Yantras – ART, PRACTICE, &

PORTAL – SUMI INK & WATERCOLOR ON PAPER – 6″ x 4″

The mandala/coloring book craze hit right around the time I was contemplating moving my art making to the center of my spiritual practice, so I gave it a look. The coloring was relaxing, and reengaging with crayons was excellent, but the mandalas I encountered were mostly generic designs that I didn’t connect to.

My previous interest in mandalas was sparked by having been privileged to observe a team of Tibetan monks create a sand mandala at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts where I was in residence in the early ’90s. So, still intrigued after having checked out the coloring books, I started looking at, among other things, yantras.

Yantras are ancient Tantric mystical diagrams created to represent various deities or cosmic powers. I found them interesting to study and satisfying to draw in a variety of ways. In the center of many of the yantras I explored, I encountered… triangles.