Free/Not-Free Paintings
Here's a good question: What makes you free? Here's another one: what makes you not-free? All the photographs you see below are of people making their own improvised mudras - hand-gestures - to represent their embodied sense of freedom, even in the midst of the "full catastrophe" of this life.
From those photographs, and from stories people told me in my travels, I created the Free/Not-Free Thangkas, a series of scroll paintings and accompanying texts, designed to be shown anywhere there are humans asking, What makes me free? What makes me not-free? They are paintings designed to be unrolled in the sacred-ordinary everywhere.
In form, they owe much to the traditional Himalayan thangka painting skills I learned from Master Lochoe and Sarika Singh at Thangde Gatsal Studio in Dharamsala, India. I have chosen secondhand bedsheets for the scroll material instead of Varanasi silk brocade, in honor of all the hospital patients I spoke with during my chaplaincy training, who could not wait to get back home to their own colorful beds.
Below, you will find images of a few of these paintings, with their accompanying stories. Some of them went on the road with me for the Inner Beauty Pilgrimage to the Sacred-Ordinary Everywhere… Enjoy!
In form, they owe much to the traditional Himalayan thangka painting skills I learned from Master Lochoe and Sarika Singh at Thangde Gatsal Studio in Dharamsala, India. I have chosen secondhand bedsheets for the scroll material instead of Varanasi silk brocade, in honor of all the hospital patients I spoke with during my chaplaincy training, who could not wait to get back home to their own colorful beds.
Below, you will find images of a few of these paintings, with their accompanying stories. Some of them went on the road with me for the Inner Beauty Pilgrimage to the Sacred-Ordinary Everywhere… Enjoy!
