Mandala is Sanskrit for circle. In various traditions, mandalas have been used for spiritual purposes: to focus thoughts during meditation, to express understanding of the cosmos or universe, and even to express the artists' innermost self.These two mandalas by Natalie Parenteau have captured my imagination recently. The Eagle Mandala is an appropriate image for our last class because of the red centre, representing the "promise" stone that I gave to each of you as an artifact of the commitments to arts in education that we made to ourselves and to each other.
I bought the Raven Mandala print when I was in Whitehorse to add to my collection of raven images - I have a Bill Reid style raven sculpture and an Emily Carr raven print in my office. This new one I will hang beside my drafting table/drawing board at home, to inspire my own art. As I shared with you, the commitment I leave the class with is that I resolve to continue this blog throughout the year and use it to document my own explorations and development as an artist and arts educator. If I believe that we teach who we are just as much as what we know, then I want to add more of my own artmaking to my professional practice.
In one of your Research Platform assignments, someone had a quote about Northwest Coast art having a calligraphic quality. These mandalas do as well, and so I appreciate the graphic design of the images, particularly the lines and shaded colours, and I would like to try some similar images of my own. Making mandalas will combine my interest in calligraphy with a reverence for nature and also a wish to blend ethnic or cultural expression with personal meaning making in the visual art that is created. I also love working on smooth paper with coloured inks and chalks, which I think will be ideal media for this kind of image. So if you are interestd, stop back to this blog sometime to see images that I have created and to share comments about your own progress and discoveries. I will also post any new arts based lessons or units that I am working on and arts related resources - so let me know if you find something interesting!
1 comment:
I just love the Eagle Mandala. I was mentioning to the class that the integrity stone reminds me of the First Nations band that I am a part of ("Red Rock"). This got me thinking about how art is important in bringing other cultures together. That was what I chose as my commitment... to use art to bring all people of every culture together in my classroom. I think alot of us had some amazing commitments that I can relate to too.
I also find it interesting that the eagle is my clan's symbol. I guess you could say this mandala spoke to me too. I will have to find a print of this mandala somewhere. Thanks for sharing! :)
Post a Comment