Lucidity Festival has many unique features, but one of its most powerful is the story arc which it follows year to year, painting a larger picture for its participants.
To better describe the narrative, words can only take you so far. Many of us are visual learners, and having a picture in your storybook sings to the inner child in all of us.
Painting this picture year after year is festival co-founder Mark Goerner. With the exception of one year Mark has created many fantastic iterations of the yearly theme. This year marks year 11, named Auroras’ Light, which can be described in further detail in this article; “What is the Significance of Auroras Light?”
In a nutshell, Auroras Light is better described as the rainbow bridges that connect the many realms of the Lucid Multiverse.
Lucid Dreamers travel on these beams of light to the Lucid City. Auroras Light is also the foundation on which the city is held in space, without them ceasing to exist altogether.
If you take a close look at this year’s concept art, you can see the beams of light streaming above the Lucid City.
Luci - The Elemental Avatar of Spirit
To the right, you can see our elemental avatar Luci, arriving into the city, where she takes the next step of her spiritual journey. The image is very ethereal, seemingly right out of a science fiction movie. The rich details and color scape pay homage to our artist’s rich artistic background.
Speaking to Mark about his work, you can feel a sense of personal investment that he has in each drawing. He recalled his friends and Lucidity Co-founders Luke & Jonah ‘geeking out’ over the metanarrative which makes up a 12 year story arc on which the festival themes are based. That enthusiasm inspired him to create equally intricate art works to further support their narrative.
Discover the Lucidity narrative listed in chronological order.
The Lucid City is the ‘totem and icon’ of Lucidity festival, so Mark tries to ensure it’s presence in every year’s artwork, even if it’s not the main focus of the theme.
Makeup from the live performance of the Lucid Mythos from 2019.
He starts with a rough doodle of the layout, and then proceeds to use digital art tools to bring the art to life from there. He relies on the story behind the art to lead and enrich his creative strokes.
A controlled color palette using cool blues, greens, and purples, makes up this year’s concept art, leaving all remaining colors of the rainbow to be filled in by your imagination.
Focusing your intent while making a piece of art can be one of the more difficult aspects of creation.
Mark uses a ‘mental landscape’ holding in his mind multiple concepts simultaneously. He recalls using actual mental notes of paper hung around his desk in a 3D arrangement to help him on difficult projects during his time designing concept cars and industrial designs. Mark enjoys applying these hacks to current works as needed to help him with his artistic vision.
Where can we hope to find the lucid concept art for Aurora’s Light at the festival? Besides the possibility of them being printed and displayed in the art gallery or swag tent, there is usually a display somewhere around the Lucid City all together where we can follow the story arc at a glance and take that knowledge with us for the day. Can you find it?
PO BOX 6616, Santa Barbara, CA
I want to volunteer