Tag: mandala

So Quickly Now

by susanbradfordart, posted in Mandala Art

Amazing!  I wrote that title just now thinking about how fast time seems to be going.  And only then remembered that I had used the same title for a painting I did last summer.  So Quickly Now is a flower form and to me felt full of movement and growth, but was also symbolic of how short-lived everything is.

January of 2012 is proving me right about that.  It is almost half over already and I am feeling my own internal pressure to have accomplished more.  My quiet (productive) winter time is vanishing before my eyes.  By now I should have painted much more, created a new mandala (or two), made many beaded bracelets, worked on some unfinished baskets, finished knitting a scarf I started last year, read five books, lost ten pounds, organized my office (for real), and cleaned my house.  I am “so quickly now” going to try to set aside my unrealistic goals, have some fun, make some art of some kind or another, and figure out that it’s all OK.  Really!

At home, at last

by susanbradfordart, posted in Mandala Art

After being on the road for forty five hours, I am finally home. You’d think that I had been somewhere truly exotic, for all that travel time. But a combination of cancelled flights and late flights and no late ferries made this a two-day voyage from Delaware Water Gap to Orcas Island.  And oh, it feels so good to be here in the beauty and the quiet that is Orcas, and to breathe into the idea that I won’t be going anywhere (at least not on a plane) for the next three months.  I’m sinking into that with joy and gratitude.  So happy to see Dennis and the cats!!  I’m already planning the many projects I want to do in the stillness and grayness of winter.  Hoping that I get at least some them crossed off the eternally long list of things I want to do in the studio, for the house and outside in the garden.  More mandalas.  Work on half-finished baskets.  Learn more beading techniques.  Paint a lot.  Organize my office.  Clean up the garden.  Make beautiful winter comfort food.   And exercise to counter act all that.  My work is clearly cut out for me.

For today, I’ll unpack, do some laundry, go through the mail and rest a bit.  The projects can wait.  And so can I.  But not for too long.

It’s that time…

by susanbradfordart, posted in Mandala Art

The holiday season has arrived. It’s official. The frenzy has begun. This year as always, I am caught up with everything that I have to do, complicated by my return trip to PA and all that typically entails.

So painting these little jewels has given me a way to quiet my mind and focus my energy on one single thing.  At least while I was working on them.  They are magnets by the way.  And I had a lot of fun making them.  Of course, I thought that I’d be able to whip them out in no time.  But I should have known that would never work for me.  Instead each one is a little world of its own and each one took me to a different place and taught me different things.

They will be available at the Hope (New Jersey) Craft Market this Saturday, December 3rd, and at the Wellspring Craft show the following weekend, December 10th and 11th.

Grace…

by susanbradfordart, posted in Mandala Art
the newest mandala

It seemed like a good idea.  I decided to do a mandala about Grace several months ago.  I took a few notes and did a few doodles, and then put it aside.  My thoughts about grace were all over the place, but that only made me realize how much I needed to work on it.

This quote from Anne Lamott kind of sums it up, “I do not at all understand the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.”

It is such a tricky and elusive word.  And working with it began to reflect my longing to pin things down, to understand the whys and hows and whats of my own life.  I want physical grace as well as grace on a spiritual level.  I want that ever popular state of grace.  I want it to permeate my thoughts and actions on all levels.  I want to live with grace and age with grace.

Yet my personal journey while working on it was not particularly easy, almost as if I were being shown how much work there is to do.  I’m not exactly sure what I learned, but I know that it made me think and look and feel a lot.

And that’s enough for now.

Mandalas Abound

by susanbradfordart, posted in Mandala Art

I really like it when life shows me mandalas.

We went to Port Townsend last week, met some friends from Canada, and had a little get-away. Lovely company, wonderful food and wine, brisk walks all around this historic Victorian town, and an excursion to Fort Worden State Park where the movie An Officer and a Gentleman was filmed.  Nice to see a military base that is no longer in use!

We stayed in a two-bedroom apartment right in the middle of town and could walk everywhere.  What a great find!  Full kitchen, wood stove, fresh flowers on the table when we arrived, right next to a garden, tons of privacy, our own little deck that no one else could see.  I was ready to move in!

But perhaps my favorite thing was the mandala in our bedroom.  Beautiful, inspiring, uplifting.  All that a proper mandala should be.