Books
Kumano Kodo: Pilgrimage to Powerspots
Kumano Kodo is a journey into the hallucinogenic power of pilgrimage. Part travelogue, part speculative fiction, part scholarly history, this book speaks to the universal human impulse to explore the sacred through travel.
By focusing on Japan's oldest pilgrimage route, the Kumano Kodo, J. Christian Greer & Michelle K. Oing offer their readers a boldly transgressive and abundantly humorous look at the merry art of pilgrimage. Whether uncovering historical conspiracies, recounting bawdy folklore, or collecting ghost stories, this surrealist investigation establishes a new paradigm for spiritual travel inspired by an impressive breadth of scholarly research, and the authors' many years as pilgrims across the globe.
Compiled in Kyoto at the height of the pandemic in 2020, the book is a unique reflection on the unwieldy power of the sacred in times of crisis, and contains dozens of original, full-color mandalas.
Email orderorstgeorgeshorse@gmail.com to order for $25, including free shipping in the US. Also available for a slightly higher price on Amazon and Ebay (international shipping available via Ebay). If you enjoyed the book, consider leaving a rating on Goodreads or Amazon.
Void Machines: The Paper Shrines of J. Christian Greer
Void Machines showcases over seventy-five "paper shrines," collages created by J. Christian Greer. Printed in full color, this oversized collection provides a whirlwind look at Greer's sublime visions of divine friendship, abject terror, & erotic delight.
Paper shrines to what, you may ask? These collages are shrines to paper, a manmade medium that begs to be cut and recombined and marked and blended. They are shrines to books, as well, to Art, art, and craft, to the things people have made and the ideas they have chosen to set down. But more than anything, they are paper shrines to tricksters, angels, and gods, speakers of unknown languages that dance on the tender invisible strings of a magic universe.
Edited by Michelle Oing; book design by Broderick Shoemaker; printed by Colpa Press, 2024.
Email orderorstgeorgeshorse@gmail.com to order for $45, including free shipping in the US. Also available for a slightly higher price on Amazon and Ebay (international shipping available via Ebay). If you enjoyed the book, consider leaving a rating on Goodreads or Amazon.
Retailers
Feel like picking up a copy of either book in person? The retailers listed below sell copies, so check them out. If you sell books and are eager to carry OSGH Press titles, send us a note: OrderOfStGeorgesHorse@gmail.com
Skylight Books - Los Angeles, CA
Green Apple Books - San Francisco, CA
Basket Books & Art - Houston, TX
Prints
Here is a selection of the “paper shrines” featured in Kumano Kodo, and VOID MACHINES. Some of these papers shrines are available as a print (approx. 13" x 10"), but not all of them. Email for availability. Each is $35 (shipping included).
These paper shrines combine esoteric motifs from high and low culture to create living mandalas. Inspired by Philip K. Dick’s claim that the divine is to be most readily found in the “trash stratum” of culture, these shrines suggest a new visual language for the sacred that is firmly rooted in vernacular media. The artworks were collaged with materials taken from manga, comics, and mass-market publications on Persian Rugs. No computers or software were used in the creation of these "paper shrines".
Beyond the materials, the collage compositions were inspired by the tradition of Japanese mandara, a transliteration of the Sanskrit term mandala. Dating back to the 9th century, the mandara was used by Buddhist priests and monastics to evangelize the spiritual rewards associated with pilgrimage. The collages presented here reflect the particularities of this visual culture as it has developed in Japan over the last millennium. Specifically, these collage mandaras are not organized around a celestial deity, who is encircled by a retinue of affiliate gods, as is the case of Indian and Tibetan mandalas. Rather, the collage mandaras that appear within this text offer a panorama of the sacred forces that populate, and thereby compete for influence, in the media scale of the modern urban metropolis.
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