Introducing Joshua Parkinson

"Artist and currently working as a minor engineer, I live on both intuition and reason, and both creativity and logic. My real concern and path in life, however, lies in the spiritual and mental wellbeing of others, as well as my own spiritual journey. I have been fostering an evolving website and blog/journal for over a year, now housed at eatingpeanuts.com, which has seen me through some amazing personal changes, helped me define where I am now heading, and will soon evolve yet again to serve those purposes of my life.

As a result, my art and writing commonly comes from the same themes, and are similarly tied greatly to myth and symbolism. Myth and ritual, I believe, have a powerful purpose in daily life, and contain limitless meaning arising from our own unconscious. I tap into this deep well when I create.

I am primarily a visual artist, but have a love of the written word as well, and have recently chosen to embrace it again. In fact, my greater intention is to combine the art of the written word with visual art, combining poetry and story with the visual work into a complementary whole. From a child I have had a fascination with writing, but hated to read. I am a slow reader and most of it seemed simply empty anyways. The Chronicles of Narnia was the first set of books to truly capture me, containing such depth and mythic imagination, along with such simply whimsical sensibilities. This is a delicate combination I hope to one day put forth myself.

But my art is largely a vehicle for communication, as well as a personal spiritual tool. When I create a work it is a journey in itself, a spiritual practice whose personal purpose has been served once the work has been completed. It is a practice of focus and thought, working inward and puling out unknowns from the inner depths of the soul. But, nonetheless, it can serve a purpose of communication at the same time once the journey is complete and the work is let go.

I am the Journey-Man

I am the journey-man,
Upon the sea,
My ship a humble raft,
The loving gift of ancient Forest.

A sail of dusty yellow orange,
made with fibers of the vine;
An oar of aspen, an oar of oak;
To navigate by cryptic lights,
Celestial bodies of reds, blues, and whites.

Wandering upon a precarious seat
Upon a dark sea,
whose mountains and plains
change with the wind,
Able to forcefully consume,
with the crash of a tower,
my frail body, drowning,
washed and plunged into its darkness.

A journey-man, a wanderer;
Bread and wine for nourishment,
The sea's bounty to feed upon,
A homeless soul,
An albatross with no nesting place.

I step,
at times, upon a shore,
testing it's earth, rock, or sand,
exhausted, unsure, at wit's end,
for a refuge that may, perhaps,
swallow in its steady fixture
that call, that presence.

Alas, no distance can be traveled,
from those varied shores,
to provide a safe haven,
a happy delusion,
in an existence born of that clay
that will allow a lifelong rest.

Maybe one day I can become
A wanderer of land as I am now of sea-
The great forest indeed my place,
Perchance my home,
As the ocean's swelling expanse-
And return to her.

And perchance, still,
I may become a wanderer found,
As I am now a wanderer seeking.

by Joshua Parkinson 2003