“The Journey” is a body of work about my physical and spiritual journey to eastern Tibet in the summer of 2006. I left this country on my 60th birthday to embark on an amazing adventure that transformed my life. The landscape, culture, people and religion of Tibet are unlike anything I have ever experienced. I have been fascinated by Tibet since I was a child and went to eastern Tibet because it is the ”real” Tibet – the last place where the true culture survives. The rest of Tibet has been altered and the culture obliterated by the Chinese who claim Tibet as part of China; I was not interested in seeing this.
It has taken quite a while to process all that I experienced in Tibet and this body of work tells the story of my journey as well as I can express it in abstract terms of form and feeling. I know that “beauty” is a word that is unpopular in contemporary art, but, when you are immersed in and overwhelmed by so much of it, it has to be the basis of the expression.
“Rinpoche” is about H. E. Kilung Jigme Rinpoche, the high lama and teacher at Kilung Monastery where I stayed in Tibet. He is a young man with a vision: rebuilding Kilung Monastery and restoring it to its former glory as a religious center. The monastery was bombed and mostly destroyed by the Chinese during the Cultural Revolution in the 1950s. The monks fled and the rinpoche at the time was taken away and murdered. I admire H. E. Kilung Jigme Rinpoche for his vision, his devotion, and his sense of humor. He is a charismatic man who treated me with great kindness and performed the Refuge ceremony to make me a Tibetan Buddhist in Seattle in the spring of 2007. I will travel to Seattle in February to study with him. Rinpoche’s auspicious symbol is the conch shell. I hope to portray his beauty in this piece.
