A Virtual "Can of Worms"

Worm's Last Memory - digital - 2009, DS. Geometry: 2022, DS.

Admittedly, Grace Jones is a tough act to follow... but, what must be done, must be done.

It seems I have made an unwelcome discovery and this is it: yes, one can embed a golden spiral in a visual image without even realizing it... and I have proof!

The proof amounts to golden spirals found in 5 of my own images - 3 of them executed prior to 2010 and the other two created in 2015, and 2016. There's only one problem: I wasn't introduced to the pentagonal golden spiral until March of 2021!

Inset left and right (below), from 2016, is the side panel of the music box with 2 potential GTSs.

Question: Why is it that a golden (pentagonal) spiral will discreetly appear in an image when  - at the time it was created - the artist had no conscious knowledge of the particular spiral involved? Is our design sense somehow wired to the melody of the golden ratio? Is this why the ratio was referred to as the "divine" - in that it is subliminally embedded in our consciousness?

Finding a golden spiral is not exactly the same as creating one, but the twain do meet somewhere within the process. And, this might be a factor. In the case of finding a golden ratio in ones own work, while it allows an artist to remember more of the actual creative process, it also brings something else to the table, a sense of the mysterious; a connectedness. This is, at once, satisfying... but, ultimately, a bit spooky. Is it a muse thing? An encrypted message...?  If so, from what?... or who? 

I keep thinking of it as a kind of organic thing.. a more sentient form of Sacred Geometry; the sub rosa beneath the sub rosa... like a maze of underground catacombs inhabited by ghosts. Then again, maybe the spiral is just a design artifact, making its appearance wherever a golden triangle appears.

At the same time, well, what new madness is this? In other words, is it anything but a strangely human (and yet, inhuman) construct which is essentially of the imaginal realm?

And, how does this reflect on all the spirals I've been finding in other artist's work?

Yes, well, I am unable to answer any of these questions, but have posted all five images in which the GTS was found (3 are below the jump). As for the worm .jpg (above), I found it was imperative to replace the space of my own crop (!) to accommodate the spiral! The image isn't working perfectly within the spiral but it's very, very close... and it is working with the golden triangle.

Wild Orchids

The image (above) was completed several years ago and then revised - she acquired more facial tattoos - in 2021. The spiral seems to go around the golden orchids and then terminate in her eye. There is a mirror spiral implied here by the image's bilateral symmetry.

 

As it was, I did explore some of this image's triangular geometry in a 2015 post (link below the image).

How Phoebe Got Her Name

I kind of figured by the strong triangular relationship in this image that there might be a GTS... and there was. Note the position of Phoebe's hands in relation to the spiral's termination.

Still Life with Salamander

This spiral was actually a surprise to me. The image was highly designed but I had no particular formal arrangement in mind (and I never really picked up on the triangle).

Artwork was (and always is) in large part an intuitive thing for me; and a design depends upon what physically "feels" right... because "intuition" can translate into a physical sensation; I'm just not sure which body part is involved.

 

Unfortunately, personal design intuition does not make for a secret tradition amongst one or more groups of artists - the premise I've been working from - and I'm not so sure I can think my way out of this one without having to resort to the possibility that I (personally) am some kind of anomaly.

In any case, (ultimately) the jury is still out. As of yet, I'm not convinced the presence of GTS is merely a design artifact.

But, who knows what tomorrow shall bring? ;-)