Friday, July 29, 2016

Arty Farty Friday ~ Vali Myers

It's good to find an artist who is likely to have a very distinctive astro-signature, to discover whether that, in fact, is the case. This lady could fit that description:

Vali Myers, an Australian visionary artist, dancer, bohemian and muse of the 1950s and 60s in Europe and the USA.

Born: 2 August 1930, Canterbury, Sydney, Australia. Died: 12 February 2003 (age 72).
A website dedicated to this lady is HERE, and contains biographical material, with examples of her paintings.

From that website:

Vali Myers was a unique spirit born out of time. She lived her extraordinary life like a bright flame, cutting her own unique path and living on her own terms: a tightrope walker - one foot in this world and one in a dreamworld that we can only glimpse in her profound artwork.

Artist, dancer, shamaness, muse and powerful creatrix, Vali left a body of work which started with her early drawings in the cafes of Paris in 1950 and spanned till her death in 2003.

"Let it all be animal, my life and death, hard and clean like that, anything but human... a lot I care, me with my red heart in the dark earth and my tattooed feet following the animal ways."

(Diary entry: 1963)

From the blurb at Amazon about Vali Myers: A Memoir by Gianni Menichetti :

The Australian artist, Vali Meyers, was a legend in her own time. Premiere danseuse of the Melbourne Modern Ballet at seventeen, she left home and spent ten years in Paris, living much of the time on the streets but never ceasing to draw. Ed van der Elskin famously put her on the cover of his Love on the Left Bank, that manifesto of Paris in the 1950's and her work was praised by George Plimpton in his Paris Review. Then, saying good-bye to all that, she spent forty years in semi-seclusion in a wild canyon in Italy, where she continued producing her minute, mystical, and passionate drawings. Tough as nails, she fought the local authorities who wanted to introduce loggers into the valley, after a long struggle succeeding in having it designated an Environmental Oasis. Finally, Vali returned triumphant to her native Melbourne, where she was recognized as an artist sui generis. In this brilliant memoir by her friend and lover, Gianni Menichetti, her art, times, and personality come through unforgettably.

There's a post about this artist at a blog called Roses and Vellum. The blogger has read the Vali Myers' biography mentioned above. Mention of the artist's positive and negative characteristics there could highlight other parts of the natal chart shown below.

A taste of her style - more at Google Image or the website linked above.

 The Golden Toad




ASTROLOGY (briefly):

Born in Canterbury, Sydney, Australia on 2 August 1930. Time unknown, chart set for noon.


Her natal chart, it turns out, is not as dramatically representative of her as I'd hoped it might be. I'd suspected Sun conjunct Uranus, or some prominent Aquarius planets. What she had was Leo Sun trining Uranus in Aries. Uranus could have been in a strong area of the chart, close to an angle, but that's not possible to establish without time of birth. Aquarius might have been rising, I guess.

Moon's position cannot be pin-pointed without time of birth but would have been somewhere in Scorpio. If within orb of sextile to Venus (planet of the arts), a Yod with Uranus at its apex would emerge, throwing more emphasis on planet of the unexpected and of eccentricity.

Perhaps the conjunction of creative, dreamy Neptune and Mercury, planet of communication (though in adjoining signs) is more representative of this lady's art style and bohemian lifestyle.

The Saturn-Jupiter opposition, a push-pull between planet of seriousness and restriction and planet of joviality and excess, might reflect the balance in some of Myers' more negative characteristics, as described in the post at Roses and Vellum.

2 comments:

mike said...

The girl does have an active Uranus, with a number of other planets within orb of aspect. She had two final dispositors: Sun dispositing all planets except Saturn, which stands alone in Capricorn. Your Bukowski post several days ago had Bukowski's Sun dispositing all planets except Mars, which stood alone. Bukowski's Sun squared Mars, Myers' Sun is inconjunct Saturn. It's a bit rare with two dispositors to have one cut-off from all the rest of the planets. I would think that Myers' sense of conformity, rules-and-regulations (Saturn) didn't apply to her and were an affront to her ego (Sun) and most facets of her life (Sun dispositing the other planets). Mars, planet of action and energy, is midpoint her Sun-Uranus trine, furthering her energetic drive to express herself in avant-garde fashion. Both Saturn and Uranus rule Aquarius, and her natal chart emphasizes both.

Her paintings remind me of the modernized tarot cards. Some of the Google images show Meyers next to very large wall hangings that look so much different than the same, small image shown alongside.

Wiki states that Joni Mitchell wrote "Ballerina Valerie" about Vali.
"Down in the garden
Under a leaf, she was smoking her keef
And she was looking at stardom
Everything's bright as she draws on the pipe
And the bowl glows redder
And things look better

Mars is a ruby
Saturn is sapphire, it burns with a blue fire
Colors run through me
Loosen my thinking, they're flashing and blinking
And always changing, rearranging

Ballerina, valerie now
Move me through your crimson dances
Terragan, a red bandana
Bring me down your silver trances

Down in the garden
Under an oak, he was drinking his coke
And he was looking at stardom
Everything's bright as he draws on the pipe
And the bowl glows redder
And things go better with coca-cola"
http://www.metrolyrics.com/ballerina-valerie-lyrics-joni-mitchell.html

Twilight said...

mike ~ Thanks for these observations. LOL - when I read rules-and-regulations (Saturn) didn't apply to her and were an affront to her ego I immediately thought of another lady, recently in the headlines, clad all in white. ;-)

Yes, Myers' style was quite similar to that found in some modern tarot decks - I guess it's the 1960s flavour - that was when tarot had a resurgence I guess.

Lovely song by Joni, hadn't heard of it before - with planetary reference too!