Who is Kuebiko?

Kuebiko is the deity of folk wisdom, knowledge and agriculture, and is represented in Japanese mythology as a scarecrow who cannot walk but has comprehensive awareness.

“The Curse of Kuebiko” began in a really odd way. I was sitting in the Chali Rosso Gallery amongst a collection of Salvador Dali sculptures and was drawing away in my old style of pencil, and using a pear to convey an odd message.

As I sketch, my mind wanders and occasionally an alternate idea will form when I see something jump out of the page. It was when I decided to put a suit jacket on a pear that Kuebiko was born. I was messing around with the base of the pear and when I erased the bottom, I saw a jacket sitting there with a stem and it somewhat looked like a scarecrow. I added a tophat for fun which took it to another level. I immediately drew another and added a wilted flower to the sketch and saw a sad, immobile scarecrow who had lost its will. The flower had died and it stood motionless.

My mind wandered into the meaning of a scarecrow. Its role in this world is to scare you away. But in reality, it is trying to scare you away from the actual thing you desire. Ultimately a scarecrow is a guide to what you are looking for. I have always loved the use of fear as life’s compass. Fear is the direction in which we should all travel and the scarecrows are guiding us there.

In this particular piece, I had related it to my 4 years as a tech entrepreneur working on a startup. We all walked the desert and we all faced countless scarecrows in so many shapes and forms over this period of time. That being said, scarecrows are simply characters who have decided to remain motionless on a stick in one place for the rest of their lives or until blown away in the wind..

The pink ties around their necks became a nice little piece of hidden symbolism in this artwork that I loved. I related it to the character in the foreground. His ideas are blooming and he is full of life, represented by the pink lotus flower. The ties around the scarecrows' necks are like nooses. Once a flower, traded in for a tie and someone else's vision, they idly flap in the wind.

It is dark but beautiful at the same time, as a life in a tie can also represent security. A scarecrow truly knows their own territory as they remain stationary while constantly observing everything in their field of vision.

The man in the foreground is walking into the unknown. He has the right to feel scared. Is there an oasis at the end of the desert? Will his idea work or will he end up impaled on a stick? There is comfort in the life of a scarecrow which can’t be ignored.

This leads me to the other hidden meaning in this piece. This being that the scarecrows are actually pointing the man in the right direction. It is fear showing him the way forward.

In the end, if we follow the path that the scarecrow is leading us along, we will find what we are looking for. If we turn back, we remain exactly where we started when we found the scarecrow.

Process:

The really fun part about this piece was creating the imagery for it.

It was on Hornby Island in British Columbia. The wind loves to blow strong there, so it was the ideal location to get this done.

I rigged up a stick and threw the jacket on it, and when the wind picked up we were ready to shoot. I really had to tie the scarecrow in for the ride.

Here are some of the process images from the process. Enjoy!