guess it looks a little weird because it’s like in the heavens. But what I was thinking was that, you know, in his mind, he’s like, oh, I’m going up this ladder like I’m ascending. But then at the top, he has a surprise like as a bad surprise. Yeah, yeah, I can I can kind of get it just it’s just because the ladder, especially in in iconography is associated with like the Jacobs ladder. So like the idea of going up the ladder is usually associated with like going coming near God. But because it’s almost like you could call it like the false assent or something like that. Ascent of pride is what seems to be to be to be represented. But I like the idea of the of the of the person getting abducted by aliens and then coming up and realizing that it’s the devil. Yeah, if I did if I did this again now, it would be cool to have like a longer like more classically like angled ladder on the left side that maybe did like go all the way up to the heavens or something. So it’d be like more of an obvious like comparison. Yeah, well, you could you could like a good way could be to show the flip because it’s almost like a flip. You’re you you get abducted into a spaceship. So you’re physically going up like into the spirits of the air or something. And then what’s actually happening is you’re actually going down the lap going down the slide like you’re actually sliding down into the mouth of hell. You look at the images of the Last Judgment, you’ll get you might get some some ideas about that. You see this either like a snake starting at the foot of Christ going kind of sliding you down into the mouth of hell. Or sometimes there’s like a ray of fire which comes down from Christ foot and then that people kind of ride down into the into the mouth of the of the of the monster. Yeah, I’ve seen those. Yeah, it’s actually it’s something we kind of touched on just like really quickly before. But yeah, that’s one thing that got me hooked into I guess you could say sacred art in general, even when I was just kind of starting my path was the ability to read it and kind of get information out of it was something that I thought was really awesome. I was making images and I was painting but I’d kind of been more schooled in like a you know 1617 1800s like oil painting kind of aesthetic situation. So then when I started seeing images and I was like wow this guy basically wrote a book that I’m looking at and I’m like unpacking all of this and it’s telling me so much. That really like changed my artistic path forever. Yeah, that’s I think I had the same experience when I discovered medieval art and especially the especially that church decorations because the church decorations they they appear as this this like 3D system of imagery that are relating to each other that are kind of playing off each other. And so it ends up being really like a system of meaning that is that is manifesting itself to you you know that you can it’s a pattern really like it’s a pattern of it’s an algebraic pattern and so that’s what I like about your work is I did that’s what it feels like as well as you have this you put all these images next to each other and they create these analogies that that bring out the meaning.