PRAXIS
Jesse Bransford

The link between art and spirituality has oft been both mysterious yet palpable. The Praxis project is an effort to make the historically ethereal connection between these themes more tangible by inviting artists to describe how the two interrelate within their work. We reached out to artists and proposed to them a question: How would you define the role of spirituality within your art practice and how do you feel this affects your artwork?

Here you will find their answers.

“. . .more than the material, something more than the thought.”

 

Finding Art is often a difficult task. We can have pen and paper, paint and brush, ready at hand, and Art might still not be there. In fact, the more we try to corner it, the often more elusive it becomes. Many artists I know speak of a fight with Art, framing the evasion in tactical terms. For me the evasion is a kind of melancholy, a recognition of the vanity the ego can map onto Art. The lack of presence is within me, an acknowledgement that art is not in the artist or the matter being formed; it is always somewhere else. When Art appears, it is often miraculous! Will, intent and form all coalesce into something more than the material, something more than the thought.

“. . .the patience and loneliness on the road to ecstasis.”

That melancholia has a long history in art and magic came as small surprise. The immobility melancholy produces is akin to contemplation, the patience and loneliness on the road to ecstasis. But what is different between the aspirant and the artist? Perhaps the surrender in the wake of zeal is different than the surrender of melancholy. A difference perhaps of intent: thinking and intending towards gods versus towards… something less tangible?

“Magic and her metaphors blend seamlessly with Art’s . . .”

Art for me is a window into possibility, forever demonstrating the world is bigger than we can imagine. Magic becomes a component of Art and from the first moment of that recognition I have incorporated magic and its technologies into my Art. Magic and her metaphors blend seamlessly with Art’s, revealing a relation to Nature that joins the human to its environment, showing a consciousness, a being that is infinitely greater than the sum of its parts.

Jesse Bransford, Bhereunda Nitya (Lunar Deity of the Brighter Half), 2016, 22 x 30”, Watercolor and graphite on paper

Jesse Bransford, Magic Circle (For R.B.), 2019, Dimensions Variable, Acrylic paint and varnish on floor, Installation at The Buckland Museum of Witchcraft and Magick, Cleveland, OH

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A Book of Staves

DELUXE EDITION
£345.00

JESSE BRANSFORD
With essays by Jesse Bransford and Robert J. Wallis

35 COPIES ONLY, SIGNED BY THE ARTIST

Full limp vellum with yapp edges and ties
Custom silk solander box
With an original stave drawing by the artist

Abraxas Journal #3

SPECIAL EDITION
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VARIOUS CONTRIBUTORS
Edited by Robert Ansell and Christina Oakley Harrington

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– With a signed lithograph by Denis Forkas

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