The unexpected in the countryside of Burgundy, France...Temple of 1000 Buddhas

Tucked away amid pastures full of white Charolais cattle grazing under perfect blue skies is a piece of another world... the Temple of 1000 Buddhas, a richly detailed Himalayan style Tibetan Buddhist temple surrounded by stupas on the outside and housing monumental statues of Tara, the Buddha and Manjushri in the interior. It was the first Himalayan temple to be built in Europe and was officially inaugurated in the summer of 1987, although the temple was founded in 1974. It is a striking and beautifully executed site full of colour and energy.

 

Spring segues into Summer

Away from blogging for such a time that now spring is turning towards summer, I have plans to be away yet again in travel, in Paris and other parts of France and then on to do workshops and performances at festivals in the UK in August. Life is interesting and ever changing---my art is the creative thread that holds it all together, no matter how tenuously. I do hope to stay in touch better even during my coming time on the road! Let me share with you some of what I've seen and done of late...

One of my recent projects was a papier-mache pulp and fiber mask adorned with flattened, rusty bottle caps and sea glass, made for a dance performance in Paris. Here it is on my work table nearly complete...

So many fae furniture orders have been coming my way as well... Here are a few ready to ship...

 

I have been obsessed with recording the plethora of blooms and the lovely spiral beginnings of ferns in the Jardin des Plantes and most particularly the baby goats at the mini farm of the Jardin. I was there for the birth of one kid who is my special favourite. He is quite tame, content to climb into my lap and curl up like a cat even though he is a bit older now and sporting tiny nubbin horns. Here he is at a few days old...

There were so many varieties of fiddleheads in the Jardin, varying from around nine centimeters across to delicately minute lacy curls...

 

I played with fallen petals and listened to the frogs' mating songs... 

 
I am not long back from the beautiful countryside of Burgundy (Bourgogne) in the east of France, where I traveled by train to spend two and a half weeks. I walked at sunset along quiet roads...

And conversed with magical hoofed beings of great beauty...

 

 

There were roses in the gardens and hedgerows...

and vintage doorways with mandala like designs...



















And when I came back to the west, I spent a day in the countryside near the ocean. The light was so intense that the world became a high contrast composition in shadow and highlights...

 

And once again there were flowers everywhere...

Well... not quite everywhere...

On An Island Beach

Amid the fog and surf on a French Atlantic island I made mandalas of shells and seaweed and tide turned pebbles nestled in the sand. Black and white spiraled out together, expanding back to back, like matter and anti-matter, two faces of the same energy made manifest. Nearby a tree of life mosaic grew from ochre stones and kelp while time stood still...

By the next morning the tide had erased all signs of my work. I found my way down the beach to a place where a cluster of World War II bunkers jutted from the sand like the remains of a forgotten civilization. In contrast to the natural beauty of the site or the calm, meditative state of creating ephemeral art here was something bulky and intrusive, built by fellow human beings for purposes outside my emotional ken... Yet, in a transformation accomplished by intensely colored graffiti symbology, this particular group had become a monument vastly removed from its sinister gray counterparts in Normandy or along the mainland coast nearby. Take a walk with me...