brendan graham dempsey
multi-media artist (writing, visual art, music)
today, when traditional, inherited mythologies no longer provide orientation and a sense of identity, I'm interested in how creativity and imagination can step in to fill that void...
what I mean by this isn't some trite suggestion that a little more journaling and a few watercolors can help us all keep that gnawing nihilism at bay.
I think it's possible that a wholly renewed and reinvigorated spirituality, one that is honest with reality, robust, sublime, and deeply edifying, waits upon our waking to this idea: that each of us has within us a sleeping cosmos, a profound treasury of organic poetry no less suited to expressing our imagined Sacreds than any of the traditional religious systems that have arisen on the Earth.
the only real difference is that those systems' ancient symbols are growing less and less potent by the day, whereas the wellspring of your imagination is as up-to-date with your authentic intuitions of Meaning and Truth as your most recent breath.
unfortunately, the hobgoblins of conservative tradition and superficial money-making have conspired to quash this realization. we are presented with a dispiriting dichotomy: either the respectable resignation to a meaningless, materialist universe, or radical conversion to some established, antiquated Writ.
the notion of artfully expressing your own experience of sacredness—in your own words, in your own symbols—remains a horizon to which some are only now awakening.
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explore my forays into these topics through my BLOG, BOOKS, and VIDEO ESSAYS.
THE ICON
books
all of my works are part of a canon called the Icon,
published in both standard and critical editions.
VOL. I
NEW CRITICAL VERSION (NCV)
the NCV presents the Icon as a spiritual canon in the form of a critical edition. In addition to Julian's poem, then, are hundreds of pages of supplementary material.
II. DESCENT
III. RESURRECTION
Palimpsest Press, 8.25" x 10.75", 294 Pages, Color
COMING SOON...
COMING SOON...
video essays
presentations, podcasts, and documentary series
on my work
thoughts on my writing and projects
abbey
a project diary on the building of my skoolie scriptorium