Transcending Traitors by Michael Newberry
"Masterpiece!!!"
Hiro Kiyoshima, sculptor
This week I pulled this painting out of the edit closet. There was something about contemporary events made me look at the painting's theme afresh.
There is personal symbolism that I think is easily understood universally: the white silk cloth is purity and truth; orbits of degrees of enlightened; a massive sea of bloody darkness; and a glass bird representing transparency and the potential to fly. Goodness rises and is the way to freedom; the bad sinks to oblivion leaving a wake of human destruction.
Years ago the white silk Himalayan prayer scarf was given to me by a friend. She was a journalist that was passionate about agendas -- she was a bully and shamed anyone who did not subscribe to her views. Unfortunate because she did not research things deeply. The gift was the height of irony because she gave away its symbolic power to me, when she was the one in need of its reminder.
Michael Newberry, Idyllwild, 5/12/2020