Mandala is a spiritual and ritual symbol in Buddhist religion which represent House of deity.
This project is about mandalas which represent my inner world through my memories. I explored two ways of making the mandala – digital and handmade. I ended up with two 2D mandalas, but even before starting working on them I visited Rubin Museum to learn about mandalas’ origins.
Rubin Museum
Mandala of Chakrasamvara and Vajirayogini, ca. 1505-1514 is on the left, and Mandala of Amoghapasha, 1502 is on the right.
Visiting the Rubin Museum was a fascinating experience. Mandalas now are trendy people love drawing them. A lot of people make tattoos which include mandalas. They believe that this symbol will keep them safe, but not a lot of people know the history of mandalas and the actual meaning of them.
From visiting the museum, I have learned a little about the real meaning of mandalas. “In Buddhist tradition mandala represents the palace of deity. The word ‘mandala’ means center and periphery.” – The quote from the stand in the museum. In different deity is a god or goddess.
Another thing that I learned is that mandalas can two and three dimensional. Two-dimensional are usually painted on pieces of clothes or murals, and three-dimensional are made from metal, wood, colored threads, or sand.
Though I when to the Rubin Museum, my favorite artwork was “Tara Protecting from the Eight Fears.” I think it is because the theme of fears is very close to me. I made a project about them and although my project was more about personal fears I could not walk past that artwork without any emotions.
Both of the mandalas that I made are about the most important relationships in my life, but the nature of those relationships is very different.
Digital Mandala
The idea of the digital mandala was to show how I was growing up, to show how I was developing my personality. I used Photoshop for creating this work.
The eye is in the middle of my mandala it is a starting point because the visual image is what I usually memorize the most, not the sound or taste but the visual image. I remember colors of clothes, the weather, people’s gestures, their hair color or style. So my eyes usually the primary source of the information that I remember.
I used the elliptical marquee tool to cut the iris from the photo.
My mother has always inspired me. She has always been my role model. I have never met a stronger person. She made me who I am, taught me the main moral rules. My mother never told me that she is too busy for me, and at the same time she always worked and earned money for us. She always spent time for explanations if had any questions. I can not imagine my life without her. At the same time, she taught me how to gain my personality, how to find myself without forcing me to be someone else. Mum never told me what to do and what not to do – all the most important decisions in my life I made by myself. The most meaningful memories are related to her, and every time something serious happens in my life she is the first person I would go to for advice and support. She is my base, my roots – she is the starting point of my life.
I used Photoshop to create the collage and operated with layers and their opacity, and to cut the figures out of the pictures I used masking tool.
The trees from this photo I chose as a representation of connections. Trees are always growing. They never stop, and human’s knowledge never stop developing as well. The branches of the trees when they are naked are also reminding of the web which binds all the memories together. That is why I chose to make the tree branches my background to show that the past is strongly connected to my future.
This picture is from my photo shoot called forest nymph. I used the projector and the photo of trees printed on acetate to get the forest effect. The branches from the picture look very dramatic and convey the old movie effect.
The result of my past mistakes and lessons is me in the present. I used the photo on the left to make a circle around the iris. This circle represents that it doesn’t matter how old I am I will never forget where my roots are. The photo on the right I used on the background on top of the branches. I chose it because it has a feeling of upward direction – looking down on my past remembering everything I still grow upwards.
To include these photos in the piece, I operated with layers and their kind. For the second one I used Overlay kind, and for the first one, I used Linear Light kind, and also I moved the center of the layer to the middle of the iris then copied it and rotated it around the eye. I repeated the same process twenty-three times as the Adobe Illustrator just refused to open my work.
This is my final version of the mandala. I lightened it a bit. Although the colors of the piece are gloomy and dull, I am not talking about bad memories in my work. I am representing the memories that are gone, the memories that were left in the past, and this is what is sad about them.
Handmade Mandala
My hand made mandala is very abstract. I did a pencil sketch of the overall figure. I started it with a big circle the added shapes to it. I wanted my mandala to be more graphical and not very colorful, so I used only black sharpies to finish my work. It reminded me of my biology lesson in fifth or sixth grade. It was a very long time ago, but I remember we were studying different cells structures. They have the membrane which guards them against the outside world; it controls what comes in and what comes out — the thorns in my mandala represents exactly this type of defense, which I have build from past mistakes.
The four stars which are outside that fence represent all the people — my friends and loved once which had played a significant role in my life. They will always stay in my memory, but all of them are in the past.
The center of the mandala is made out of four main particles. They represent people who are in my life now and who have been there for a long time.
Two of my good friend from Kazakhstan, Diana and Arna are on the sides of the center. The particles that represent them here are more rough cubic, and it looks that parts are missing. They had known me for almost ten years but haven’t been with me for past three years when I was developing my personality the most, as I was on my own in the United Kingdom where I became more independent. At the same time while I was in the UK they were developing as well. We all grew and developed our own views and opinions. We became more mature but in different ways. So now they don’t always understand me, but they still play a significant role in my life. We call out friendship “triangle”, and each one of us is on the top of the angle. We are so different, but at the same time we are similar, we compliment each other – I am the crazy one in the group, Diana is in the middle she and Arna is the one who always keeps me and Diana calm and tries to be the mature one. Even regarding music Diana’s and my tastes are totally opposite, and Arna is somewhere in the middle. We are like yin and yang but with three parts, and I think that is why our bond is so strong. We have a significant history so the figures that come out of our friendship in the mandala are so spread and systematic.
The particles figures on the top and the bottom of the center are my friends Mayya and Sophie who I met in the past two years. They are the once who know me. They fully understand me and never judge me. My most recent memories are connected to them. The figures that are coming out of our relationships in this mandala are more balanced. Fire and the fish tale — our friendship have seen ups and downs, and we have been growing together. They are the closest people to me, in two years we manage to become family. They know everything about me. I never tried to pretend to be someone else around them, because they accept me the way I am, and I do the same about them.
The outcomes of this project are amazing. Firstly I learned more about mandalas, and I realized why people are so interested in them. Then I learned more about Photoshop and layers techniques and also learned more about Illustrator. I also never created any artwork using only black sharpies. I only used them for sketches before, but I was very surprised to see how well they might work on their own.
