a psychedelic art website: Eureka California cosmic art lyrics and stories... rainbow gathering

mindsprout... a Grateful Dead fan's webpage...stories from the road and eARTh

art inspired by the psychedelic experience...click here...
Mathemagicland! numbers have meaning, flavors, emotions... exploring that concept...
for example: 883 level B: 42: $700,000,000,000: revolution #9: love potion #9: a million years BC
2600 audio frequency: click here for the big big list... and add your own!

click here to find out the meaning of numbers... what IS highway #61 ? MIL-TFD-41 ?
my favorite photograph... Rainbow Gathering, California July 4th OM Chant...
Taken just before I put away the camera and selected to live life instead of documenting life... a balance between the two is recommended...
more pictures and my story ~~~~~ click here ~~~~~
Grateful Dead Fan webpage... Cosmic Illustrations and My experiences...
Thanks for all the great times we had together... The Band and all the Deadheads too! somehow, I got the feeling that the band was not the center of attention... something ELSE was happening and is still happening thru all the hundreds of tribute bands... and "Dead related events" ~~~~~click here~~~~~

Project MKULTRA... CIA/LSD experiment that changed the world...

What an Amazing Journey our government financed... ~~~~~click here~~~~~

and now, ART, heART, eARTh... fun stuff to ease your mind...

dragon with big ears... or is it a dog? sketching in photoshop elements.

Button for sale at: http://www.zazzle.com/gregvan

This drawing was done at an extremely boring meeting at work. We were required to attend our annual safety training and I turned over the single sided xerox handout and spent a full hour drawing and erasing and redrawing... Then scanned it itno the computer and photoshopped it. Witness the classic gradient of brown and blue... used as a horizon and sky... Sort of a parody of labor union buttons... as if dragonriders were a regulated industry like cab drivers, teamsters and camel hearders...

Here in Arcata, California we just had the All Species Samba Parade.

Humboldt State University teaches great drumming. Dr. Eugene Novotney leads the Calyspo Band and it's many other incarnations... Samba Parade and WOMAMA. A blend of Steel Druns, electric guitars and beautiful women singing. Quite the show!

Spy on the Government BUTTON for sale at http://www.zazzle.com/gregvan

These Brand new surveilance cameras are mounted in Beautiful Downtown Eureka, California. Located at the end assembly plaza of the anti-war protest marches. They can now watch and film who participates. Yes, I participate and waved at the camera... Get US out of Iraq and Pakistan and Afghanistan and HUMBOLDT COUNTY!

The words read:

When you spy on the government, it's a FELONY... When they spy on you it's a Patriot Act...

This button was inspired by the Sarah Palin EMAIL HACKER.

The US government routinely reads My email and YOUR email but when a private citizen reads THEIR email it's time to GOTO JAIL.

Magic Mushroom button for sale on http://www.zazzle.com/gregvan

I had a fine time photographing the fireworks on Humboldt Bay this year. We went to Woodley Island Marina. The city of Eureka set them off from a barge floating near downtown. Many people take their own boats, kayaks and canoes out to watch up close.

This one ended up looking like a Peter Max illustration... I didn't plan for this to happen but once the gradient fills started... I just decided to accept that style... a lot of my artwork involves quasi-random actions in photoshop and then selecting what is interesting and erasing what is not...

OH! I GET IT BAMA

Purchase this button at my zazzle store: http://www.zazzle.com/gregvan

One unexpected benefit to riding the bus. When I get on, I no longer have to be "The Responsible Adult". For the next half an hour, I can close my eyes, dream, sleep, anything... and totally relax...

Driving a car, I am always ALERT, on the bus I'm NOT A LERT!

My mom told me, "It won't kill you to ride the bus!" and you know, she was right! I rode the bus and I did not die... She said it in a sarcastic manner because I was about to ask if I could borrow her car...

So, here we are years later, I inhereted her car but it's parked a lot 'cause I still ride the BUS!

So, who will protect the environment ?

OBAMA,

HE GET'S IT !

Zane Keseys dipped art website... Quite a good show! http://www.key-z.com/dippedart.html

Humboldt State University Student explaining how a hydrogen fuel cell works.

Basically, the hydrogen fuel cell is a better battery. It is a way to store electricity so that a power plant may create the energy when it's possible (like when the sun is shining on the solar cells) and use it when the customers want it... (when it's dark and people want to turn on their lights at home, use computers... etc) Widespread use of fuel cells could reduce the need to build new power plants. For more information: Schatz Energy Laboratory... http://www.schatzlab.org/about/public.html

No Nukes is Good Nukes. Bumpersticker for sale in my zazzle store... click here.

images: Atomic Bomb Mushroom cloud, McCain speaking in front of Nuclear Power Plant proposing to build 45 new Nuclear Power plants in the USA, map of Chernobyl fallout, three cooling towers.

I read that the PG&E Corporation has voluntarily selected to build the world's largest photovoltaic solar energy station. WHY? Because Solar is good business...

It's clean, no nuclear waste to guard for all of eternity... It's cheap too!

Remember, PG&E will do whatever is in their best interest... SOLAR WINS!

Press Release:

PG&E Signs Historic 800 Mw Photovoltaic Solar Power Agreements With Optisolar and Sunpower Solar. Projects Would Supply Enough Renewable Energy Equivalent to the Energy Needs of 239,000 Californian Homes. Read more...

http://www.pge.com/about/news/mediarelations/newsreleases/q3_2008/080814.shtml

For sale at: http://www.zazzle.com/gregvan

The rainbow SQUIRAL idea is from a "basic" programming book written for the TRS80. If you draw a square, make a duplicate at 95% the size and rotate it 5% then loop... you get a spiral shape made out of SQUARES... That's why it's called a SQUIRAL... The circular lettering is simply Adobe Photoshop Polar Coordinates distort... and a little TWIST!

Piet Mondrian had the idea that his paintings would automatically cause the viewer to feel peacefull.

In this button design I blatantly used his idea and blended it wit a Rainbow Squiral... The word ART is contained the both the words eARTh and heART... I stole this idea from a fashon magazine.

"A Spanish lady come to me she lays on me a rose,
It rainbow spirals round and round, it trembles and explodes...
It left a smoking crater in my mind, I'd like to blow away...
But the heat came 'round and busted me for smiling on a cloudy day...

Coming, Coming, Coming around, Coming around in a circle"
The Other One-Cryptical Envelopment.
by Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir and Bill Kreutzmann
and now, ART eARTh heART... Eye Candy!
A series of illustrations inspired by the VISIONS of Ezekiel... an Old Testament Prophet and Major Party Dude!

The Prophet Ezekiel was the Inspiration for the Grateful Dead Song "Estimated Prophet"
by John Perry Barlow and Bob Weir. I see that "The Other Ones" are re-uniting for a benefit concert to help raise funds for Obama...
Click here to visit dead.net for details.
Ezekiel: Then GOD said to me, "Son of man, eat what you find; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel." So I opened my mouth, and He fed me this scroll. While I was by the river Chebar among the exiles, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God.
As I looked, behold, a storm wind was coming from the north, a great cloud with fire flashing forth continually and a bright light around it, and in its midst something like glowing metal in the midst of the fire. Within it there were figures resembling four living beings And this was their appearance: they had human form. Each of them had four faces and four wings.

Their faces looked like this: Each of the four had the face of a man, and on the right side each had the face of a lion, and on the left the face of an ox; each also had the face of an eagle.
Ezekiels wheel: using google images... The face of a man? Burning Man, of course! The face of a LION? The Cowardly Lion from OZ, a sacred cow from India and the symbol of America: the Eagle... The description in the Bible says it was a winged creature that flew in a spaceship...
Visit http://www.zazzle.com/gregvan to purchase this bumpersticker.
ask the BURNING QUESTION: did Ezekiel see ALIENS or was he JUST STONED?

As I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the ground beside each creature with its four faces. This was the appearance and structure of the wheels: They sparkled like chrysolite, and all four looked alike. Each appeared to be made like a wheel intersecting a wheel. As they moved, they would go in any one of the four directions the creatures faced; the wheels did not turn about as the creatures went. Their rims were high and awesome, and all four rims were full of eyes all around.
Humboldt County Beach at Trinidad, California being visited by Ezekiel's Wheels of Fire. In the Bible, they speak of a wheel that has eyes all around the edge... so in this illustration the creepy eyes are included... Talk about your BEBOP CUBIST GOOFBALL, that Easy Zeke was a shrooming dude!
Terrance McKenna wrote a book called "Food of the Gods" where he proposes the theory that early humans gained a biological advantage by eating the mushrooms they found growing in the feces left behind by herds of cattle. His idea is that magic mushrooms are the original ``tree of knowledge''.
Better eyesight, especially increased pattern recognition, allowed people to hunt more efficiently causing their children to eat better and increased their survival ability... A Darwinian advantage to trippers... PLUS, eating mushrooms lead to increased sexual enjoyment and the creation of more offspring.

He also wrote Psilocibin: Magic Mushroom Growers Guide with step by step instructions for cultivation. According to the preface, he wrote this book to ensure availability of psilocibin for future generations...
Tribute art for the Carlos Casteneda Books.
Carlos Casteneda wrote many books about the Brujo Don Juan Mateus, a Yaqui Indian. He taught a different view of the world using medicinal plants and reality-stretching exercises. The book "Tales of Power" has many images in it that I used to make this animation... Like "finding your hands while dreaming": a way to take control of your dreams and use them to learn.
Carlos Casteneda.
The first book is called "The Teachings of Don Juan: A yaqui Way of Knowledge". It's a Classic anthropological study of Mexican Indians. Required reading in freshman cultural-anthro at Chico State in 1973... The people in the book used the teachings to learn how to run thru the desert at full speed it total darkness using power from an "ally" that looked like a moth... Hense the images of men running... and Moths. They were also able to travel instantly from one place to another... Often in these books, Carlos and Juan do things that are absolutely impossible... If you believe the traditional view of reality...

However, the first set on the path of knowledge is to "question reality".
Question Reality Bumpersticker for sale on my zazzle store...
click here to visit http://www.zazzle.com/gregvan

Carlos Casteneda wrote of "seeing" people as luminous eggs... with bolts of power connecting their midsections to the world around them.

I'm re-reading all those books again... a worthwhile use of my time... The Teachings of Don Juan starts the series... A Seperate Reality, Journey to Ixtlan, The Eagle's Gift, Tales of Power and The Second Ring of Power... These books document a cultural anthropologist 's study of Mexican Indians, psychedelics and Toltec Warriors. The first book is about psylocibin, datura and peyote experiences but the author quickly outgrows these and embarks on a magical journey learning the ancient arts of "stalking" and "dreaming".

A complementary author is Don Miguel Ruiz... The Four Agreements... They work well together.

The Eagle's Gift by Carlos Casteneda

a thistle plant in bloom... some space is left on the left side to put words or another object...

like a logo or a person.

This artwork, like all on this website is available to copy and paste into your own space... It's quite fun to see my work spread over the internet and in magazines... Have fun!