Painter and Poet’s Birth of a Notion : Omnism: Movement’s manifesto, not only unveiled, but performed, in Costa Mesa, is a calling for artists ‘to come together with a collective spirit.’

COSTA MESA —  Ideas such as Protestantism, Postmodernism and, briefly, Communism, may have helped define the previous thousand years, but with the millennium fast approaching, a pair of Orange County artists decided it was time to unveil the next great movement.

So, on a chilly Saturday night in a business-park stall that doubles as an art gallery, poet Lee Mallory joined painter Russ Butler to proclaim the manifesto they hope will dominate aesthetic thought of the fin de millenaire .

It’s called “omnism.”

Mallory, an English teacher at Rancho Santiago College in Santa Ana who might be considered the omnists’ chief polemicist, explained the movement this way:

“It’s a calling of artists and writers to come together with a collective spirit and a unity of purpose, with a unity of perfection, for the public in a new outward commitment,” Mallory said.

Unlike competing millennial movements, Mallory said, omnism seeks “to speak to the public in the direct ways of the coffeehouse. Our message of alienation, of estrangement, our message of having become faceless in the way of progress is one that people can understand.”

Omnism, he concluded, “is a hand extended for salvation, touching the eternal touchstones of love, of yearning to get back to nature, of finding the essential truths.”

While Karl Marx had been content merely to publish his manifesto, Mallory felt compelled to perform his, which he titled “Omnistic Oral Canon (for three or more voices against the backdrop of a monologue).” Backed by a synthesizer whose player wore a headpiece constructed from dental machinery, Mallory, 45, began with the verse “reload / exhaust the form / and spit out the carcass / of a scorched message . . . I have fondled the alphabet/and the archives became / quiet bedlams of illiteracy. . . . “

Gary Tomlinson, a Mallory disciple, then joined the performance by reading his own poems, many of which described his frustration with the nomenclature of aesthetic criticism.

“Abstract formalism neo classic real ism/exi stential body art neo plastic da da,” Tomlinson, 37, intoned repeatedly. Soon, a woman and man from the audience stepped to the podium and joined Tomlinson in his reverie. “Every thing so sexy,” they all began chanting.

Finally, Mallory, his unbuttoned shirt revealing a gold chain, returned to present a monologue. “We come together in Omnism / We break the bounds of authoritarian constructs / We sing / In Paint And Word And Deed / Let us pray,” he concluded, as Tomlinson and the others recited the biblical verses Luke 1:51 and 2:31 (which, cryptically, the manifesto cited as Luke 2:29).

Mallory made signed and numbered photocopies of his manifesto available for free. But it was the new movement’s logo, created by Butler and offered for sale by the Art Loft gallery, that garnered the most attention Saturday night.

Reproduced in painting, sculpture and, in one instance, on a pair of purple jockey shorts, the omnist symbol was a hollow sphere made of twine, suggesting a sort of bamboo whiffle ball.

Butler recounted that he had come upon the ball while traveling through Burma in 1981 and purchased one in Rangoon for 4 cents. Now he was offering his depictions of the plaything for prices that ranged from $800 to $8,000.

“Many of these paintings were motivated by financial need,” the Laguna Beach artist said. Nonetheless, he had given them what he considered to be low prices because “omnism is art for everybody, so I have to make a sacrifice.” Besides, he observed, “eight is a financial number, numerologically speaking.”

The ball being somewhat more accessible than the Mallorian poesy, the symbol dominated conversation among the hundreds gathered at the Art Loft.

“The ball represents that time is circular, that life is like a circle,” said James E. Carnett, 23, of Costa Mesa. “If you make the right choices in life, you reach the equilibrium the ball represents.”

“To me, the ball symbolizes the Everything and the Nothing,” said Charles Lloyd, 37. “It has opened up my eyes, and will change me forever. Even the mundane things I do, like brushing my teeth, will be drenched with depth and significance because I was here tonight,” the Costa Mesa video producer said, declaring himself an omnist forevermore.

Though he said he had no immediate plans to purchase one of Butler’s works, Lloyd did observe that $8,000 “is pretty cheap for a metaphysical experience.”

And Robert Odem, a Glendale poet who travels the state to attend readings, said he would be bringing the new symbol with him on his journeys.

“Each window of the ball has five sides,” he said, drawing yet another connection between the ball and metaphysics. “And in Japanese, the word for five is go. “

But not everyone was taken under the sway of the omnist sphere.

“It looks like a good logo for a soccer league, if you ask me,” said Sam Scalzo of Tustin.

“I feel a lot of hate in it. It’s not inspiring at all, yet it goes forwards, backwards, upwards and downwards,” observed Andrew Troy, 22, a Long Beach musician.

And even within the nascent omnist movement, some ideological disputes seemed to be simmering.

Mallory praised the icon, proclaiming that “the ball is the moon and the ball is the sun, the ball is the symbol of omnism and the intertwining of everything we are.” But Tomlinson demurred.

“I don’t know if I’d call it the only symbol of omnism,” Tomlinson said. “Certainly, it is what Russ would like the symbol to be.” He declined, however, to offer an alternative emblem for the movement.

And Tom Baba, the keyboardist who accompanied the manifesto’s presentation, became the new movement’s first exponent of heterodoxy.

“I’m a little bit against the omnistic point of view,” he said. “It’s trying to describe things that should be left to the imagination and to surprise. The ball signifies development of the Earth to the point of no return, and I’m uncomfortable with that.”

But one observer at the new philosophy’s unveiling said that discussion of omnism was, ultimately, academic.

“I don’t think we have a choice but to be omnistic,” said Michael Deeble, 22, of Long Beach. “They have observed us and decided that omnism is the way we are. There may be no progress in a ball that is circular,” he said, with a hint of sadness, “but you, I and all of us are omnists whether we like it or not.”