Cherry trees taught me enormous life lessons. When I was eight years old, Mom gave me the job of selling cherries from our fifteen trees to earn money for all my personal expenses: Girl Scout activities and camp, school supplies and field trips, dance classes, private music instruction, comic books or candy from the mom-and-pop […]
In the painting, Spirit Tree, I pay homage to the invisible forces around us. In the foreground, three smaller trees blow in the breeze, green, full of life. They might be the offspring of the huge tree-shape above. Like a parent, the enormous gray tree looms over them. The larger tree’s absence of color implies
In the drawing Music Meditation by artist Kaethe Kauffman, musical notes surround the meditating figure. She sits in repose, her hair in a casual ponytail. What is the importance of melodies to this meditator? In temples across the globe, one of the traditional offerings to buddha consciousness is music which can suffuse the performers and
The other day, someone I just met, a young woman named Sarah, told me, “I’m a deep person,” meaning that she considered herself to be insightful and intuitive. I responded with a muffled, “Oh,” and swallowed a laugh. It seemed to me that only a shallow person would proclaim herself to be “deep.” I met
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The top half of the drawing, The Mother Tree, depicts an expansive tree that spreads beyond the picture plane. Autumn colors bless her leaves. When I contemplate this drawing, I can see several possible interpretations of the drawing’s meaning. The large tree appears steadfast. In the lower half of the drawing, four small trees blow
In Desert Mirage, two shapes are positioned near each other. I create a highly textured surface with many tiny ink lines to maximize a sense of energy in the shimmering air around them, similar to the visual movement inherent in a mirage in an arid land. The top form seems stationary, while the object below
The other day, I spontaneously drew a meditating figure sitting in a stream. Looking at it later, I wondered why I’d placed a contemplating person in the water. Suddenly, it made sense to me because Buddha-consciousness constantly adjusted to the ever-changing flow of life. No matter what circumstances might drift along and engulf a person,
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Dream Time in the Gallery was a single event: a night-time sharing of group sleep energy surrounded by spiritual art. Around a dozen art lovers from Italy and America assembled at my exhibition, Yoga: Interior and Eternal at Castello 925 gallery in Venice, Italy (affiliated with the Venice Biennale 2022). The exhibition featured floor-to-ceiling art,
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A few years ago, I sat in a photo booth and, just for fun, turned my back to the camera. I wore pigtails and pulled each one hard, to emphasize the part down the middle of my skull. The resulting photograph showed a head divided. When I looked at the photos, I realized that I’d
In the 1950s and 1960s, the best way to preserve a bouffant hairdo outdoors was to loosely tie a large headscarf around the head and secure it under the chin. This common practice seemed ordinary and timeless to a growing girl like me. In rainy Seattle, scarves provided the go-to protection from rain for females
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