Featured Artist on Poster

Inner Garden by HaZel

A beautiful mandala by HaZel will bless the 2016 Buddha Abides poster. About her, in her own words:

“...For me, creating art is a spiritual and meditative practice. Since childhood I have always thought about and pondered the ways of the universe that has no beginning and no end. When creating I feel connected to the cosmic source of all that is.

I have been blessed to be in the presence of His Holiness the Dalai Llama. I have been graced to attend a Green Tara purification ceremony conducted by monks from Tibet. These were wonderful, deep and powerful healing experiences. I treasure the hours I spent at the Maitreya heart shrine relic tour. 

Other influences that resonate through my soul and into daily life are from the many years I spent participating in Native America spiritual ceremonies.  I traveled to Kauai for a week long art retreat facilitated by visionary artist, Paul Huessenstamm. These events in my life are all part of the matrix that influences me as an artist.

Beauty Way work is important. The world is full of pain, suffering and sadness. I like to think that if the reality of the world that we are in is the result of group consciousness then by creating beauty I can be part of healing and changing of the world even as I heal myself. Definitely grass roots work.

Creating art along with teaching  the body mind  fitness practices of Nia and Pilates brings me to the integration of Body, Mind, Emotion and Spirit. Finding balance and integration I step through an open door to healing and transformation. 

In the realm of body, creating art is a sensual and visceral  activity.  Each painting or sculpture  is like giving birth to a constantly blooming flower of life.

I find great satisfaction exercising my mind with the analytical process to problem solve, grappling with issues of composition, design and color. 

Mind is also home to the fields of imagination, a place where there are no boundaries. Creating art is a playful and shape shifting environment where I like to hang and where I find peace. I enjoy dabbling and creating illusion.

When focused on my creative projects, I let go of  all distractions, fear and anxiety. My emotions are calm when I find center and balance.

2016 Exhibition. Juror: Jackie Woods

Speaking of little beauties, I am pleased to announce the 16th Annual Buddha Abides contemporary art exhibition. It will open on Thursday, April 7th at La Casa Magazine Gallery on Canon Perdido Street from 5:00 to 8:00pm. In-gathering of art submissions will be the previous Friday, April 1st.  No joke.

(Download the application form under the headline “guidelines” on the buddhaabides.blogspot.com sidebar for details.)

Also, it gives me great pleasure to let you know that the former owner and curator of The Frameworks Gallery, where Buddha Abides first presented its show way back in 1999, Jackie Woods, will be the juror of all of the art this year.

I know Jackie to be a person with an enormous heart for art and an extraordinary artist in her own right and in many mediums. Although currently focused on photography, she has an exceptional appreciation of beauty in all its forms.

“… After selling The Frameworks and Caruso/Woods Fine Art in 2002 with my business partner Mick Caruso, I moved to Ojai and maintained a home with my twin sister and family while pursuing photography. In 2009 I was selected for residency to the WAV, Working Artist's Ventura; a state of the art mixed used development for artists with live/work lofts where I continue to pursue photography. My work, both solo and collaborative, is in several museums including The Getty Museum, The Bates Museum of Art and The Santa Barbara Museum of Art.  Presently I am creating the Universe with the raw materials of traditional photography, chemistry and light…”

'Little Beauties’

Every morning, a little stuffy in the dusky dawn, I make myself a cup of tea and then return to bed and look outside my bedroom window at the shabby little garden and rickety, grey fence that mark the back of this dear old house where I live in downtown Santa Barbara. There is a hum of freeway in the distance, crows swoop and caw, and slowly my mind begins to awaken to the day. I await with pleasure the rising of the sun that will illuminate the bushes and trees just on the other side of the fence, making the leaves sparkle green and gold, green and gold. I think of it as my very own little, glittering light show from God. And I am happy.

I have a lot of friends that assure me that if I smoked pot, it would be EVEN BETTER. But I have to admit, that I am completely and totally content with my apparently mediocre happiness.

Once I dated a guy with whom I went hiking up Rattlesnake canyon. At one point I sat on a rock and gazed out at the ocean: an enormous, blue-grey swath of color, with darker, rumpled islands softly crowning its glory away in the distance. I exclaimed, “Isn’t this beautiful?” And he said, “Wait until we get higher up on the trail. It’s even better.” He didn’t even stop to look at what I saw. I found this really strange and sad, because he was missing out on the little beauty, holding out for the BIG beauty up and around the corner. What if there was a rattlesnake hidden around that corner not expecting to be stepped upon? Then my date would’ve missed out on everything as he screamed and screeched in terrified pain!

No, I think I’ll hold out for the unenhanced, little beauties that give me joy along the way.

As John Lennon used to say, “Imagine there’s no heaven…”