Mandala Musing

I finished  a mandala I have been working on all week and I am noticing how the act of creating it with placement and colour choice and the actual painting is affecting how I perceive my outer world. I seem to be seeing colour and design in nature in a new way. I'm assuming that all artists have been experiencing this through all time and that maybe as children we experience something like this. I am rediscovering parts of myself and awakening awareness of my world, even to the point of noticing mandala's on my skin, in my breakfast or looking into someones elses eyes. It's a bit like when I liked a particular car design a few years ago and then I started seeing those sort of cars everywhere I looked. Prior to that I had not noticed them at all. I love that mandala's are everywhere and in everything, in every atom. Beauty appears even in something I perceive as ugly. How funny is that?

Playing with Blog site design

I've just spent a couple of hours navigating around the blog site design tools and changing the look of the page. Time flies when you have no idea of what you are doing. Steep learning curve. Enough of this. I am off to finish a mandala I started yesterday. The house is quiet and it's time to attune to that. I've added some links to websites you might like to browse.

Intro

Hi,

 This is my first intro to Blogging . This Blog will preview art I am exploring and creating and be a place I can post songs and poetry and travel updates. I am visiting Ubud in Bali, for the first time, on the 18th April and attending a 6 day art workshop with Dawn Meader ( wonderful woman artist ).

I first became interested in Mandala's and Mandala art about 20 years ago when I lived in Denmark, in the south of WA. I remember doing some Mandala art and feeling very intimidated by my lack of artistic ability ( based on what I perceived art and artists to be). I dabbled a bit and then left it alone. A few years later I created a Mandala as part of a womans circle I was attending. I don't think I had the awareness then to notice how happy I feel when I am working on mandala's. I framed that piece in an old clock face and it is still hanging on our lounge room wall. A few years later I purchased a lovely book on mandala by Bailey Cunningham called Mandala Journey to the Centre and this title was the inspiration for my Blog name. I was also gifted two Mandala colouring in books which I would sit and colour from time to time.

Throughout the following years I  experimented with Mandala in sand art, mosaic and several other mediums. It was always present and yet somehow in the background and never fully acknowledged as the central element of life that it is. Present in all creation. So, now I am finally acknowledging it and placing it at the centre of my daily life and exploration into art. I derive an immense amount of pleasure and an upsurging of joy in my being when I notice mandala's myriad forms in nature and then translate that into art pieces which are so much fun to create.