Animism

Animism:

Animism is the belief that all things have a spirit or soul, including animals, plants, rivers, mountains, stars, the moon, and the sun. Each being is considered a spirit that can offer help or harm to humans. As such, spirits must either be worshiped or appeased. Animists offer sacrifices, prayers, dances, or other forms of devotions to these spirits in hopes of blessing upon areas of life (crops, health, fertility, etc.) or for protection from harm.

 

Shamanism:

Shamanism is an ancient healing tradition and a way of life. The teachings of shamanism focus on our connection to nature and promote the well-being of all creation.

Essential aspects of shamanic life include journeying, ceremony, sacred dance and pilgrimages to places of power in nature. Through these techniques the shamanic circle embraces us, unifying our lives with strength, healing and love.

A shaman is an intermediary between this world and the spirit world. They act on behalf of the community conducting ceremonial rituals, healing the people, and helping to guide others on the shamanic path. A shaman’s life belongs to the village and it is their responsibility to ensure the wellbeing of the family, the community and all of creation.

In this way the shaman helps to maintain balance and harmony on both a personal and planetary level.

 

As this new module is to create animal logos, these pieces of research help look in depth of how animal logos are used. This has been developed for years, since the Stone Age, as the men would kill their animal for food, and as a memento have their body painted on their walls.

 

As a task, we had shapes given to created some animal logos, using Adobe Illustrator, drawing and cutting out the shapes. We had only a 9×9 square grid to create these animals in, and only using the shapes we have provided.

Shapes:

Illustrator:

Within Illustrator, I created a badger and a bear. We could use different colours to show off the animal more clearly. I decided to first create the bear as they are interpreted to be soft and huggable, which I can relate to how you get the fresh, warm, dried clothing out of the drier.

I also designed a badger, as I have researched that badgers are clean animals. Badgers are incredibly clean and will not defecate in their sett – they have special latrines comprising of shallow pits placed away from the setts on the edge of their territory. They will not bring food into the sett either. Also, I thought if I used a badger for part of my logo, I could make it humorous by having the stripes and grey fur being washed off to symbol the white parts of the fur as being clean.

Drawings/Cut outs:

The drawing was created by using the two quarter cut circles as the head, and using multiple small circles as the tentacles to create this jellyfish. My idea for the jellyfish is to make them look like bubbles in the washing machine.

The second image is drawing and a cut out of a cat. I looked at re-creating a siamese cat, as their eyes are large and very intriguing. Also, cats are seen as cosy and friendly creatures that everyone loves.