contact info

VISITORS: Tours of the studio are always available. Text or message if you'd like to see what was LITERALLY created from the ashes of Hurricane Ida.

(These updates are posted daily)

Contact Information

Grey Cross Studios
1920 4th St, New Orleans , LA 70113
Email: gcsartno@aol.com
Send text messages to 504-874-2908, Instagram @GreyCrossStudios, Facebook Grey Anatoli Cross, Threads @greycrossstudios

Sunday, October 13, 2024

DREAMERS & ARTISTS

 


I have very vivid dreams. It's not unusual for me to live a lifetime within the course of a single dream. It can often be disorienting upon waking, but I've learned to cope.

I think that this is perhaps my greatest asset as a surrealist. It gives me what i call "a clarity of vision" regarding the absurdities which I explore in my art.

I woke at 5am this morning from what I call the "Mega Tomb" dream. I've been there before. It's a massive place. A huge city closed from entry or exit by the people within. There is a whole world inside. People live, work and go about life convinced that they were chosen to represent earth in safety, while those outside are dead.

It's actually quite a nice place. They have all they need to survive and there is a timeless quality to their world.

Of course I'm always locked in with them, just another denizen.

I'm a designer. I build beautiful structures from materials at hand. I'm known for my faerie like buildings and absurd dwellings.

Life goes on within these towering walls. Love, relationships, politics all exist but with an ephemeral twist. It's all quite surreal.

The difference in tonight's dream was that the walls began to shake and the doors to the outer world were about to open once more. I suppose I'll wait to see what's out there. Because as dreams so often do, it ended right at the best part.

So what does the artist do with this dream? I suppose I could plot it out like a movie script. Or I could try to draw what I saw in my time within those walls.

But no. As I've often found with other dreams this just doesn't work. I'll lose myself trying to resurrect the dream and fill in the blanks.

Instead I'll assimilate this dream and let it fall back within my subconscious. And when I least expect it, the dream will suddenly surface within my art, lending a reality to the surrealism that Is part of my life as an artist. 

Do you dream? Do you make those dreams a part of your art? Or like so many do you disregard them as something of no consequence?

I hope not. There are hidden secrets within our dreams. And if we are not here to explore them artistically, then it's a sad loss to ourselves and our fans.

The dreamer has risen, but the dream still remains

Friday, October 11, 2024

HARROWING ON SACRED GROUND (Art & Micro-Verse Merged)

  This is a series composed of art and what I call micro-verse. I attempt to augment the art through words written spontaneously to match that art. Micro-verse is meant to take you to a deeper place of meaning within the art. If the images and words offensive, just remember that not all art is meant to be cute. Some is meant to make you think and sometimes to even take offense. 


We are the damned, the maimed, the conquered, the slain

We are the innocent, the wronged, the lost, the maimed

Our eyes are haunted, our bodies pierced

Our deadly dance gone unrehearsed

What is the value of shattered lives

Coins placed on deadened eyes

There is no value in bodies dead

No tombs to rest our blooded heads

Only the pain of our passing life remains

Mournful cries heard in storm and wind and rain  


VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (Art & Micro-Verse Merged)

  This is a series composed of art and what I call micro-verse. I attempt to augment the art through words written spontaneously to match that art. Micro-verse is meant to take you to a deeper place of meaning within the art. If the images and words offensive, just remember that not all art is meant to be cute. Some is meant to make you think and sometimes to even take offense. 


I was born in a place so small that we knew everyone’s name
I grew up in a place so insulated that we knew nothing of the world beyond
I grew up in a place so uneducated that we had no schools
I grew up in a place so nosey that we had no secrets
I grew up in a place so small that I died before I ever lived

THE DEVIL YOU KNOW (Art & Micro-Verse Merged)

  This is a series composed of art and what I call micro-verse. I attempt to augment the art through words written spontaneously to match that art. Micro-verse is meant to take you to a deeper place of meaning within the art. If the images and words offensive, just remember that not all art is meant to be cute. Some is meant to make you think and sometimes to even take offense. 


It is not a great devil that you must fear, but a thousand tiny devils
The voices of hate who will force you to their religion or philosophy
The looks of contempt and sneers of derision that say your life is not proper or moral
Let no devil take you away from your path
They are already trapped in their own personal hells

THE ETERNAL DANCE OF THE SOUL (Art & Micro-Verse Merged)

 This is a series composed of art and what I call micro-verse. I attempt to augment the art through words written spontaneously to match that art. Micro-verse is meant to take you to a deeper place of meaning within the art. If the images and words offensive, just remember that not all art is meant to be cute. Some is meant to make you think and sometimes to even take offense. 


 While your mortal body may weep

You may commit the worst crimes

And you may think you’re damned for eternity

Your soul dances like a whirling dervish

It spins like a top in eternal bliss.

Nothing you can do in this life can stop the dance

Absolutely nothing can halt the joy of an eternal being sailing through the cosmos

Nothing   


THE METAMORPH (Art & Micro-Verse Merged)

  This is a series composed of art and what I call micro-verse. I attempt to augment the art through words written spontaneously to match that art. Micro-verse is meant to take you to a deeper place of meaning within the art. If the images and words offensive, just remember that not all art is meant to be cute. Some is meant to make you think and sometimes to even take offense. 


You do not see what I was or what I might become.
You only see what is before your flawed and failing human senses
You cannot know the last or the next.
You only know this.
You are blind to the greater majesty of the universe and because of it, you will always be alone.

FROM ANOTHER DIMENSION (Art & Micro-Verse Merged)

  This is a series composed of art and what I call micro-verse. I attempt to augment the art through words written spontaneously to match that art. Micro-verse is meant to take you to a deeper place of meaning within the art. If the images and words offensive, just remember that not all art is meant to be cute. Some is meant to make you think and sometimes to even take offense. 


You don’t see me.
You go about your life like you are the only one in it. 
You are not. You are but one of a myriad of beings all moving together in a cosmic stream
Someday the walls will shatter, and you will be confronted by the fact that you were never alone.
Are you ready? I doubt it.
Everything is an illusion. Even you.

Sunday, October 6, 2024

THE ARTISTS ASYLUM (Art & Micro-Verse Merged)

 This is a series composed of art and what I call micro-verse. I attempt to augment the art through words written spontaneously to match that art. Micro-verse is meant to take you to a deeper place of meaning within the art. If the images and words offensive, just remember that not all art is meant to be cute. Some is meant to make you think and sometimes to even take offense. 



I reach inside myself, and I find nothing.

These four walls they are my life and they are my world.

They shift with an imagination which I’ve lost.

They ooze color, revealing to me the secrets of a universe I’ve lost. 

Einstein writes E=MC* with a crayon and the wall collapses into a thousand tiny worlds.

I reach out for answers, and I find nothing. 


THIS IS HELL (Art & Micro-Verse Merged)

 This is a series composed of art and what I call micro-verse. I attempt to augment the art through words written spontaneously to match that art. Micro-verse is meant to take you to a deeper place of meaning within the art. If the images and words offensive, just remember that not all art is meant to be cute. Some is meant to make you think and sometimes to even take offense. 


This is Hell. 

It is not pretty. It is not ugly. 

It is overwhelming, to the senses, to the mind, to the body. 

It is not Christian or Satanic. It does meet your stereotype.

It is pure confusion. It Is maelstrom. It is loneliness. It is everything you hate

It is nothing. It is everything. It is


TIME TO SAY GOODBYE (Art & Micro-Verse Merged)

 This is a series composed of art and what I call micro-verse. I attempt to augment the art through words written spontaneously to match that art. Micro-verse is meant to take you to a deeper place of meaning within the art. If the images and words offensive, just remember that not all art is meant to be cute. Some is meant to make you think and sometimes to even take offense. 


In your heart I will remain

In your grief I will cry with you 

In your loss I will whisper to you

In your passion I will make you swoon

In your sighs I will hold your hand

You may not see me. 

You may not understand now

But I am always there


VOYEUR FROM THE AFTERLIFE (Art & Micro-Verse Merged)

 This is a series composed of art and what I call micro-verse. I attempt to augment the art through words written spontaneously to match that art. Micro-verse is meant to take you to a deeper place of meaning within the art. If the images and words offensive, just remember that not all art is meant to be cute. Some is meant to make you think and sometimes to even take offense. 


It was always watching. 

Eyes on them both, gazing avidly. 

Drooling with atavistic glee which only creatures who had survived millennia could really understand.

 It had lost the ability to understand the coursing sensations within them both, but it could taste the extreme passion and animal agonies they both radiated. 

And when they slept he would remain, replaying the coupling like a piece of candy, savoring its sweetness until it melted away leaving not but empty bitterness in its passing. 

A MURDER IN RED ROCK CANYON (Art & Micro-Verse Merged)

 This is a series composed of art and what I call micro-verse. I attempt to augment the art through words written spontaneously to match that art. Micro-verse is meant to take you to a deeper place of meaning within the art. If the images and words offensive, just remember that not all art is meant to be cute. Some is meant to make you think and sometimes to even take offense. 


The neck as red as the rocks.

The body, a husk as dry as the desert.

The spirit fled with the canyon winds.

The tears long since dried in the sands.

And I am left alone to mourn and regret.


IF I ONLY HAD A HEART, A SOUL, THE NERVE (Art & Micro-Verse Merged)

 This is a series composed of art and what I call micro-verse. I attempt to augment the art through words written spontaneously to match that art. Micro-verse is meant to take you to a deeper place of meaning within the art. If the images and words offensive, just remember that not all art is meant to be cute. Some is meant to make you think and sometimes to even take offense. 


If I only had a heart, a soul, the nerve. 

I’d waste them all thinking I was something great. 

I’d lose my humility. 

I’d expect the world to love me. 

I’d never be afraid to force my opinions on others and imprison those who did not accept them. 

I’d call myself christ, rasputin, trump and I would be a god. 

DARK ECSTASY (Art & Micro-Verse Merged)

 This is a series composed of art and what I call micro-verse. I attempt to augment the art through words written spontaneously to match that art. Micro-verse is meant to take you to a deeper place of meaning within the art. If the images and words offensive, just remember that not all art is meant to be cute. Some is meant to make you think and sometimes to even take offense. 


I speak of “dark ecstasy” as if it were alive.
It stands before me, forcing me down into oblivion while it seizes my soul and squeezes, until I am left gasping for breath.
Its passion is deadly.
It holds an invisible knife to my throat.
I feel the blade cut, the blood spill.
And I am left a hollow shell as it walks away from my dying form.


YOU WATCH ME LIKE AN INSECT. YOU DISSECT ME LIKE A CORPSE (Art & Micro-Verse Merged)

 This is a series composed of art and what I call micro-verse. I attempt to augment the art through words written spontaneously to match that art. Micro-verse is meant to take you to a deeper place of meaning within the art. If the images and words offensive, just remember that not all art is meant to be cute. Some is meant to make you think and sometimes to even take offense. 


You watch me like an insect. 

You dissect me like a corpse. 

You overwhelm me with your stench until all I wish it to spew your essence from my soul. 

Yet I have no color without you. 

No depth.

No clarity.

No desire. 

You are the artist, and I am a broken brush waiting for intensity in a pale washed out world.