GUTTER ART

 

What is Gutter Art?

(Arte de la Gouttière)*

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
--Oscar Wilde, 1854 - 1900

Gutter Artists discover or (if they are really lucky) were taught by adults who knew the secret pleasures of free-range play.

Gutter Artists stay mostly under the radar but have learned to use symbolic language and icons to ensure privacy so they may safely speak and listen to other artists, both dead and alive.

"We make it all up anyway. You might as well make up something that makes a contribution," said Mr. Tom.

"Being an abstract sequential artist is as good a cover story as any," said Damaris (modifying what Richard, the Elder once espoused).

"I'd rather be dancing naked in the rain," said the mother of the StoneMuse.

*Definition: Artiste de la Gouttière = Channeling Light in the Process of Unfoldment

Gouttière = Watercourse or Gutter: In the Western Hermetic Tradition, the channels, grooves, or gutters between and including the 10 Emanations or Sephirah on the Tree of Life are called the Thirty-Two Paths of Wisdom. The 21^st Path (Key 12), connecting Geburah with Hod, is the Stable Intelligence, represented in Tarot by The Hanged Man (also assigned to Key 12 are: the Law of Reversal; Mind in suspension; water; and the planet Neptune, which is the higher octave of Venus). The Hanged Man’s head, surrounded by an aureole or halo of light, rests below the surface of the earth in a worn watercourse.

Gutter or Watercourse: Nouns: brook; channel; furrow; ditch; gully; groove worn by running water; dry bed of a river of Tertiary Age containing alluvial gold, also called bottom (Australia); drain or rainpipe; trough used to get rid of waste material in a corral or pen for livestock; white space between the facing pages of a book; channels on either side of a bowling alley; lowest social class of a city (e.g., raised in the gutter and condemned to a life of crime). Verbs: To flow in channels or rivulets; to burn with a low flame; to flicker; to melt away through the channel formed by a burning wick (said of candles).

From: Middle English guter, goter; fr. Old French, gotiere, goutiere (eaves, sewer, trough, drain); fr. Vulgar Latin guttaria (unattested); fr. Latin gutta, meaning drop, spot, speck. Unattested: Used linguistically to designate a form whose existence is not established by documentary evidence but is reliably inferred from comparative evidence; not necessarily affirmed to be true, correct, or genuine; not corroborated by evidence, material proof, or witness under oath.