Ascender Rises Above

Saddlebag, Mixed Media, Collage

Saddlebag, Mixed Media, Collage. Inquire to purchase a print.

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dark
presences slowly
focus
revelation of
tulip blacks, delicate
browns

Horse Totem:

The horse symbolizes freedom and the power that comes with being free, although taming the horse wasn’t easy, as their spirit for freedom was a fire that burned within them.

Those with this medicine can be fiercely independent and have little tolerance for anything or anyone that limits their free expression. Those with this totem are teachers to their partners, friends and family showing them how to stand solid within themselves. Individuals who choose to be involved with a horse person do so because the need for self empowerment is strong. They seek the horse and the power it holds rather than the horse seeking them. Intuitive and wise they make excellent therapists. Horses need a close-knit group of friends and family, as, despite his independence, the horse is also a herd animal.

If horse has come to you, you are being offered a gift of safe movement. Is there somewhere that you want or need to go? Horse can help you get there, whether the place is physical or spiritual. The horse asks you to awaken your inner power and move forward with courage.

1) Soft Lullaby, Speaking Rain; Collage on Paper Print. Click on image for larger view. Purchase limited-run 11×17 print for $17.00 + shipping and handling.

2) I’ve Read Of Bravery; Collage on Paper Print. Click on image for larger view. Purchase limited-run 11×17 print for $17.00 + shipping and handling.

Find more of my limited run (25 ea.) of my top 50 images here, 11″ x 17″. These posters are printed on 80 lb Dull Cover paper with HP Indigo Inks on an Indigo 5000 press (a commercial printer, not a home printer!) Printed to the border, signed on the back and dated. Cropped as shown. Copyright notice is to protect the digital image. It will NOT appear on the actual print. I ship flat inside a sturdy nonbending envelope using First Class USPS mail to assure it arrives to you in newborn condition.

Farewell; Photo

Farewell; Photo. More Ascender’s Photos.

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What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it.”

J.D. Salinger

Moonjuice/; Photos

Moonjuice; Photo. More Ascender’s Photos.

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Feel of rain in the face
moonjuice/
partial to poets
the lady’s tears

Tony Scibella

Tony Scibella was a member of a Beat Generation colony in Venice, California—nestled on beach front just south of Santa Monica—that flourished briefly in the late 50s before it was publicized into ruination.

Scibella begins from the blue-collar Italian childhood that he spent so much time trying to break away from. In recognizable Beat Prosody that comprises fractured grammar, ragged margins and angular rhythms, he swings back and forth from young urban impressions and memories of wartime propaganda…

Scibella has somehow managed to capture the immediacy of life in Venice, not just his life, but street life in general, all in his nonstop hipster patter. It’s infectious, powerful testimony. We can use as much of that as we can get.

Lone Gull; Photos

The Dying Sea Gull by Elhiu Vedder

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Fly on, sea-birds!
fly sideways,
or wheel in large circles high in the air;
Receive the summer sky,
you water,
and faithfully hold it
till all downcast eyes have time
to take it from you!
Diverge,
fine spokes of light,
from the shape of my head,
or any one’s head,
in the sunlit water!

Crossing Brooklyn Ferry by Walt Whitman

The American artist Elihu Vedder (1836-1923); an American symbolist painter, book illustrator, and poet; is little known in contemporary art circles.

Vedder made a small living by undertaking commercial illustrations. He was involved in the bohemian ‘Pfaff’s’ coffee house group, and painted some of his most memorable paintings notable for their visionary nature, romantic imagery and often Oriental influences. Paintings of this time include ‘The Roc’s Egg’, ‘The Fisherman and the Genii’ and one of his most famous works, ‘Lair of the Sea Serpent.’ In the USA he sought out and became friends with Walt Whitman, Herman Melville and William Morris Hunt.

At the end of the Civil War he left America to live in Italy. He married Caroline Rosekrans and had four children. His daughter Anita Herriman Vedder played a vital role in handling the business of her father, who was notorious for his general aloofness towards details. Elihu’s son Enoch Rosekrans Vedder was a promising architect who married jewelry designer Angela Reston.

Elhiu Vedder often painted scenes of tragedy and death. In The Dying Seagull one bird from the flock of Black headed gulls has fallen to the beach. Gulls are monogamous and the dying birds mate remains with it while their flock flies away in the distance. The paintings’ poignant meditation on the loss of family had particular resonance for Vedder; who two of this children had died before he painted this image.

To create paintings such as the dying sea gull Vedder combined observation of nature with fantasy. A similar seascape appears in several of Vedders’ paintings and is most like based in a beach in Italy where he lived much of his adult life. While the setting is from Vedders experience the artist’s subjects came from his imagination memory or literary sources.