Noos-letter of the Foundation for the Law of Time

What is your artform and/or vision?

My medium is acrylic paints on canvas. I use brush and palette knife techniques to create layered, textured paintings that can be felt in addition to being seen. I tend to paint abstract landscape embedded with elements and symbols in nature including moons, suns, stars, water, trees and flowers. I rarely have an exact idea of what I want the design to look like before I begin. I find that when I'm free to play with any colors and ideas I feel drawn to at the moment, that's when the magic happens. I am incredibly grateful to be here, experiencing the wonders of life, and by carving into thick layers of colors, blending the sky toward the horizon and lighting up the sky with stars I am able to express myself in ways I cannot with words alone.

My dream is to use my art to raise awareness about ideas, issues and places I value. I have raised thousands of dollars for various animal rights and environmental organizations and I would love nothing more than to continue to do so. I have also designed three book covers. I deeply enjoy collaborating with other artists of all kinds and hope to come together with many more.

Who are your main artistic inspirations/influences?

My dad, Murf, is a painter who has been exhibiting at art festivals around America for over twenty years. His work inspires me all the time. He also uses acrylic paints and creates very abstract, geometric scenes. Many of his paintings are covered in a sheet of glass, which he designs using colored films, creating beautiful three-dimensional paintings. I have learned so much from him, not only about technique but about life and art and the joy of living close to both. I am constantly inspired by his creations.

I am also deeply inspired by nature - with its infinite, miraculous, mysterious beauty - and music. Listening to music inspires me to create because it is so wonderful at making me feel. So many musicians inspire me, among them being Spacemen3, Bonobo, the Strokes, Glass Animals, Moby, Modest Mouse, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, the Doors... I could go on forever.

Literature is another one of my greatest inspirations. Equal to painting is my love for books. Some writers who have been of great influence to me are Jack Kerouac, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Terence McKenna and Tom Robbins.

What does the phrase "Time is Art" mean to you?

I have always been fascinated by Time. As Emerson states in his essay Illusions, "There is the illusion of time, which is very deep; who has disposed of it? or come to the conviction that what seems the succession of thought is only the distribution of wholes into causal series? The intellect sees that every atom carries the whole of Nature; that the mind opens to omnipotence; that, in the endless striving and ascents, the metamorphosis is entire, so that the soul doth not know itself in its own act, when that act is perfected."

Nature is infinitely creative.. every moment is an eternity in and of itself, time is the moving image, but still just an image. Terence McKenna talked a lot about time and what he called "the transcendental object at the end of time." His ideas have shaped my thinking greatly, as his vision of life encompassed all of history, not only human history, but the history of the universe. He proposed the notion that perhaps science got it wrong in its theory of the singularity occurring at the beginning of everything. His theory was based on the fact that life seems to be getting more complex with each passing moment. If this is the case, which it indeed appears to be, then the future is practically inconceivable.

Through the darkest points of history, we have persevered, creating art along the way. I see the present time as the cumulation of this artistic creative force - inspired by the creativity of Nature itself - and the music, the writing, the poetry and the painting continue to expand to vaster and vaster levels. To me art is the creation of the ever-increasing connectivity of planetary, perhaps galactic, intelligence. This complex creation I am referring to encompasses it all - the clouds, the songs, the plants and all the love. The present moment is also this artistic creation. If time is illusion, then all there is is now. And in this moment, art lives. In a novel by imaginative writer Tom Robbins, he gives art magnificent value by stating: "In the haunted house of life, art is the only stair that doesn't creak." I am looking forward to the spiraling creativity.

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Find Tyler Murphy on the Web:

• Tumblr: lifeof-ty.tumblr.com
• Niume: niume.com/profile/79809#!/posts
• Instagram: instagram.com/tymurf
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/artbyty
• Etsy Store Coming Soon! I'm working on getting my prints printed on eco-friendly paper, and connecting with Earth Day Network, with the hope that I can soon be involved in their Canopy Project. The Canopy Project's goal is to plant 7.8 billion trees by 2020, a tree for every person projected to be on Earth. For every dollar they receive, they plant a tree. My plan, once the prints are ready, is to donate 20 percent of each purchase to the project, so that each print will equal 6 trees. As soon as things are squared away, I'll reopen my shop. Stay tuned! :)