Monday night Community Meeting

On monday nights, at Quan Am Monestary, their is an english Buddhist community meeting. Usally I cannot attend these because i have class on monday nights, and the meeting is at 7pm. However one monday, I decided to skip and check it out. I'm very glad i did, because it was not only a very great drawing oppertunity, but the people were very nice and very informative. I got their early and hung out with the dogs, when A man named Leanard arrived. He is the one who organized these meetings, and it turns out is a graduite of MCA. So we talked about the school for awhile while he set up the chanting papers and meditation coushins and i set up my drawing supplies and paper. Two other women arrived, both in their 50's. Everyone was very nice, and I enjoyed my time there.

They started off with some meditation, then spent some time chanting, and instead of partaking in some walking meditation, we watched this rather long video about love and kindness.

They also informed me of the best night to go the Dragon seat medition hall, so that i could actually meet people. They also invited me to dinner with them that friday, though I concluded i didnt have the money to go.

Now here are the drawings!

Dragon seat meditation center.

So i caught wind of a neato Buddhist temple and Meditation center in north Memphis, so i naturally went to check it out. Its about 20. min. from midtown, and fairly easy to get to! Almost every night the meditation center is open for anyone who may want to meditate, and they have a very beautiful temple. My first visit was sorta in the middle of the day, and i did not expect to see many people. Though it turned out that i saw absolutly nobody! The grounds were as quiet as a sleeping lamb. So i tooke some pictures and did some drawings of the lovely statures they have there. They have 5 stature areas all together, including an outside Quan Am alter area, with little mini Lotas ponds, a big fat happy buddha statue, and a beautiful statue scene of Buddhas birth.

On my second trip I braught some large paper, and my supplies and this drawing of the Buddha's birth scene, and spend some time talking to the stay cats handing around the temple. Still no sign of human life.

More Buddhist studies

As i said in my previous post, i have been spending a good deal of time looking at Buddhist art and doing studies. Especailly on weeks where i cant seem to get in touch with the Buddhist cumminity. It gave me a chance to further learn about the Buddhist tradition, while keeping my ink skills sharp. I posted all the male buddhas here, which are not many. I supose that is because I am a female, so naturally i see the Buddha within myself as female which in turn makes alot of my buddhist figures females.

Gr to my schools staff.

Well, I have to admit, i am very disappointed. Latly I have been doing these ink drawing based on buddhist art i have looked at, and everyone in my class and my teacher agree's that I have been getting some really nice results. One of my peices(seen below) was based on the legend of how buddha's mother became pregnant with him. She dreamed one night about a white elephant who touched her tummy, and at the moment she became pregrnant.
Not long after I did this peice, my teacher told us of a show that was going up, and was kinda last minute, so if anyone had anywork with them, if they turned it in, it would probably be shown. I showed him some of the stuff I was doing, and he picked out my white elaphent peice to put in the show.

But to my disappointment, it did not make it in the show, and I lost my chance to add the show to my resume. Oh sadness...

I supose there is always next time.

My my my...those are some enlightened ladies.

As I have said in previous entries, I have been looking at a good bit of buddhist are for this project, and since I was going through something of a dry spell in finding the Buddhist hot spots here in memphis, I was keeping myself busy by emulating some of the art I have found. But of my favorate stuff has been nice expressive ink work, usaly using black ink. One see's this sort of thing often in the Sumi-e ink drawing technique, which is often practiced by Buddhist monks as a form of meditation. This technique is a great way to warm up for actual on site drawing, because it uses quick and precise brush strokes to paint a picture. The outcome is both beautiful and expressive.

So as I while not drawing Memphis buddhists, I have been letting myself become inspired by classic and contemporary buddhist art. In this post I shall post my female subjects. beautiful Buddhist ladies.