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Symbol Paintings

Discovering Art Solutions

by Silvia Hartmann 2010

 

Mirror Ball Messages

Let us start at the beginning - the moment of revelation, if you will.

It is 2004 and I am in the kitchen of a rented house by the seaside in the UK. I'm tired and exhausted, thinking nothing much, when I noticed a light spot on the wall.

It was coming from a mirrorball I had found whilst unpacking and hung on the washing line outside the kitchen window, for the sake of having nowhere else to put it at that time.

The lightspot moved and bounced and it occurred to me that it was writing a message - it was telling the story of its existence, of its movement through time ...

I thought that if I was to get a canvas I could capture some of the mirrorball's story upon it; and so I did.

I found a blank canvas, tacked it to the wall and, standing on a chair, traced the movements of the light with a marker pen that happened to be the only writing implement to hand.

It may not sound like much in the retelling of it, but at the time I was learning something extraordinary - how every object has this path through time, a MOVEMENT that is all its own, and that defines it far more than its shape or size or what we think of as its colour or texture.

The movement is the story of that thing; and all things have a movement of their own.

Extraordinary experience that changed my world.

Not long after, I was unhappy and without my instruction or permission, my hand picked up a pen and made movements with it on the paper - the mirrorball message movements, movements that tell a story, that have an existence and a purpose.

I could feel the resonance of the movement of my hand travelling up my arm and setting up echoes and sensations all through my body; and then I could feel the stress and tension flowing away from me, and as the symbol movement on the page concluded and looped back on itself, I was in a completely different state and a major energy experience had just happened.

 

Movements

Movements are everywhere and at the heart of every thing - be it the movements a swordsman makes as they draw the sword through the air, or the movements of a calligraphy pen over rice paper, leaving a visible trace behind; or the movements of a birch in a storm which are entirely its own movements and nothing like the movements an ash makes, or an oak, or grand fir.

Leaving the canvas behind and simply allowing the hands to move, to create movements as they will, to just watch them do it, sitting back and letting the movements happen (because you could never prescribe such movements in consciousness, the conscious mind just does not know enough about such things!) is the first step.

The next step is the art solutions step - to ask the hands to "give me a symbol that will make me feel better ... that will show me something new ... that will lift me up ... that has a sound ... that changes reality ..." is the to take control and ask for specific movements, the answers to questions, the solutions to problems and conundrums.

And once your hands get used to making these movements for you, you can give them a pen to hold, and a canvas or a piece of paper to put before them, and then we have a movement captured in space and time ... the beginning of a symbol painting.

 

A Language Of Movement

If you do these basic movements for a time, what you will notice is that they are not random, but that similar movements occur when similar questions are asked, but not when other questions are asked, which also have their own similar movements.

Thus, and even though it may appear at first glance that symbol paintings are random, they have a language of their own; and this may not be consciously understood, but it can be felt and known.

And as the symbol painting represents a movement, A JOURNEY from the question to the solution, it is a representation or documentation of the process of that journey - and always unique.

 

Colour In Symbol Paintings - The Click

The symbol paintings that you see today are not just lines - they have areas (or possibly better to say ereas !) of colour too.

When the canvas with the black lines from the original mirror ball message experience was lying on the kitchen table, I was drawn to "colour it in". As we had just moved and nothing was unpacked, I had no paints to hand other than my young son's Lord of the Rings model paints - a selection containing Mithril Silver, Gore Red, Skull White and Spacewolves Grey.

Even so, each colour found its rightful place (dabbed on with a kitchen sponge, no brush!) and I noted how there was some part of me that knew where to place which one of the available colours.

There was a kinaesthetic response, the click, as it came to be known, as I asked myself, "Should this erea be red? (A shuddering NO reversal feeling) Should it be green? (Nausea spreading out from the stomach into the throat) Should it be grey? CLICK! YES!

This process of taking feedback from an internal guidance system that understands the symbol painting, what it is about, and what colours it needs to do the thing it's supposed to, is simply fascinating.

I've since taken numerous people through this simple process and they can all do that - the feelings, once you pay attention to them, are incontrovertible and simply won't allow you to choose the wrong colour.

Learning The Click is a really useful skill way beyond the realms of art, because once this feedback system is on line, you can use it too to choose food items from a larder, a menu, a supermarket that are just right for you; you can choose clothes, cars, interior decoration, houses, landscapes, artefacts and habitats; even TV programs to watch or which line of code you would prefer on a web page.

With a little practice, The Click becomes very finely tuned, and one can tell the difference not just between blue and red with ease, but also between different shades and hues of blue, for example.

The Click works on patterns too; you can move objects in space until the click occurs and they are in the right relationship to each other, depending on what you are trying to achieve.

But there needs to be some form of intention at work.

You cannot choose the right ingredients from a supermarket if you don't know what you are going to cook; and a lot of art confusion is that people don't know what they are making, and thus have no reference to whether something would work towards achieving this or not.

This is the Art Solutions "set up" the question that steers the entire process.

"Give me something ..."

 

How to Make A Symbol Painting

1. Stand up and loosen your shoulders, relax.

Imagine there is some substance before you, soft if invisible, and you are going to let your hands draw some symbols into this malleable material.

Take a deep breath and say out aloud and in your mind at the same time,

"Give me a symbol for energy."

Now let one hand or both simply start to make movements, whatever they want.

Just watch them do it and see if a pattern may be discerned; but at any rate, see the movements and the trails they would leave behind if you did this on canvas.

Don't overthink this, just let it happen.

When you have a sense that your hands respond with movements and you're watching them with interest, and it's reliable, you can put an upright (important!) canvas in the way and give the hand/s a pen to hold.

* If the system breaks down as soon as pen and paper come into play, you might need to use some EMO to clear out energy reversals, probably derived from old experiences, traumas and brainwashing on the nature of papers and pens. See this article for Healing The Artist's Hands instructions.

2. Now, choose your own set up.

"Give me something ..." (for my headache, for my creativity, that makes me learn Spanish better, that convinces me Art Solutions works, that will teach me something new, etc. etc - the choice is yours!).

3. Let the movements happen, let the lines appear on the canvas/paper.

4. Once you have your lines, you now have places where they cross. Get some colours and simply start with the first erea that catches your attention.

Ask yourself, "Should this be blue?"

If necessary, take the blue colour towards the erea and pay close attention how that makes you feel. If it feels good, exciting, YES, then use the blue.

If you start to feel nervous, unhappy or even positively disturbed or nauseous, you can know that blue wasn't the right colour and you can now try with red, yellow or green until you get a sense of "warm, hot, hotter - CLICK! YES!"

Repeat until all the ereas that wanted colour, have colour.

5. Consider the background and use The Click to guide you - should it plain? Stripey? Mottled? Textured? Shiny? What colour? Or colour blends?

The Click will tell you what to do.

Put the background in.

6. Tidy up the symbol painting by re-affirming the original lines. Glaze or post process however you want, sign it on the back, then hang it up and notice what it does to you, to the room, and what you have learned about the set up in the process of making the symbol painting.

 

A Note About Orientation

"Which way up?" is an interesting question.

Symbol paintings produce massively different responses, especially in the artist themselves, if you start hanging them differently.

As the purpose and identity of the symbol painting is defined by the set up, these responses will all be on the same topic and not random at all; they simply represent different aspects of the energy forms at work here.

Here is a classic symbol painting in its four different orientations. Take a moment to see/feel/notice how each is really quite different, and yet also the same:

Where do you feel this painting in your body?

 

 

It is normal for the artist to interact with the symbol painting for quite some time after it is finished; that is unless they made for someone else, and then they will interact with it in that way and should be shown the different orientations which provide four different ways of experiencing the energy experiencce/feelings/learnings of THAT TOPIC.

 

Symbol Painting Evolution

The basic symbol painting is a start, something that teaches us much, and is a magical tool for problem solving as well to create powerful energy objects that quite practically, change the world - for the artist who engaged in the question and solution process, and for the room in which it is displayed.

• What is neat about symbol paintings is that for each individual artist, they generate a plethora of ideas and new avenues of exploration; symbol paintings are a springboard to personal evolution and forward movement as an artist.

The skills learned by making symbol paintings - the movement, and the click - translate across to all artistic modalities, be it writing, composing, even making sculptures and dances. I was surprised (although I should not have been!) when I came to polish my first ever piece of raw amber on a brand new machine that I completely knew the movements of that piece, and where to lay the cuts and fascets  was the same type of understanding those movements, and knowing exactly what was right, and what would not have been.

Understanding the movements and relationships of things, and contacting the aspects of us who know what we're doing through The Click, are two basic skills I consider to be pretty priceless not just for artists and magicians, and the symbol paintings make it easy and completely achievable for any human being who wants to have a go, to experience these things for themselves.

And then there is that HUGE additional bonus of the set up in art solutions - you get to create the answers to your own questions.

Symbol paintings are easy, fun and quite extraordinary in their ability to teach us new things across the board, You can do them with kids, with old people, with people who have never in their lives put pen to paper, and a good time is had by all.

And one last thing ...

An art solutions painting is incontrovertible.

Should some "art critic" come along and say, "Well that sucks! those colours are hideous! Looks like a ten year old painted that, wriggly lines and all!"

... you can only shrug your shoulders and say, "Well, sorry you don't like it, but that's EXACTLY what it had to be like. This is the only way it could be. Perhaps you'd like to make your own painting if that might suit you better?"

If you follow the process honestly and don't try to outsmart yourself along the line, because the symbol painting is based on true experience and process, on your own movements and your colour choices, then there is no "criticism" possible.

An art solutions painting is EXACTLY what it is, no more, no less, and that's one of the most wonderful learnings of them all.

Silvia Hartmann 2010

 

 

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Also see:

• https://energyart.uk/starfields_retrospective_part_iv.htm
• View examples of Symbol Paintings by Silvia Hartmann HERE
• Symbol Hybrids - Compromise or Evolution?

• 👉 Further Information: Energy Art Symbol Paintings