Let’s talk about the reasons we strive to recreate what gifts arrive from our imaginations. Let’s talk about accessing the Bardo and dream state in order to create fearless of death’s coming journey.

I’m getting back into sketching everyday as a primary goal. I draw with my son everyday and it has me getting back to basics. My studies of the Surrealist painters in the 1930s reveals the importance of their studies in the classical world. As a firm ground of grasping at their dreams, they were also studying what the masters before them left for us to see. The concept of ruins… these played a huge part in my visual style for years. Ruins echo the former civilization as much as they represent what we have created, they also represent the impermanence of being. What kind of symbols do you feel called to explore in your own work? What is the role which life drawing plays in your artistic practice? Do you incorporate studying old masters in your process? I hope that this group gets somewhere someday, I am really interested to know what other artists draw upon for inspiration?

Hi. I’m Sean Self, I’ve been an Oil painter for 25 years, I have also been a production artist for the New Orleans Opera Association , and Royal Artists—A local Mardi Gras float fabrication company. I have had numerous one on one students over the years— who have gone on to be extremely successful Muralists, Sculptors, and Oil Painters. I have long kept my work off line and deal only in person through Art fairs, Markets, Galleries and Museums. Recently I’ve had Interest by old friends and students to branch out into the internet. To share how I create the vivid worlds in my work. So. Welcome here, if you want to learn the basics of oil painting—you have arrived, furthermore, I seek to teach others how to reach into their deepest unspoken creativity. Intermediate Painters will be happy to pickup new skills in oil medium alchemy. I will be posting a lot of Timelapse videos about the production process. I pray for this to become a safe space for critique. A space that I can see others grow in. I want this community to be for Artists who do not have an audience for their work yet. Often surrealists are in a league of their own— it’s rarely “what would match the couch” Art is a medium for the profound. I want to share techniques, mytho-poetic space, the raw awe of inspiration. There is a path from daydreams to reality, from the bardo and liminal spaces of the soul we can dig deep to access amazing new kinds of Visionary communication and Surrealist explorations. Please , If you have come this far, share your work, let’s get to know one another. I am excited to see what questions people have, which will dictate the direction of this process. Thanks for coming to my TED talk… —Dr. Self