It's been a while-Healing Art making

It's really been quite a while since I last posted here.  My life has flowed into new directions...since my dear friend and cofacilitator, Patricia's  death.  I have been almost obsessively, making Mandala Amulets, from both her mandala's and mine.  Working with her Illuminated Mandala images, has been a healing process for me.  Gathering, cropping, working with the images in Iphoto and turning them into amulets has taken over almost all my other art endeavors, except creating SoulCollage® cards, in my groups.  

Here is the backstory;   I had been making pendants from my art as well as found art, since the fall.  They turned out so lovely that I began to sell them and found them to be quite popular.  Plus the whole process appealed to my love of making things in multiples.  I am  maker.

Healing Star Mandala

Universal Shapes

I made a pendant of one of Patricia's mandala's as a Christmas gift for her. It actually was of her Star Mandala...which is this one here.  She wound up giving it to her caregiver as a gift.  A dear friend of hers, who was at the house during her last month of life, commissioned me to make a series of these for all the women in the loving circle of friends that surrounded her during that time...and I have continued to create them along with Amulets from my own mandala images.So one  thing has led to another, and another and I have continued this artmaking journey for months.  The interesting thing is that this whole process has brought me closer to Patricia, and led me full circle back to viewing all of my mandala's in another light.

Flowering Color Wheel

In order to get an image to be strong in a smaller format, there must be a lot of contrast and not a lot of detail in order to reduce the image  to a contact sheet size. So I am viewing my work with a different lens.  

Heart Healing

I also have realized that I am always soothed by doing things in multiples, which is why I love creating mandalas. Mandalas, have repeating patterns in them, and creating repetitions makes one feel safe and comforted.  Kind of like a visual fence that encircles what is important, what is in the center,  the heart of the matter.  

Goddess of Balance

I have also found more of her  original mandala's, as we  a community of women friends, now go through her art and her possessions, and I have photographed them with an idea to reproducing them in the future.  It has allowed me to really and truely see and appreciate her art, in a deeper light.  And when I work with the images, she is in my mind in a different way, which has taken a lot of the edge off of my grief around losing her.  Healing Indeed!

Soul Mother

Another thing has happened, and that is that this whole process, which has included making the Amulets from all of my mandalas, ( I am now calling them amulets instead of pendants, which alludes to the power inherent in these images) has begun to  bring me a greater sense of abundance, and a new direction for making money.  

I have always felt that my art, and in particular my Mandala drawings, have work to do in the world. That these images enhance and support others, separate from the healing power of creating them,  that the images are meant to inspire others. This has become clearer with this process.  I am grateful and blessed by this entire process and my sadness has been a process of personal transformation.  

Thank you to all who have been following my  musings, in this blog over time, and who find their way here synchronistically.  Always remember that doing Art heals, in subtle and profound ways, whether you feel you can do it or not,  --- JUST DO IT!  you never know where a process will lead you.

Until the next time...when I plan to post my new series of SoulCollage® cards.

Namaste'  

Caterina

Life - Death - Grief and healing through SoulCollage®

As some of you  who read my blog  and know me personally may know, for the past 8 weeks I have been witnessing, holding heart and been totally engaged in the ongoing illness and recent death of my good friend, and co-partner in the Creative Arts Studio and my work as a Mandala Faciltator, Patrica Waters.  This process has been heartbreaking and heart opening, transformational and healing, all put together in one powerful period of time.  Art has helped me to self-soothe and cope with this loss on many levels.  As a SoulCollage® facilitator and at times addict, creating cards in my groups has helped me on many levels to diaglogue, understand, and release sorrow and attachment through these trying times.  

Early on during this journey, I created this SoulCollage® card for my friend Patricia, to integrate her into my inner Community, and honor her presence in my life.  I added in a photograph of her actual hands drawing a mandala, since we worked together for over 20 years, facilitating Illuminated Mandala Workshops.  When we decorated the cardboard coffin she will travel into the cauldron in, on her last physical journey, I glued 8 prismacolor pencils and black canson mi tientes paper cut into a circle, onto the outside of  her coffin, so she can draw in the after life.  This card really brings me closer to her essence now that she is gone.   While she was ill, I made a large color copy of this card to put on the wall next to her bedside as a reminder to her of her strong and vibrant self. 

This card,  the Gateway card, came through for me, during a period when it appeared that Patricia was having a difficult time letting go of this life.  It gave me an image of the Gateway that we must all journey through as we transition from this life to another.  Whether it helped her unconscious or not is another story, but it allowed me to have an image to hold onto, that actually comforted me and gave me a grounding as the Gatekeeper role that I had found myself in. 

Gaia is the Goddess of All is aone of the most recent cards I made, using a photocopy of one of Patricia's drawings, and adding all the animals that she loved and nourished in this life.  Interestingly, the day that I printed it off of her computer , it was  raining out and when I carried it to my car, the rain, dripped on the ink jet print and formed tears.  It set the stage for this card, and how deeply she loved the earth and grieved for it as well. I created this card, on the day that she passed.  Which seems so appropriate to me now. 

The Path.   I created this card as well on last Friday, and although at the time, it related to my finding a new path and direction that calls to me, as I add it to his series, it really fits into her journey as well, being called to the light.  But for me personally, it speaks to paying attention to what flutters in my heart and sings to me as how to know which path to take.

Holding Heart -  This whole experience, has opened my heart so deeply, that I had to honor the heart space, as I held heart for Patricia, for myself, and for all of those who come to my studio and work on those deep inner images that live in the heart space.  It also helped that this was February, the month of holding heart on so  many levels.

This is the last card of the series, which is the Grief card, letting go and looking forward, contemplating what is next, and reflecting on my life, her impact on it, and all the edges of grief death and release.

I hesitate in adding my first person words to this series, offering a process oriented narrative.  During this whole journey I have been the facilitator of a helping hands website, offering updates on Patricia's journey, which is one of the many reasons why I haven't posted here very often. This process has also given me a sense of a new voice that is emerging for me through my writing, which is another door that is opening.  Thank you all for viewing this, and reading this.  Namaste.
Caterina