Although my work tends toward digital, my training was in sculpture.
On occasion I return to feature some of these efforts. Just as I
return to the brush. It's an impulse to maintain skills and to
let each discipline inform the other. Checks and Balance.
This work, about 2' x 3', features a scroll form with bloodwood
slats framing. Word heavy, the scroll contains the Buddha's
fire sermon. 'Everything is burning'. The frame contains
engraved musings on being a prisoner. these musings are
obscured with gold leaf - hard to photo.
the hands from a wire mesh, covered with paper and painted.
The hands are pierced with pins that have gold leaf attached.
A clawing gesture for the words and against the flimsy string
representing prison bars.
4 comments:
Very interesting piece! I didn't know the Buddha wrote sermons--I'd love to read them. I myself like the hands--they're very beautiful; the gesture of holding the scroll is reverent and like an offering.
While I am not a Buddhist, I am intrigued by his teaching. Yes, followers wrote down these sermons dating from 600 bc. Probably they are as suspect as any Christian or Muslim belief. I do believe that the message is more important than the man. I do love the art traditions that have flowed from Buddhist belief.
I'll look up the sermons. When I was an art history major I specialized in Northern Renaissance painting--all those saints and altarpieces, though I'm not religious. I always wondered why ... Drawn to the iconography, I guess. Thought it's very un-Buddha-like behavior, I collect Buddhas, though I don't pick up every one I see; I'm drawn to the essential fact that Buddha's a man, not a god.
I like the hands, the hands gives this piece of work a very personal touch to it.
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