SPALENKA EYE

Large art spread for the White Deer: Rites of Passage graphic novel

Time and the Sacred Cycles of Life

When the clock strikes twelve and it’s time to end
We’ll start to rockin’ round the clock again
We’re gonna rock around the clock tonight
We’re gonna rock, gonna rock around the clock tonight

As I rock around the clock to accomplish the many facets of White Deer: Rites of Passage– creating the graphic novel, composing the musical score, exploring the animation, I came to the realization that this story is also a meditation on the cycles of time as they shape our life and consciousness. The white deer, long revered across cultures as a sacred being, functions as a guide for change. When one’s identity dissolves and another begins, time becomes cyclical. Life unfolds through repeating patterns of birth, death, and renewal.

Childhood, adolescence, adulthood, old age are recurring initiations that mirror larger rhythms moving through nature and the cosmos itself.

Art for the White Deer: Rites of Passage graphic novel

At the microcosmic level, White Deer emphasizes our personal transformations. The transition from childhood to adolescence, for example, is marked by bodily changes, emotional turbulence, and the awakening of personal identity. Motherhood represents another profound initiation—one that reshapes the body, and reorients time around the responsibility for new life. Old age is framed as an age of reflection, wisdom. Each passage requires surrender to change, guided by inner signals much like the white deer’s presence in the forest of the psyche.

These personal cycles are inseparable from the macrocosmic forces that surround and influence human life. Environmental seasons and astronomical cycles provide the larger clock within which individual lives unfold. The waxing and waning of the moon, the turning of the equinoxes, and the slow procession of the stars remind us that human development echoes cosmic motion. Astrological symbolism, often embedded in rites of passage traditions, reinforces the idea that personal transformation can align with celestial patterns. Growth is harmonizing with a universal rhythm.

Art for the White Deer: Rites of Passage graphic novel

The vast cycles of time reflected in the ancient Indian concept of the yugas, (roughly 24,000 years), describes the rise and fall of consciousness across ages, from periods of spiritual clarity to times of materialism and forgetting. Just as civilizations evolve and renew, so too does the individual across a lifetime. The white deer stands as a timeless witness, crossing eras and dimensions, reminding us that our personal journeys are embedded within far greater arcs of change.

Ultimately, White Deer: Rites of Passage presents time as a living, dancing spiral. As I rock around the clock of life, swaying with the cosmic cycles, my microcosm blends with the macrocosm. Learning to move gracefully through time is to recognize that I am both a singular being and a participant in the vast, ever-renewing rhythms of existence.

Time to dance!

As I finish the White Deer - Rites of Passage graphic novel, mainly using digital tools and processes, my high touch art making talents (drawing, painting with traditional materials) are usually waiting impatiently in the background for an opportunity to jump into the fray. My brain and heart keep screaming to get off the damn computer!

I love to fuse high tech with high touch art processes to meld the modern with the ancient, to create new alchemical visions. Learning about the various traditional printing options such as, relief printing, intaglio, planography, collagraphy, viscosity printing, and stencil printing (there are many subsets within these categories) gave me a lot of choices to explore. The photopolymer technique falls under the intaglio process and resonated with me.

Fortunately, I was able to work with master printmaker, Jennifer Lynch here in Santa Fe to explore this technique with an amazing etching press at her studio. The video above showcases some highlights.

Creating a photopolymer print with involves a delicate dance between chemistry and craftsmanship. First, the image is transferred to a transparency, then onto a light-sensitive photopolymer plate, which is then exposed to UV light (by the sun or a UV exposure unit), which hardens the areas that will hold ink (all very technical and not my favorite part of this process). After washing away the unexposed, soft polymer, the plate is dried, then ink is applied, pressed into the textured surface. The plate is placed on an etching press with paper or other material, and pushes the ink into it.

This meticulous process allows for intricate detail and subtle tonal variations. The tactile qualities of the ink impressed into the paper give it a hand made feel, which I really like. Variations can be explored by adding other colored inks to the plate, scratching it, drawing on it, layering different plates, or working over the print itself with paints, etc. My next session with Jennifer will include making larger plates and making grids of the imagery to create larger, more epic pieces on canvas.

Photopolymer printmaking makes it ideal for limited editions, however the initial setup and purchasing of supplies can be costly. Ultimately what I like about this technique is that it echoes the contemplative spirit of traditional printmaking while embracing contemporary innovation. A perfect high tech / high touch combination.