TRANS RESISTANCE SYMBOL (Reposting this so it’s under my new blog name) I’ve long been kind of annoyed with the traditional circle-with-lines-coming-off-it design. Its round but not round, a little too on the nose and imho kinda blasé. I decided to deconstruct it and make it a bit more visually appealing. I also felt in these fucked up times a better symbol was needed for trans resistance and insurrection. Easy to recreate, memorable, visually impacting. The break down is of course the masculine and feminine symbol for trans men and women, the combined symbol for genderqueer identities and the circle crossed by the lines for nonbinary genders. The direction of the lines implies movement, striking out in multiple directions. Included above are a black on white and white on black version with a circle border as well as the glyph itself. The images are 17″x17″ @ 500dpi so if you want you can make stuff and it should be crisp. And because I’m leftist trash have some flags! ALSO: PLEASE SPREAD THIS!!! I want this symbol and it’s ideal to be spread far and wide. I want people to know what it means and that trans people will no longer be forced to reside on the margins of society. We are here, and we are going to fight for our lives with all we have. So long as you’re art/group/statement keeps with these ideals and those of liberation for all trans people (keep it intersectional, folx) then use it! Let me know if you do (tag me/link to this post) cause I wanna see! Also no commercial use w/o asking me first plz.
It’s Fun Fact Friday, no one’s requested a Fun Fact, but here ya go anyway. It’s possible that a lot of you guys know this, but, anyhow!
You will often see this symbol, the caduceus, as an icon for medicine and doctors:
Yeah, that’s wrong.
Okay, so this is the staff of Hermes/Mercury, the Greco-Roman god of travelers, merchants, and commerce. And to be fair, this is a symbol occasionally for doctors for quite some time, and Hermes is sometimes said to be the god of writing, so the idea that he’s associated with the educated (like, say, doctors) is not out of left field. And pharmaceuticals, which one could argue is related to alchemy, which was once popularly believed to have been taught by Hermes Trismegistus, a figure made of combined Hermes and Thoth.
Thankfully we do often see the correct symbol, which is something close: the Rod of Asclepius:
This is the staff of Asclepius, the son of Apollo and the Greek god of medicine. He was said to have been a mortal who was so skilled in medicine, he brought someone back from the dead–for which Zeus killed him, because we can’t have people coming back from the dead all the time. He was deified (maybe because Apollo got big mad and started killing stuff again), presumably under the condition that he not bring people back from the dead anymore. His temple was a healing center, and in fact the famous Hippocrates (of Hippocratic Oath fame) was trained at one of these temples.
Designed with artist Rory Hutton, to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee.
The coronation chair forms the centre of the scarf’s design, as the starting point of Queen Elizabeth’s reign. The martlets and oak leaves which originally decorated the coronation chair represent strength and nobility.
Surrounding the central motif are traditional symbols which are repeated throughout the architecture of Westminster Abbey - including the heraldic lion, the crown, the fleur-de-lis, the Tudor rose, the English rose, the Irish shamrock and the Scottish thistle. (No Welsh leek that I can see though!)
(I cross mine from R to L, but Jake does his straight through)
I was watching a kdrama and they were tallying a vote and I was just like:
Cus I’d never considered the cultural implications of tally marks. Lol, I just thought lines to five are lines to 5, ya know? Then I read the whole wiki page and now I want to learn more!
Are there other ways? How do you make tallies? Tell me moooooooore lol ^-^
Official political signs, signals and slogans, on adobe brick and plaster walls, seen in various villages and towns in the northern Andes but typical of all of Peru, 2016
Eros (Rose) Magic Square (derived from the Sator Square).
Eros is the Greek God of love and desire. Using the numerical values of the Greek letters of his name (E = 5, R = 17, O = 24, S = 18), we can generate a magic square where each row, column and diagonal sums to 64.
Rose is an anagram of Eros, and is a symbol of Aphrodite or Venus, the Goddess of Love. The Roman name for Eros is Cupid, who appears in “The Tale of Cupid & Psyche” by Apuleius.
This tale appears in many forms, such as “Sleeping Beauty”, where the name of the princess is “Briar Rose”, or the tale of Tannhauser and Venus. The symbol of the rose also appears in Dante’s Paradiso, and the labyrinth in Chartres Cathedral.
Phanes is a primeval Greek deity who is related to Eros, with love and desire being a prime motive force : “Love is the Law, Love Under Will” - Liber AL vel Legis.
The final diagram (by John Martineau) shows the Pentagram of Venus, which is the rose-like pattern generated by Venus and the Earth as they orbit the Sun over a period of eight years. Venus is known as the Morning Star, or Lucifer, the Light Bringer.
The purpose of The Genesis Seal is to create a magical link that sustains the familiar within the maternal dimension. The series of words of power are inscribed in the witches alphabet and encircle the seal. The spoken words of invocation for the seal are:
Suckled, nurtured, on this day you are born, your sprit now resides in this magical form. You and the seal, now one to be, Bound or released, as so willed by me.
Demeter, enthroned and extending her hand in a benediction toward the kneeling Metaneira, who offers the triune wheat that is a recurring symbol of the mysteries (Varrese Painter, red-figure hydria, c. 340 BC, from Apulia)
A: Your paintings are very detailed, expressive and figurative, but rich in symbols. Would you share with us your creative process?
LA: I wish to talk about nothing other than the living, the being. We all know that the being is beyond appearances. We all have experienced this intimately. Today I don’t have the maturity that would allow me to reveal the nature of things. So I use the symbol. The symbol is unfortunately restrictive since it’s cultural and implies an education or experimentation. It’s like the story of the old man that Carl Jung talked about. Recluse in a cave, he was busy looking for what he doesn’t know. In his quest for truth, after exhausting the concepts, he finds himself reduced to the action. He then takes a piece of chalk to draw what may look like the unthinkable and draws a circle and says “This is it.” Then he draws a square inside and said: “It’s better this way.” With his reputation as a magician, young people come to him, wishing to learn from him. Seeing the marks on the wall, they try to reproduce and to understand the process. However, by doing so, they flip operations that led to its emergence. No understanding follows. Jung said that this is how things were and continue to be today.
As for myths, they contain our history; they are our cultural heritage. I am a European, and I speak with this heritage.
A: What is your biggest challenge or accomplishment as an artist?
LA: The most difficult thing to do and that I am proud of, is having the courage to postpone my art production when necessary.
I could certainly speak of Goldmund, a large oil painting of 14 meters long by 2.30 meters high, but it would be a mistake. I did it because I had to but it doesn’t exist more than any other small paintings.
What is needed is always strive to remain the fairest in what we do, and it’s not always right for me to paint. Stopping my production was a right act; it wasn’t a non-act or resignation. It allowed me to look elsewhere what was missing in my painting.
Today I can paint again because I have new abilities. My vision grew and my fears fled. The realization of a tableau can be considered again.
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In addition to painting, Loïc Arnaud also involves himself in the curation and has actively contributed to Artchipel’s content as guest Curator. His personal work was featured on Artchipel over three years ago and can be found with updated posts on his Facebookandon Tumblr.
