i think i found yet another connection to some previous threads in my work as a fine artist and designer, this time an interesting cosmological coincidence deriving from my lifelong obsession with pinecones

these photographs of a pinecone on my notebook at work inspired me to finally take up Joseph Liberty’s suggestion to look into the natural geometric wonder in the structure of these reproductive artifacts that quite literally litter the landscape surrounding our home in a fascinating, ubiquitous way

according to a Wikipedia article on the conifer cone, there are both male and female pinecones, both made up of essentially the same spiralling configuration of rigid plates that are more officially known as scales — the reproductive materials of the conifer, either pollen sacs or ovules, are tucked up inside each of the scales, with the actual act of reproduction almost seemingly performed by a miraculous happenstance fertilization of the ovules by airborn or insect-carried pollen from the male pinecone

interestingly enough, as in previous pieces where i purposely confounded the notion of a phallic object with overall feminine qualities, the female pinecone in some strangely personal and symbollic way represents this interesting crossing of male to female energies, a female object that looks and feels very hard, rigid and almost uttelry male — the other aspect of pinecone anatomy that i am focusing in on today, however, is the interlocking connetion of the scales around this almost spinal central, linear object — there is, in a sense, an implied relationship between the pinecone and the human { or at least mammalian } nervous system, and in fact further Wikipedia research for the initial surface information reveals that the pinneal gland located at the very heart of the brain is named for the pinecone and actually connects the left and right hemispheres, ‘tucked in a groove where the two rounded thalamic bodies join’ 

i am still very consciously looking for certain psychological and mystical connections in the subconscious themes and imagery that rise to the surface during periods of active, unthinking creative exploration and making — besides the fact that Carol and i are quite literally surrounded by a soft wooded forest of fir trees, pinecones, needles and plants, besides the sheer convenience of immediate material availability, i believe i’ve been obsessing on the vessel, the actual container of natural objects like the pinecone or the seashell for emotional and spiritual reasons — i think its time to dig a little deeper