Tibetan Sand Paintings – Jeffrey Hayes
Collecting Art, take a look This week I got to see something very special – the creation of a Tibetan sand painting. This striking and unique art form uses colored sand to form the images instead of paint. The paintings themselves are usually Mandalas – stylized religious images suffused with the symbols of Tibetan Buddhism, and are almost always created by monks. They are often wonderfully intricate and exceptionally beautiful, and typically take days to complete – usually by a team of monks working together. In fact, this is more akin to performance art than anything else. For a typical western painter like myself, the act of creation is interesting but not really the focus – the goal is to have a finished work of art which can then be preserved and appreciated by others. With one of these sand paintings, however, the act of creation itself is what matters – it is seen as a form of devotion and practice, and is accompanied by constant ritual and prayer… basically active meditat...