Thank you for stopping by!
My name is Danny Stephens.
I'm not sure how I ended up in this space. I started using Steemit as a part of cryptocurrency research. I owe a lot to cryptocurrency and the community of revolutionaries that supports it. I was able to quit the rat race to supplement my art making practice with making trades with modest profits from the 2017 crypto boom. I imagine that this will be a common story when we look back at this time period. People from struggling economic situations can take the leap of faith to fund their passion in an attempt to make it their main gig. So for those of you who have toughed it through these turbulent times in the crypto-space, thank you. My wife, our new baby, and I are eternally grateful.
As far as what my intentions are:
I would rather my daughter see me struggle doing something I love than go to a job I resent. This is why I am only making art. I am a painter living in Portland, mostly showing in a co-op gallery, coffee shops, dispensaries, and live painting events like concerts and festivals. It took years to realize the social importance of an active creative class of people. We need driven individuals trained to look at the world through a different lens, and I have dedicated my life to doing so.
My lens:
The systems we inhabit, this earth in all of its grandeur, is a mystery I plan to take my whole life to never figure out. Up until recently I ascribed to a seemingly blanket new-age thought pattern. I would toss around the cliches with a half hearted smile because I had convinced myself that the frilly nature of my beliefs would save me from a busy mind. This has caused a transition into a time of questioning beliefs. Although painful in some sense, it also forms a strong foundation of the beliefs and practices that prove beneficial.
I find a need to share my experiences with synchronicity and the more tangible "mystical" experiences in my life. Since language is so limiting, and I'm no linguist, art is the only way I can comfortably translate my curiosities.
My current thoughts are that the flashes of creativity we experience are not coming from our own subconscious, but from a need in the collective that can be met through solutions we bring about individually. This implies a hive-mind-like relationship with our communities. We witness it with the bees, herds of deer, school of fish, etc.. Why would humans be any different? As humans we once thought the sun was God. We later thought lightning. Incomprehensible powers can only be labeled as divine when theres not language to back up your experience. I think the existence of the unified field, which has been a frontier for spiritual exploration, could possibly be explained through physics. Our new ability to perceive it could simply be a next stage in human evolution. This doesn't discard the idea of a Godhead for me. If there is one, it definitely makes it bigger.
I'm here to share my art, and the ideas behind them. I am here for your interpretations of these concepts too! Without the sharing of ideas we just let generations die off with no imparting of any real amount of wisdom to our children. Lets discuss, debate, live, let live, and figure this beautiful mess out.
