Rayward Powell St. John's work is visionary and embodies the psychedelic experience.
He was born in Houston and grew up in the Laredo area where Powell’s Father was a school principal and Powell’s dive in the high school band lead him to the flute and then his instrument of choice, the harmonica.
After graduating high school, he headed to Austin in 1959 to attend the University of Texas.
In his second year of studies, he found Unitarian liberal Democrat roommate, Ramsey Wiggins and it was here that his mind and life took the fork in the road to expanded thought. Powell joined up with his roommate’s Brother, Lanny Wiggins to form The Waller Creek Boys who met Janis Joplin. They all began playing around town and at the newest venue in town, Threadgills.
The early 1960’s in Austin were a time of exploring and expanding your consciousness, which manifested through music, writing, art, and visionary landscapes. Powell graduated from UT with a degree in Art History and Anthropology; and he was actively playing and writing music for his band and Janis including one of her greatest hits, “Bye Bye Baby.”
Around this time he formed his own band “Powell St John and the Conqueroo” where he returned to his love of harmonica playing. He met Tommy Hall and the newly formed Thirteenth Floor Elevators who were cracking open the idea of psychedelia through the various creative channels. Powell was inspired to write some of their most famous hits such as Kingdom of Heaven and You Don’t Know.
Powell’s lyrics from “You Don’t Know” and “Kingdom of Heaven” sum up the mind expansion going on with the creative seekers in the Austin scene…”Corny Dogs and window panes and pink and silver tassels. You don’t know how young you are” and “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.”
Then came the tales about the scene in San Francisco. The pressure from the Austin Police force and UT tower shootings by Charles Whitman gave Powell and his friends the sign that that it was time to head to that scene.
Powell’s visionary descriptive way of songwriting held true in his visual artwork. He traveled with small pads of paper to record the visual psychedelic experiences.
There were visits to Mexico and travels back to San Francisco where he returned to playing music with Mother Earth and the incredible voice of Tracy Nelson until that ran it’s course.
Powell settled with wife Toby in Berkley and spent years working as a costume jewelry fabricator then on to tech work for a number of years, yet always inspired to return to his sketch pads and drawings to illustrate the sub-conscious transforming to the conscious.
Powell has suffered some health struggles in the recent few years but his creative juices flow as Powell continues to return to the drawing table and make music. 2018 brought the release “Powell St. John – The Sultan of Psychedelia” recordings by LSD records.
True visionary art is tapping in to the mysterious inner mind through the path of mind-altering drugs, higher consciousness, or special mental challenges of trauma or disabilities. Powell St. John’s work is the psychedelic experience in poetry, music and visual art and the rare view into the expanded mind of a visionary artist. His work was executed either under the influence or post influence reaching the deep inner visions and was small in size to conveniently execute while tripping or out flying on the spiritual plane of life.
I think Powell explains it best...
Powell’s own words about his artwork… “I only draw what I see. Psychedelic drugs have had a major impact on my work. That is only part of the story. Included in this collection are some works that, frankly speaking, come from somewhere else. These visions are usually wrapped in satire, mystery, & Psychedelic terms which I suspect are transmitted to me from some other time & place where my only function is to serve as a conduit for them.”
**click on images below for details
