Flower of Life Tag

A LIFE WELL LIVED - Drew Brophy Sacred Geometry Mural Painting for Keen

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Every painting tells a story.  Often my art reflects the current events in my life and my interpretation of the way I see the world.

This painting began as mural project for Keen.  It is painted on 9 Fredrix Canvas gallery-wrap panels, six feet tall and 18 feet long.  I painted it live during Keenfest in Salt Lake City Utah summer of 2014.

I have worked with Keen for many years. They are so much more than a shoe company, they are people striving to do everything better.  Their enthusiasm is infectious, they truly inspire me to be more adventurous and their ideals push me to be better at everything I do.

When designing the painting, I began thinking of all the places that Keen shoes take people.  I also thought about how these forward thinking people affected others and the world around them.

I quickly realized that this was not about shoes but was about getting out into nature, doing things to the best of your ability for the benefit of everyone, and the connection to each other and the environment.

This was a tall order so I started drawing circles.Mural-sketch-drew-brophy-art-keen painting circles flower of life vesica pisces

The circles slowly began to take shape into a Flower of Life Pattern, this process was hypnotic, and I began to think of what a gift it is to be born into this beautiful world full of possibilities.

I love the water and I love surfing, all life contains water.  We are 90% water, we are the clouds, seeds of information coded for life, from the joining of two circles, creates space for a third within the vesica piscis, love is transformed into a new child of the earth.  Like butterflies emerging from cocoons.

We are all Miracles searching for new experiences, we are the rain that nourishes all life.

BOY on the Beach _ALifeWellLived_-drew-brophy-mural art-painting-keenfest-sacred-geometryThe boy on the beach represents the time when we are young, everything is amazing and new, we are constantly curious, and fearless. This is one the most amazing periods of life, I tell my kids not to be in hurry to grow up, just enjoy each age to the fullest. Enjoy all of your firsts.

When we begin our path in life we play, we grow, and we begin to realize that experiences and interaction with others are everything.

Knowledge comes from constantly pushing into the unknown and understanding that there is always something new and more to learn.  The trick is to know what you really want, where do you want to go, what makes you feel good?

We are the streams and rivers flowing across the earth, we are meant to be free. We want to flow towards the things that feel good and avoid the things that feel bad.  It is a constant flow, like time, always moving towards the ocean where we all began.

Hopefully with enough experiences and time you will arrive at place of interconnected reality, you realize we are only here to enjoy the ride.

Reality is being fully present and it lies in the expansion of our experiences and thoughts with others.  It is the discovery that there is no separation, everything is connected, and we are all deeply rooted in the fabric of everything.

This is represented by the man in the center doing a yoga tree pose. This is also the understanding of who we really are.

A Life Well Lived Drew Brophy painting itWe are liquid light at one with nature beyond our physical body. This is represented by the Merkabah, the conduit which your life force exists in this world, this invisible energy flows  through the Flower of Life Pattern into everything it scales infinitely  larger and smaller.

In this is the understanding everything is a vibration of energy, manifesting matter in five combinations of shapes, called the platonic solids.  These shapes make up all elements of matter which consists of almost entirely empty space.

With this understanding everything becomes only thought which is manifesting everything.

What seems so complex is simple, everything is control over your thoughts and desire.  It is the power of creativity, we are all creators of our reality.  This is the knowledge to teach your children.

You are what you think, anything is possible, life is to be enjoyed, and we are all connected as one. 

As time moves forward everything is in a state of renewal and transformation.

The fire and Lava represent this as the cycle of light turns to dark. The darkness and its creatures represent the path of loneliness of a lost soul who has become disconnected and alone.  If he only knew to fall back into the flow where there is nothing to fear and only love.

Salmon spend their last days swimming upstream to the place of their birth. They lay their eggs in the hopes that their offspring will live on, thus continuing the cycle.  Connected souls have no fear they will give everything to others and in so they will live on in their thoughts forever.

Saturn represents the unknown, and all that is left to be learned in an ever-expanding universe. There will always be more that you wanted to see and do.

It is the thought of what you did do throughout your life that counts.

The owl represents Wisdom; even in the darkness he sees joy and Love and he has the sense to follow it and flow with it.  This is your path and your time.

In the end, when it’s time to return to the light, have no fear, look back on a life well lived.  Smile upon the cherished memories of your experiences with all that you loved on this earth.  Take joy in all that you gave of yourself to others in kindness. Your hopes, dreams, and example live on within them.

This painting was heavily influenced by the loss of my father.  He is the one entering the light, I am in the middle seeing my childhood and my death, and my son stands on the beach, with his entire life in front of him.

When I think of my dad, I think of all that he gave me, I think of all the memories.

In the end that’s all that is left, experiences of shared time together. His life was well lived, he is loved. He lives on in me and my son. It is the cycle life.   He took his last breaths on this earth with my Mother and all of his children holding him with love, we escorted him to the other side, and he was not alone.

I hope this painting inspires people to live life to its fullest.  I hope it inspires them to be the best people they can be.

I also hope it reminds everyone just how lucky they are to be here.

Dedicated to Thomas Alphonsus Brophy, Best dad ever!

Life is Good – Drew
Drew-Brophy-Mural-painting-art A Life WEll Lived Keenfest

Drew-Brophy-mural-art-painting-keenfest photo by David Munk A Life WEll Lived PaintingDrew Brophy Sacred Geometry painting at Conscious Life Expo 2015 Art

 

FLOWER OF LIFE by Drew Brophy 2014 Sacred Surfboard SeriesSACRED SURFBOARDS VINTAGE SURFBOARD RE-PURPOSE PROJECT – Re-purposed 1970’s Classic Surfboards, painted using old-school airbrush techniques; mint condition, collectible, limited edition pieces of art and craftsmanship.  (Email info@drewbrophy.com for pricing.)

One of my most fun projects this year was painting six vintage, re-purposed surfboards brought to me by collector Jeff Eilers.  (SEE PHOTO SLIDE SHOW AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST, OF ALL THE SURFBOARDS.)

Jeff and his business partner, Erwin Spitz, had the idea to breathe new life into vintage, worn-out-beyond-repair surfboards, creating up-cycled pieces of art.

Jeff and Erwin have a process where they skin the fiberglass from old boards, repair the dings in the foam, and gently clean up the original shape.  For some of the boards, they even enlisted the glassing expertise of master shaper, glasser and artist Roger Hinds of Seal, Beach, CA.

It is an extreme amount of work to repair them but in the end they came out so well that they wanted to do something extra special with them.  Jeff and Erwin had a vision for these boards to reflect the time period they originally came from, the glory days of surfing during the late sixties and early seventies.

In the 1970’s I was just a little kid introduced to surfing for the first time, so my art has been greatly influenced by artists of that era.

With my recent studies of sacred geometry, I was excited to get my hands on these boards and explore what I could do with these new concepts.

Many people do not know that I got my start as an artist painting production surfboards in factories for some of the best surfboard makers in the world.

In those early years I had to master the craft of spraying boards with air guns and airbrushes.  It is a more technical job than artistic and in some ways very limiting.  I wanted to express my art more fully, and so I found a better way to paint surfboards by developing techniques using water based paint pens on top of glassed surfboards.

I soon became known for bringing a new style of painting to the surfboard market which was painting on the glass by hand with Uni Posca paint pens.  It changed the way surfboards were painted forever.  These techniques allowed me more creativity and gave others the ability to paint their own surfboards as well.

All of these years later, with the knowledge of tens of thousands of boards painted in every way possible, I was excited to revisit and improve upon my own airbrushing style.

This surfboard project was the perfect catalyst to do something really special, up-cycle old surfboards and turn them into a true collectible piece of art.  Cool old surfboards grace the ceilings of surf shops and surfers’ garages all over, but what about the ones that are just too beat up and ugly to care about?

Using all of my years of experience, I committed myself to painting something authentic and over the top for this project.  I created hand-made stencils for every board, incorporating symbols that speak to me these days; such as sacred geometry, chakras, om, yin-yang and the flower of life.

The boards are now completely re-purposed, in mint condition.

All six of these Sacred Surfboards turned out amazing; they came out better then we even dreamed of.  Each one tells a story and is reborn as a unique example of craftsmanship and art that will live on.

The first 6 of the series are released for sale today; if you are interested in adding a Sacred Surfboard to your vintage surfboard collection, email info@drewbrophy.com for pricing, or call 949-678-8133.

Please, let me know what you think of the art in the comments below.

Life is Good – Drew

SEE ALL PHOTOS OF SURFBOARDS HERE:  Sacred Surfboard Art Surfboards