One day while in college, a friend at work showed me a doodle he had doodled in his sketch book. That was my introduction to the mandala. After that I probably saw other images...but I never thought about the mandala again until around the spring of 1994 while working on my first series. In 1992 I was post-college and somewhat direction-less. I had little grasp of the meaning or purpose of my new degree in studio art after college...but I had started this series of mini-vignettes in the fall of 1992. At some point in this series I had the desire to make one of those circle things my friend had made...so I put one in the background of one the vignettes I was creating.
I had not studied the mandala...I simply, naively, used the form to create a design. At some point I learned that the mandala is sanskrit for "sacred circle." I also knew that my work and studies at this time all hovered around "spirituality." Near the end of college I had begun to read more alternative ideas about spirit and healing. So, my life has always had this basic focus of God. I started out as a Catholic, with that catholic understanding of God and reality. By the time I created this Chinese opera singer vignette I can say I was most influenced by Native American ideas and philosophy about reality. So, by 1992 my own "spirituality" had already begun to expand from my earlier Catholic informed view of God.
As a young guy I was also interested in writing. I know that many people can relate to the feeling in our 20s that we can change the world. That we are so confident and "know it all." My first attempt at writing ended in front of a computer in an apartment office where my sister worked at that time. Sitting...staring at a screen...
So while I worked to complete this series of vignettes, eventually 59 of them, I began a series of larger drawings.
I have been referring to my earlier days as my "naive" days. When I first moved to Chicago, I had by that time several mandalas...the summer of 1995. A friend of the first guy I met, a friend who "knew art" referred to my work as "naive." Back then, I found myself offended by his categorization of my work...but I also didn't know what he meant. Only within the past 2-3 years have I understood why this friend was correct. In 1994, when I created this first large mandala, my idea was that I would focus on an ideal and then create intuitively. And for these first mandalas, my focus was "God." The phrase "infinite faces of God" somehow became my target. So I naively created these mandala in the vein of sacred art.
I am trying to present these in the order they were created...although my memory is not 100% certain about the timeline. I will have to add one before this mandala because...when I drew this one, it was my first "abstract" mandala in that it was not geometric. This is one line starting at the center winding out. This is also when I started to hide things in my work...there are 7 green circles ("peas") hidden in this mandala.
This mandala is titled "karma." Very simply, one green circle is connected to another on the opposite side of the circle. Once I had drawn this mandala, another "abstract" attempt, I saw a giant knot. From the center of the circle it all appears tangled, but each string or line has two ends. Each apparently separate and tangled line can be discovered. So this spoke karma to me...how we are tangled into this apparently endless knot. There is one very small section of this, a tiny triangle created by the meeting of 3 lines, that has been colored blue. This represents the moment of enlightenment, or a moment of awakening, in which a person catches a glimpse of the knot and the ends of the strings. A moment of the beginning of untangling.
As you may have noticed, these are falling apart...these are damaged. After I made my first few mandala, I then learned about Buddhist sand mandalas. They have a rich tradition of creating intricate and beautiful mandala. They create these on the ground and then let them blow to the wind. I had created these larger "canvas" by taping notebook paper together on one side and then rubber cementing it on the front. It became apparent quite soon that my pieces were also built to fall apart. I decided/realized that I had inadvertently built time into these pieces...time and impermanence.
As I have been slowly putting my work together to get pictures, I have also been "untangling" my story. Certain pieces become time markers. This green mandala was begun in the summer of 1994. I know this because I had this with me when I went to visit a cousin in New York city in 1994. For a month I stayed with my cousin Rob exploring the city. I was a very "country mouse" kind of guy...even after 5 years at Michigan State University. I still had no clear idea what I was creating at this time or why.
I can also see in this mandala the first hints at how my "work" was developing. I can see sections that are "intuitive"- decorative and then I can see where my blind aim began to reflect my current work direction. At some point I must begin talking about sacred art. Like everyone else, my main focus has been effected by life. By the whims and pleasure drive...but also by confusion. I cannot talk about God if I do not also talk about my self. My life has been a wandering path...part this effort to better understand Reality with an undercurrent of healing...and then part a romantic pursuit of my dream boyfriend. I grew up a closet gay kid. The main impact I have realized is that I spent many hours in pursuit of romance. Whether drunk at a bar or clumsy hooking up with somebody...it was that denied romance I was seeking.
This is my steamed carrot mandala. This is the first piece I did that was inspired by an actual object...a slice of steamed carrot or a steamed slice cart. This becomes a fun piece with that story, but it also represents how I wander.
Now that I can finally reflect on this whole series, I can begin to see how my life reflects my development in "sacred art." I am unable to explain why, but God was never an issue for me. God just always has been an easy part of my life. So much so that I used to think it was enough to say to an atheist " God is intuitive for me," as though that was a valid explanation per any intellectual discussion. This steamed carrot could be my only still-life...a veer from the "infinite faces of God," but maybe also a clue.
CHICAGO!!!
By the end of 1994, I had had my first one man show at a small gallery in Calumet Michigan called the Omphale. I had attempted to use that success to fly out into the world...I was fluffed with success...but I still had alot to learn. I was at my parents and needed to get a job, get money and get out of town. So...somehow I ended up on the railroad. I worked a "maintenance of way" job...on a rail grinder. I was so far outside of my box...but I did a pretty good job. I could say that at some point I realized I was "on the wrong track."
So I contacted a good friend in Chicago and left the railroad. This mandala is my first Chicago mandala. My first job was a little bookstore/juice bar. It was a new age bookstore a few blocks from where I lived...so I was still circling God and healing topics. I cannot speak much about why I started this mandala this way. I can see experiment with the white space beginning...the line of the pencil becoming texture.
This mandala represents change and growth spurts for me. On a personal level I was still trying to live the "gay" life. I was trying to party and club and had actually met a guy in that first summer of 95. That was normal. What marked a shift for me was a man named Ken Wilber. I started reading his works. For some reason it seemed like my brain was expanding...into new territory. through Wilber I was able to understand post-structuralism and other philosophical heights. My efforts at sacred art were beginning a new phase that I had no idea would be awaiting me.
This is the second Chicago mandala. Clearly I was beyond the geometry of my first mandala and into new territory. Now that I am reviewing this work I am reminded that I have an earlier non-mandala piece from late 93 or early 94 that is a bunch of green circles on a blue field. I was calling that drawing "God." It represented an idea about what God might "look like". So on a basic level these mandalas were repeating that theme...nested holons is a phrase I got from Wilber. The guy I was living with was a Phd student who started studying astrology. When I look at this second Chicago mandala I think of Joe...all the discussions we had about philosophy and other topics that catapulted me from my Catholic roots. I was in new territory both geographically and now philosophically. God was expanding as I learned to think...as I learned new perspectives on Reality.
These two mandala represent this new level of learning I had begun by moving to Chicago.
For the next few years I worked and lived and kept making things. I had a few small showings of my smaller vignette set in various coffee shops. Most of my reading was Ken Wilber at this time so, integral psychology.
Around 97 or 98 I met a group of people who lived together who were artists and musicians. I was introduced by a friend to an artist friend of hers named Ken. Ken was a painter but he also made mandala. Eventually I found myself in a shared studio situation...I was making 2 mandala for one of the tenants who then covered my share of the studio space. In 3 months I made 5 mandala.
I made about 9 or so mandalas in this period from 96- 2000. I have a few...a few were traded...couple sold. This green with lotus petals mandala is the first one that I colored the whole background. This is also the first mandala in which I placed a symbol from the outside world...a symbol from a woman's necklace. I met her in the coffee shop where I was working. This mandala was also displayed in the window of a store that used to be in Wicker Park called The Occult Bookstore. I hanged it the weekend of 'Around the Coyote', a yearly art festival in that neighborhood. It then hanged there for possibly a year. If you look closely you can see that the orange has faded from the sun.
I don't have much memory of this mandala. I looks to be of the same period as the prior mandala.
Again, as I was going through these older works, I began to see hints of my recent work. In reading about DNA and evolution, there is a discussion about random mutations and blind chance in sequence space. The suggestion by Darwin that nature blindly pecks away at possible changes and adaptation. I will get into this discussion later but for now...I can see my own "blind" attempts at creating sacred art. I was still operating with my naive "intuition" approach...the notion that my work was sacred simply because I said so...because I kept referring to God or healing.
Late 90s...
These two mandala were shown during the same 'Around the Coyote' weekend as the green-lotus mandala in a different spot. They were outside. I learned from this show that I cannot show these works outside. It turns out that the kids who were running that spot moved my work into a garage at night and it rained. The work was protected but that scared me a little.
Again...as I review this older work I find hints at the current pieces. I can see the stages of development.
Right before the millenium...I created this mandala as part of a tryptich...as part of a prayer. This is an experiment with the mandala as a device...in this case, as a prayer. The tryptich was a response to a story about a little girl in Cabrini Green who had been molested and beaten and then left in the cold with bug killer sprayed in her mouth. The tryptich includes two large vignette portraits and is a prayer to know why children are raped. For this review, this mandala represents a turn in my efforts at sacred art...a turn to intent unlike my efforts at intuitive translation...except that I was still "blindly" creating these mandala forms.
This gets me to the year 2000. My life saw alot of flux in a years time that saw me landing in a new relationship and a new apartment. During all this activity I found myself reading more about history, politics and economics. During the last years of college and then into Chicago, I had been reading alot about "spirituality"...ideas about healing and Reality. Native American philosophy had a big influence on these years...and then I discovered Ken Wilber. His work appeared as my mind seemed to be opening to bigger and more complicated ideas. Sometime around 2000 I decided that...I felt I was surrounded by people who did not know their opinion or why they had that opinion. This sense led to more reading about history and politics...which of course included economics.
I had also learned to use the floor boards on wooden floors to help measure my canvas as I made them.
By September of 2001 I had a bunch of new canvas put together and started a new set. This was going to be another tryptich. Purely by chance...I started the next set one week after 9/11. This first mandala is 'truth'.
'beauty'
'justice'
I had never studied philosophy so I had a
rough understanding of ideals. Truth, Beauty and Good seemed like the
ideals I should have chosen but somehow Justice became part of this set,
right after 9/11 and right as my own studies became directed to the
mundane. I could say that healing is a topic about the mundane but, up
to this point, I had not considered the society I lived in. At this
point I was only beginning to investigate topics like economics in in
attempt to more fully understand my place in this society. Looking
back, I am reminded that often in my work, the image comes before the
meaning. I have often said that progress and learning seemed to be
connected to symbolism. The more I understood symbolism the more
certain truths revealed themselves. In a similar way, I would get
images or ideas and then later learn the full meaning. This set,
'truth, beauty, justice' took 3 years, 9 months and 11 days to
complete. I am still learning about the meanings of this set.
I can see in the center of justice echoes of the future. This mandala is the first in which I included a nod towards technology. At this time I was beginning to understand that there is a physics in ancient teachings. I will also point out the similarity between the layer of this mandala between the blue and green areas and a particle collider.
This section contains a nod to ancient Egypt and Maat. They would say at death your soul is weighed against a feather...this feather representing Maat or consciousness. The orange curved triangles are actually blades...and the yellow balls with 4 parts represent a soul being tumbled or ground down by the blades into essence. So Justice addresses "beyond death" (karma) as well as how we measure justice in society via aesthetics...balance...harmony, Truth and Beauty.
Which brings us to 2005...and this latest set, the most recently completed. This is where things got complicated.
I started out with a simple idea...an idea I had encountered years before in the 90s during my 'new age' reading. A woman had presented the idea that humans at one time had 12 strands of DNA which had been reduced to 2 strands. So I thought...what if I could create 12 mandalas to represent the idea of "turning strands back on," or, as though to "strum awake each cord"? Awakening DNA strands...what would that mean?
DNA reflector #1
In my usual way, I began to intuitively translate the "idea" of awakening DNA strands...calling the set 'DNA reflectors'. The first one took about one year to complete.
This would also be a good time to start talking about sacred geometry. I had slowly been incorporating sacred geometry into each mandala. Since I draw these free-hand I often refer to these as "sacred geometry-ish". I had learned through reading about crop circles that sacred geometry is in part about measure. Many crop circles have patterns that are based on sacred geometry...patterns that are built on the architecture of sacred geometry. I have always kept my mistakes...which later became background, shadow. Eventually I used that background form as part of the design...I started using the layers as part of the background and overall design.
This second dna reflector, started the same day as the first, had been rolled up in waiting. I started without a hitch.
At some point I have to get back to the topic of sacred art. I had begun this mandala project with a rather naive sense of the sacred. Since my aim was God or since my life hovered around various topics of metaphysics and healing...I had thought I could just call my work "sacred art." But, one thing I had managed to do was to keep studying various topics and themes all centered on questions of the Absolute or God. I was naively moving through each mandala...always ending up with a beautiful piece.
In my studies, I came across a man named Gurdjieff. His teachings became my main focus for a few years. My life has been forever changed through his work. This mandala above was also begun the same week as the first 2 dna reflectors. I rolled it up with the second one as I completed the first. During the work on the second, I started to complete the third. And as I worked on these I studied Gurdjieff.
I got to a point in the second reflector I could not figure out. I got to a point in the third reflector that became unpassable. I had come to a point with Gurdjieff where his discussion on subjective versus objective art began to influence my work. I discovered a definition of sacred art that forced me to stop. I came to a full stop...stuck...uncertain...and then I started to doubt.
For 3 to 4 years I was in a full stop. One question became...can I actually create a set of drawings that could objectively affect a person's dna? I doubted this was possible without years of training. I no longer felt that I could continue this series...and I started to doubt whether to continue making art.
Perhaps someday I will expand on these years of doubt. Perhaps I will go through some of Gurdjieff's teaching. For some reason...I had begun to read about genetics. I wanted to understand the discussion about Darwin...the arguments for intelligent design. So...timing being odd and what it is...I came across a drawing of a cell membrane. Using the above picture...from my thumb to the finger tips in the center of the mandala, were drawn and colored. But the green section, thumb to wrist, was the place I was stuck. With the membrane, I had found the needed "piece." The needed design to complete this mandala.
And just as I discovered this...I also found myself unstuck from my third reflector...
Once I got started again, the set came together rather quickly.
And as I finished the third mandala, I had the idea for the fourth.
The fourth came together in about 6 months compared to the 4 years it took for the third reflector and the 8 or so years it took for the second.
reflector #3
reflector #4
Technically, 3 and 4 were finished before # 2 was finished. As I finished the second reflector, a task that became confusing...I also started to go through my earlier work...
...when I came across this mandala from the late 90s. I had begun to call this one my black and white mandala before rolling it up. Looking at it again, I had the sense that I had not colored this mandala because I had gotten tired from the other mandalas I had made then. It was a lazy decision to keep it as a black and white. Then I started to wonder if I could somehow finish this mandala in such a way that I could insert it into the dna set.
I realized that this mandala may have been the last one I created before I started using sacred geometry-ish techniques to design these. So I figured that I could complete this mandala by adding sacred geometry somehow.
dna reflector #5
I actually finished #5 before I completed #2...the corners on #2 became quite a challenge.
1 - 2
3-4
5
After I completed the #2 reflector, I took a step back and felt that...I was done. I had gotten to this point and had this feeling that I was being given permission to start the next phase with these mandala. I may still complete this series of 12 given...as each mandala completed itself, it seemed like the series was also still happening.
I have been working on this mandala form for 22 years now. I have been studying sacred art for 22 years. I know that my work is progressing due to #2 and #5. I was able to fit the older mandala into the current set in a way that furthered the set and I finished the corners of #2 in a pure sacred art way. By that I am referring to a definition of sacred art that says sacred art contains information. The corners of #2 tell about the "sacred path."
My life contains hints about completion...
...circles connect...
...patterns repeat unexpectedly...
With this dna set, I have completed some kind of circle that started with my first Chicago set.
