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I began my Tibetan series pastels in April 2006 as I was recovering from a broken wrist, which had interrupted my art-making for a couple of months. The broken wrist was a kind of wake-up call, and it provided a lot of time to think about my life and the direction it was going in. I had taught the course Asian Art History: India, China, Japan at UCA in 2004, and had been doing a fair amount of reading in Hinduism and Buddhism, and at a certain point I found myself just really responding to Tibetan Buddhist art.

Buddhism is very complicated. There are so many gods and goddesses, and Buddhas and bodhisattvas, and mahasiddas and arhats. There are peaceful deities and wrathful deities, families of Buddhas, and numerous lineages of lamas and teachers, each with their own teaching, rituals, and mantras. So, by taking an image I responded to aesthetically, researching the subject, and then reinterpreting it in pastel, I have been slowly beginning to get a sense of what Buddhism is all about.

One of the most fascinating elements of Tibetan Buddhism is its relationship with psychology. For example, the wrathful deities oftentimes trample under their feet a corpse which is identified as the ego, and wear a necklace made up of fifty freshly severed heads that represent the ego passions and defiled thought processes that have been defeated. The five skulls that make up their crown symbolize the five poisons that have been vanquished, specifically ignorance, anger, pride, attachment, and jealousy. Each of these five poisons is also represented by a family of Buddhas who can be appealed to for help in conquering them.

The wrathful deities can be explained by the idea that there are certain situations that require getting worked up about in order to address and overcome them. Sometimes we just need to call up all the energies at our disposal and really become intense. A mother will become very protective when her children are under attack. So we get out our symbolic tools--the flaming sword to cut through the veils of ignorance, the knots of illusion, and the nets of misunderstanding; the lasso to bind wisdom to us; a drum to invoke the Buddhas; or drawing materials to make an image of the being who can best help us. Most of the Tibetan deities have both peaceful and wrathful forms. For example, Padmasambhava, the eighth-century monk who did the most to establish Buddhism in Tibet, took on wrathful forms in his efforts to clear, subdue, and convert the local gods.

To appeal to the deities of Tibetan Buddhism is to call for healing, which is defined as purifying the mind from negative thoughts and emotions. In the rituals one attempts to overcome one’s situation by becoming the deity. This is begun by visualizing the deity, and this is where the use of the image comes in, because the image is so constructed with all of its symbolism, that as you visualize the deity, you review the symbolism, which reminds you of the qualities that you want to embody.

It is fascinating, then, that my journey into Tibetan Buddhist painting led me unexpectedly into the area of healing, which began as I was recovering from a broken wrist.

July 2008