THE RADIANT ARTIST

By Steven Hager

Alex Grey is the preeminent visionary artist of our time. Nine years ago, he was selected as the artist for the Eighth Cannabis Cup and created Cannabia, a female cannabis goddess. For the 19th Cup, Alex created Cannabacchus, a male cannabis god. Alex and his beautiful wife, Allyson, were selected (along with five others) to serve as celebrity judges, which meant testing nearly 90 varieties of cannabis and hashish in one week. Their presence helped make this the most spiritually uplifting Cup ever. We interviewed Alex a few days before he left for Amsterdam and again right after he returned.

What did you think of the Cup?
Everybody asks, "How can you judge the Cannabis Cup? It sounds impossible." It actually is an intense process. We all had our own personal likes and dislikes, and yet through continual focus on the strains and our common love of the herb, we reached concord. We recognized Arjan's Ultra Haze, code-named Ruby, as the most outstanding, because no matter how high we were, we could always get, as Steve Gaskin called it, 're-banged.' If a strain had no odor, or [one that was] very faint, or had an unappealing odor, it didn't make the cut. Cannabis can have a fruity, or spicy, or earthy, or musky, or sweet aroma, or any combination of those flavors. Some barely had any odor at all, and I probably still would have paid good money for them here in the US - but in Amsterdam, some strains distinguished themselves in terms of an alluring aroma and tactile beauty. Pot opens up the psychic ability to make one aware of their own energy and the energy of others. You feel an elevating quality, an energy flow upward. Conversely, some pot brings a feeling of body load, a heaviness. I judge pot by its visionary quality, how deeply it takes me into epiphany. The best pot effects have a philosophical radiance and lead me to reflection and writing or talking.

It's interesting that the subject of Cannabia, your painting for the Eighth Cup, was female, and this year you decided to go with a male image.
Well, it's interesting - I had an idea for a cannabis poster while I was working on this really intricate abstract pattern. Allyson felt like I could do a little better. While I was working with this pattern, Cannabacchus started to emerge. I thought, "Oh well, that would make sense in terms of a Tantric polarity." We thought that it looked like Bacchus, the Roman god of inebriation and ecstasy. But it also looked like a ganja-smoking baba. And it looked strangely like Allen Ginsberg. And a little bit of Karl Marx.

There's some Santa Claus in there, too.
A little bit of Santa Claus. As I was working on the painting, these words came to me: "Seven lights of cannabis wisdom." The first light was the light of utility - the plant has always been very useful: hemp oil, hemp fibers, hemp paper. The second light was the light of sexuality, the aphrodisiac qualities of cannabis. The third light was the light of medicine, which is that area of study which has yielded the medical applications of cannabis. The fourth light was the light of love - it opens the heart and sensitizes you to others. The fifth light was the light of poetry - it allows poets contact with new modes of speaking. The sixth light was the light of visionary experience - that's the opening of the third eye that allows visionary artists access to other dimensions of reality. Finally, there's the light of God. If there is a creative force that you can be more sympathetic to, then as you open up to that creative source, you become the light.