Archive for September, 2010
the leaf’s budding and dying are my own!
When I am totally absorbed in drawing … and have become leaf or grass, when the split between I-as-subject and It-as-object is bridged … I am now in touch with the process of Life itself. The leaf’s budding, unfurling, wilting and dying are my own! For however short a span, IT – instead of Me – has become the center of my universe. It is no longer a thing observed: but an ever-changing, ever-fleeting mystery, which, like myself, flashes past at the speed of light. Then, in this flashing Now, I may glimpse Reality, I may recognize the Self, that Original Face I share with all that is; I may glimpse the Buddha Nature: the Pearl of Great Price.
~ Frederick Franck, The Awakened Eye
purity, simplicity and refinement
Miya Ando at the awakened eye website:
Sword making has always been part of Miya Ando’s family identity, mythology and history. Her family went from making swords into the Buddhist priesthood. Both have impacted and informed her path as an artist. The following is extracted from her website, and from an interview with Non-duality Magazine.
Ghost Series
Miya Ando
In my work, I create quiet, abstract, meditative environments with metal. Ultimately I am interested in the study of subtraction to the point of purity, simplicity and refinement.
The state of non-duality is one wherein there is a loss of difference between the viewer and that which the viewer perceives. I do see the practice of art as potentially transformative and [it] can be transcendent.
The Ghost Series is about non-duality, actually. The difference is that there is a figurative element to the works. The idea was that the surface of the work is reflective – perhaps there is another being reflected back – the work becomes a window, the work becomes a trace of something very subtle. Perhaps the ghost is an iteration of a quality we all have universally within ourselves. I am very interested in these very subtle traces of what could be nothingness.
~ Miya Ando
