Matsaluba

Matsaluba, by Michael Files

I just completed this piece after losing my mind for three days trying to get it done. Feels great to be done, and I'm pretty happy with the results, first time I've really combined actual painting/contruction of a piece with digital painting on Photoshop. First time I used Modge Podge too, which is f*#&ing awesome s@*&! Oh my God I love it!


worship the Podge.

The piece will be part of the annual calender for The Global Awareness Project, being printed soon. The Global Awareness Project is a very wonderful organization started by my friends Carl Kerridge and Jessica Durivage to help promote charities and other wonderful NGOs, etc in the Myrtle Beach area. Important work for a booming area with rampant, often irresponsible development. I'm not sure which month I'm gonna be yet, but its exciting, lots of prints being made. Get yourself a calender when they come out. Stay posted, oh and here's a description of the piece below:



Matsaluba, by Michael Files
Acrylic, cardboard, magazine collage, and digital painting
Made for The Wellness Council of Coastal South Carolina

When I first began to work on this piece I started by researching all things health related online. I looked at imagery, articles, and ideas about health and wellness, and I spent time on the website for The Wellness Council of Coastal South Carolina. It was there that I discovered a very inspired article written by Kristi Falk, the founder of the organization, entitled "A Call to Serve." What I really liked about it was Kristi's focus on the heart aspects of service. She spoke of the fact that to really heal this world we all must get in better touch with our hearts, with what we know deep down to be right. As she said, "Some of the most admirable people in history are admired not because of their wealth or knowledge, but because of the size of their heart and their charitable spirit."

It were these words that gave me the impetus to begin with the image of a human heart, I wanted it to be the focal point of the piece to show its importance in everything we do. On top of that I placed the image of "Eartha," a character in a book that The Wellness Council produced to educate children on the importance of healthy habits and taking care of the environment. This image of the child in silhouette represents all children, and our responsibility as adults to teach these children the healthy habits that will leave them physically, mentally, and spiritually stable and able to take care of themselves and the earth, and make it a better place in the future.

The child is depicted being presented and nurtured by a pair of adult hands. The child and the heart glow with a sky blue color and sit upon a Buddhist Health Mandala in shades of green and blue, an image full of symbolism of healthy aspects of life. Around the border of the mandala is a pattern of fresh fruits and shooting from there are arrows of different size. These arrows all have different imagery of a healthy lifestyle: Fresh foods and produce, plenty of vegetables and fruit, running and exercise, leisurely physical activities in nature like fishing to relax the mind, and solar panels to represent our need to take better care of the earth in more intelligent ways. These arrows glow with a sky blue and shoot out from the crucible of the care of the adult's cupped hands. This represents the way that by educating the children we can send them forth into the world to make it a more healthy and loving place.

This sort of extended mandala then sits upon a deep red and orange background. The background is made up of a collage of fast food imagery, the ubiquitous staple of french fries and hamburgers, unhealthy foods high in cholesterol and lacking in nutrition. This vast backdrop reflects the world our children are born into, this sea of unhealthy seductions that they have to wade through.
I chose to enhance the red and the yellow, as they are colors representing animalistic passion and loss of control of our higher selves. The arrows are made to be glowing sky blue as this is the color of peace and equanimity, and the control of our desires. The arrows are made to be breaking through and starting to overtake these raw red desires, the idea being that eventually, through the education of our children, they will overtake and calm down these unhealthy passions in the world, creating a society rich in physical, mental, and above all spiritual health.

-Michael Files, Sept. 2009

Yay.