The view into the world of the self taught artists

Steel & Color

Dragons from the autodidactic, educating contemporary artists.

How we came to the dragons

Traces of dragons | dragon killer | dragon blood | heavens or hell

Henning already designed the first dragon 1990.

At that time he experimented with his
new developed
"Free forming air pressure modeling procedure",
which he used to weld together
sheet steel hollow bodies.

The first steel dragon. 1990. Built with the "Free forming air pressure modeling procedure".

After smaller work samples with this new modeling technology one sufficient work piece basis for the further processing
by welding, forging and loops offered,
he could make so individual body parts and weld it together into a whole.
We sold this first dragon in 1992 and we decided to build new dragons.

The dragons of the second generation.

The dark suction of the subconscious

We had already decided before the development of this project to build a dragon pair which in contrast to the first dragon object, should have no curly body, but a smooth trunk.

Steel & Color : Experience, "Animated Dragons", Shockwave - Flash Movie Art Seiten.

Dragons in fire	Dragons in color	Dragons slideshow	Dragons in the Faust Factory

Over the course of many month we processed thereupon the dragons of the second generation.
With our work: The dark suction of the subconscious (Der dunkle Sog des Unterbewusstseins) and The invocation (Die Anrufung),
we wanted to likewise prove ourselves, that we are as artists were also able, to do more than welding together coincidentally purchased scrap iron sections.

I must naturally mention these months of work, because the way of the rough, steep and tough initial state of the steel material, to the supple and plastic representation with a flowing character, seamed me to be an endless process of changing the rough steel into a supple.

The dragon can bear evenly heat and fire, the human hand has more difficulties there.
With infinite meticulousness we processed for weeks the forms and the steel surfaces.
When they were finally finished, they had blown up our capital and time framework, but to our satisfaction they resembled accurately what we had ourselves imagined.
(Sometimes occasionally I preserve the impression, that we did not invent the dragons in this form, but that we were simply their tools.)

Only for a long time after we had built further dragons, did we take an interest in the mythological or philosophical value, which a dragon portrait holds.
At exhibitions, we were asked about religious, satanic or mythologic background. Some Japanese artists expressed themselves indignant over the fact that we reviled Japanese cultural property as Europeans.

Nothing of all that applied to it. For us the dragon in the modern version meant, the symbol for the fight of the individual with the dark suction in its inside.It means the way of the constant conscious making of the unconscious one, until an equilibrium of both mental fields is manufactured.

But to revile a culture or create a idol picture of Satan was not our intend and therefore we went on a search, for the meanings of dragons.

Traces of dragons

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Although dragons never biologically existed, they have left deep tracks as mythologic shapes in Europe and other cultures of the whole world.
In contrast to East Asian legend world, where the dragon embodies charitable powers, like water, fertility and creative strength. In the Germanic - north Germans / European popular legend, people see the dragon as hostile power, ominous-bringing, all devouring monster, who must be fought or killed, so that can develop and exist for good.

The killing of the creatures of the chaos enables the establishment of the order and strengthened the forces to mankind.

One of oldest delivered dragon story originates from old Babylon. It is approximately 4000 years old and tells of the creation of the sky and the earth. Marduk, the young God scion of the young Babylon, risks it against Tiamat, the prehistoric mother of all times, items, Gods and natures. Tiamat fights in the shape of a dragon. The fight lasted for many centuries, until Marduk, God of the light, succeeded to kill, Tiamat the primeval mother of all elements.
Thus him ascended to the ruler of all Gods. From Tiamat´s tremendous body he created the earth, and from her flaky skin, on which diamonds shone, he made the starry sky. He created a new world, in which light and darkness, good and bad are neatly separated. So that now no God or Daemon could access at the sparkling starry splendor. Marduk set a faithful dragon into the heaven,

and this dragon, which never sleeps, but always watchful on the horizon circles, ensures until today for the fact that not one star disappeared.

Begun in the Greek legend a dragon likewise is a guards, only this time not quite so successful: Hera, goddess of the heavens and wife of Zeus, was given a magic tree by the Earth goddess Gaia, which bore golden apples each year. She transplanted this tree to the western end of the world, into the garden of the Hesperiden, and as guards of the golden apples she determined the dragon Ladon, a monster, who likewise never slept and always fire spit. Nobody could approach from now on the tree - until Heracles the insurmountable one, who killed Ladon with the club. Hera however shifts the dragon as thanks for its loyalty, as constellation to the sky.

In the Christian tradition, in the twelfth section, at the Book of Revelations, the racing red dragon, with the seven heads, storms up in furious excitation with its tail a third of all stars of the Firmament and wanted to through-cross the divinely world plan of God.
"And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found anymore in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him." (12;7-9)

Dragon killer

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The motive of the victorious dragon killers is age-old and plays in the mythology and the legends of almost all culture peoples a large role.
The dragon was in the beginning a parable for prehistoric chaos or the prehistoric sea, for the prehistoric power,
by which the creative forces of divine nature had to be defeated
thus from them light and darkness, sky and earth, the whole cosmos could be created.

Thus in such way developed myths and legends, in which the Gods or heroically human heroes in the fight with the dragon came out as winners, and occasionally thereby recover persons also robbed or guarded treasures.

As for instance Perseus, the Greek hero of antiquity, who freed the king´s daughter Andromeda, who had been tied to a dragon and was guarded by a dragon, in order to make her his wife.

In the Edda, the hero legends of the Teutons, one reads of a dwarf king, who collected a hoard of elfin gold, and whose greedy son Fafnir murdered him for it. Fafnir´s brother Regin also thirsted for his, with blood defiled gold. But he was a coward and fled when Fafnir threatened him. The patricide Fafnir went to the desolate Gnitaheide with his treasure. He was so afraid about losing his treasure that he stayed away from all mortals, in order to stay near his gold. Dwarves live a long time and after a while Fafnir began to look less and less like a dwarf or human and changed into a monster. A huge creature with scales filled with a poison, as evil as his heart. The creature, who lived alone in the Gnitaheide cave, wasn´t a dwarf any more, but a dragon, but the ancient wisdom of the dwarves was received to the monster.
Regin be thirsted for revenge. His nature was evil and sinister. He waited patiently for the day, on which he would discover a dragon-slayer, in order to get revenge on his brother. To earn a living he taught humans the crafts of the dwarves - the art of the blacksmith, of healing, and of harp-playing.
Regin found his ductile tool in the fight against the dragon in Siguard the stepson of the Danish king. He taught Siguard all art he knew and fed beyond that, his heart with craving for power and envy, on the real sons of the king. "They will be kings one day and you however have nothing."

Regin told Siguard, how his brother had stolen the gold, which should have been shared and how Fafnir had become a dragon. He said he didn´t care about the gold, he just wanted to eat the dragon´s heart to achieve the ancient dwarf wisdom which he had lost after having spent so many years teaching humans.
The faithful Siguard did not noticed the shine of greed in the eyes of the dwarf and promised to kill the dragon if Regin made him a sword.

Regin worked for weeks on a sword, which Siguard crushed when hitting the anvil just once. This sword would be no good for killing dragons. Regin forged a new sword, but this broke in the same way. "You are too strong for my weapons" said the dwarf to Siguard. "Go to your mother and ask her, what she can offer a son, who has become a man."

Hiordis, widow of a hero and wife of the king Hialprek, knew what her son wanted. She gave her son, who was the last from the sex of the Voelsungen, a fragment of the Voelsungen sword Gram, which on the battleground had burst in the father´s last battle.
Even the fragments of Gram radiated in their own light, because the Voelsungen sword possessed magic forces.
Regin forged from the fragments the best sword a dwarf has ever made

- a blade, as strong as otherwise none on Earth.
Siguard tested the sword at the anvil, which burst this time with the first impact.

Regin and Siguard traveled to the Gnitaheide and discovered immediately a dragon´s path, which led dragons from the cave to a water place.
They forged a plan, how to attack the dragon since he is vulnerable only on the under side, where no scales were.
They dug a pit, in which Siguard should hide himself on the dragon´s path, until the dragon on its all-morning way to the water place slid over it and he could push him the sword into the belly. Regin covered the pit in which Siguard remained soon the roar of the earth announced that the dragon was on its way.
As he felt that the dragon slide over the pit, Siguard with all strength pushed its sword accurately into the dragon and hurt it deadly.
Regin stepped out from his hiding place and requested Siguard now to roast the promised heart so that they divided afterwards the treasure and went each of his way.
Siguard did as been called, roasted the dragon´s heart and pushed around to check whether it is, his finger inside and burned himself directly to it. He put his burned finger into his mouth.
Immediately he heard a multicolored choir of the bird voices. The dragon heart possessed truly miracle forces, because Siguard could understand the singing of the birds.
"There is Siguard, son of the Voelsungen and victim of the Regin. As he planned in the moment when he saw the child, Regin wants to kill Siguard and keep the whole gold for himself. He´ll never let the poor fool live."
Siguard looked at Regin and saw the truth in the eyes of the dwarf. Regin detected, what Siguard saw and paralyzed. Siguard lifted his sword Gram and cut off the dwarf´s head.

Dragon blood

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The infinite power of the dragon blood, already the smallest drop gave the knowledge of age-old things of the earth to humans.

Also in other places the Edda reports of dragons.
The ash Yggdrasil bears Unbill
More than humans know.
The deer feasts above, hollow becomes the page,
Down Nidhoeggr gnaws.
According to old Nordic beliefan enormous invisible tree named Yggdrasil extended itself from the sky into the depths of hell. A dragon with the name Nidhoeggr gnawed steadily at its roots and sought to destroy the creation, but the order had a whole battalion of defenders.
Three divine natures, the so-called Nornen, sat calmly beside the dragon at the roots and weave the fate threads of the mortal ones. Deer grazed around the tree and wetted the earth with dew from their antlers. A goat, which was chewed the bark gave milk to he mortal heroes, who should release the world from dragons. From the birds, which nest in Yggdrasils branches, the eagle the largest, an embittered dragon enemy was ceaseless singing about creation and destruction.

Thor the Thunder God, too, and his fight with the Midgard snake is also related in the Edda. Joermungandr, the Midgard snake, Loki´s daughter by the giant Angurboda, who has been hidden and imprisoned at the depths of the ocean, which around the realm of the mortal ones - Midgard -, since the beginning of time, was tempted out of the sea by Thor with a bait - an ox´s head on a chain while Odin was watching from above. Thor lifted his hammer to kill the monster, but the chain broke and the dragon escaped.
The inhabitants of the Nordic world believed that Thor and the snake will fight again at the end of the world (Ragnaroek). Then in the middle of the eternal winter, when the sky burst apart and chaos returned, Thor would kill the snake as soon as it appeared from the water. The dying breath of the dragon would destroy the God and the world would disappear into weigh-end fire masses and return to the elements from which it arose.

The sex of the dragons formed a dangerous adversary to the human sex.
Perhaps in the belief that something from the abilities of the dragons would be passed to it, created the with the Dragons disliked human sex, by all the years of dragon rule, images of dragons, so that these would assist them in the fight.

On many coat of arms, as heraldry shows, dragons are given a special place as synonym of mythic strength and invincibility.

When Persian soldiers went into the battle, they carried enormous dragon figures in order to inspire fear in hostile armies.
The Romans maintained a similar custom and painted red dragon on their combat banners, which they called dracones, which meant dragons.
The fighting Celts and Teutons claim all the dragon symbol for themselves.
The Anglo-Saxons portrayed victory over an enemy as victory over a dragon.
The Berserker, the wild warriors in old Scandinavia, called their warships dragon barks (boats) and decorate their nose with dragonhead's, in order to intimidate their enemies.

In Egypt, where sun God Re slid day by day in his swimming ship through the sky, the

singing of his hyena faced guard Seth ensured for the fact that the dragon Apep, which

prevailed over the darkness and which attempt to destroy God of the light, stayed away.

In Indian mythology we hear of an eighteen-heads snake with the name Ananta the endless one, which supports the earth with its powerful body. Ananta was not at all, like most dragons, envoy of the disorder, but she served Wischnu, the master of the universe. It offered its elongated back it as quiescent bed, if the God required sleep.

Heaven or hell

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Heaven or hell, order or confusion never took part in the East Asian cultures.
There it concerns rather a life between this pole, and therefore the Dragon found also the more pleasing chances of survival there.

Of the hidden dragon the classical, Chinese oracle i-ging, book of the transformations speaks, completely at the start and associates this all creative forces with the cosmos.

And in Hong Kong today still, in the modern High Tech world, between gigantic office towers and Blocks of flats, air corridors for dragons flight are kept free to the bath in the sea.
It´s expensive, but not as expensive as the business damage, which the city would reach, by neglect of the dragons bath habits.
The relation to the dragon is so respectful in Eastern Asia, but one shouldn´t get too close to them.

The Chinese poet CH´Yuean wrote 300 BC "I stretched jade dragons before my cart and waited for the wind to come and carry me on my journey."

In almost each culture, on almost all continents thus tracks of the dragons can be found. Regardless of innumerable stories about dragons, I would like to close this small dragon search with a quote, which can be found in the legend collection Richard Wossidlo.
If someone was quite rich, they said about him:
´ Den´n hett de Draak wat bröcht.
If someone have less luck he said in such a way it: De Draak bringt mi nicks - dat mööt all mit de Hand verdeent warden.

Slagdrake

Snakedragon

Scabritiesdragon

Slagdrake-I

Wire Dragon	Dragon skulls molds