Sephirotic Tree at the Belly Button

Fred Martin

This drawing was used for the cover of a 1969 project put together by California visionary and Funk artist Norman Stiegelmeyer (1937-1984). According to Fred Martin, Stiegelmeyer, who had been his student, wanted to do an underground "comic book", which were very popular in the Haight-Ashbury of San Francisco in the late 60s.

The "Sephirotic Tree" is a 'Tree of Life'. Judaic/Cabbalistic tradition teaches that Sefirot, meaning emanations, are the 10 attributes/emanations in Kabbalah, through which Ein Sof (The Infinite) reveals Itself and continuously creates both the physical realm and the chain of higher metaphysical realms (Seder hishtalshelus). The term is alternatively transliterated into English as sephirot/sephiroth, singular sefirah/sephirah etc.

Like the surrealist he was Stiegelmeyer selected himself and five other artists - Robin Mitchell, Ken Goldman, Jack Frost, Ron Allen and Fred Matin to participate. Each artist got a 10 pages to illustrate. There was no subject matter selected, the artists did not generally know each other and did not have much in common.

The "comic book" was printed somewhere by Stiegelmeyer. There is no title nor any colophon, no publisher, author or any other information. The artists works are sequential, but the artists are not listed except on the cover. Martin no idea of how many were actually printed or where they were sold.

The comic book itself has a silver cover with an image by and the name of each artist, the back cover has a photo of the six artists.