Emerald Arrows Mandala - Picnic Blanket

Emerald Arrows Mandala

After a long time away, art has called me back again. For a time I played with abstract digital painting processes, and for a time I allowed myself the privilege of just being lost. But it is the Mandala form that I had developed the most interesting dialogue with in terms of Art and expression, and so I now renew my exploration of mandalas artistically once more.

The Emerald Arrows Mandala is a celebration of my return to the path -- a giddy return to the continuing exploration of light across various color stories. Instead of diving immediatley into deeper complexities of form, or a composition which breaks both symmetry and center, I chose to return to a warm embrace and almost curative engagement with the rainbow once again.

The play of the otter in the mouth of the river, as opposed to plunging into the murky depths of artistic abyssal meditations directly. Wonder exists in the sun-drenched shallows and color halo of rainbows just as much as in the alien world of the ocean trenches far below.

Sometimes, with art, it’s enough that it makes me happy. And this one makes me happy. Not always a deep statement on the order of the multiverse, sometimes paintings are allowed to be a dance of hue and light.

And yet even amid frolic, this piece still pulls me onward in the dialogue. Note how I've begun to abandon flat color washes and illustrative approaches to begin to return to my painterly, smudgy hard pastels and conte crayon original media roots. So the work does indeed go on, even while we play.

So play.

Emerald Arrows Mandala is a welcoming sort of place, and the scenery is dazzling. Wonder for wonder’s sake is a fine thing to try and capture.And the best way to connect with it is by taking the time to just play.