I have several posts saved as drafts in my blogger dashboard. Some are stories waiting for photos to be added, and some are stories I've written that will most likely never actually be published here. And there are so many drafts with photos of mandalas waiting for the right words to be added. This was one of those drafts, formerly titled: "Turn me loose mandala - needs words."
I don't remember what I was pondering on August 14, 2015 when I drew this wild and crazy piece, but I do remember throwing caution to the wind. I remember scribbling and not giving one tiny little darn about how the finished piece would look. I remember wondering
"Where is this coming from?" and also thinking
"Hey, this is pretty fun!"
And when I was done I captioned it, "Turn me loose."
I'm posting these photos today to show another side of my mandala practice - the side that's not so orderly and precise. I suppose I've been revealing that side over the past few months with my not-so-perky blog posts and darker than normal disposition. It's interesting to me that even though I drew this mandala three months ago, the juxtaposition of the design
feels exactly like me right now.
Scattered, happy, jagged, sharp, playful, wandering, letting go, lacking order (but not missing it), making mistakes and making the best of it. Throw it all in a circle, mix it up a little bit, and there you have it: Me in a mandala.
And while some of this might not even look like something that would come out of me, other parts totally do. Like the little daisy flowers and happy faces. Old habits die hard.
I remind my mandala students that the beauty of our mandalas rests in the process, not the finished piece. I love that about mandala drawing because it really takes the pressure off of the artwork side of things. We also remember that art is subjective, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Scattered, jagged, not quite in order? There's even beauty in those things if you squint your eyes a little bit. Throw it all in a circle, mix it up a little bit, and there you have it: Me in a mandala.
Turn me loose.
♥
2 comments:
Amazing & wow to the timing. Your drawings & your words are revealing a lot to you, or so it seems. Reading your post along with a few others, there seems to be an emotion running out there in the world. I have been trying to create a perfect, worthy mandala with the lovely gift you sent along to me. I seem to be ending up with a lot squiggles & I must be connecting to something because I get teary. I seem to be holding back on both. OH Deb your post has given me some much needed encouragement. I'm ready to be turned loose.
There's lots of good advice (for more than mandala making) in this post!
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