Fall 2003:
After studying the Auspicious Symbols with Lama Dhondup Tsering from Nepal's Chusang Monastery, Lama Dhondup has become very busy ministering to the needs of our local Tibetan community in Queens, New York. The Tibetan children require language and art lessons, the Tibetan refugees require religious services and counseling and, quite frankly, the monks often need to take jobs to support themselves in a society that does not see to thier basic material needs as in Tibet and Nepal. Thus, Lama Dhondup and his Western art students have since parted ways. Some of us continue to exhibit and even publish. We will always be grateful for those Sunday afternoons we spent training with Lama Dhondup.
The impact of Lama Dhondup's training can be seen in the finer quality of my Manjusri piece at the bottom of the Lotus Leaf Works page.
Fall 2003:
After being purchased by certain generous bodhisattvas and in turn donated to Chan Meditation Center, the majority of the Lotus Leaf paintings remain on display in the Center's main hall.
Fall 2004 and the Future:
Graduate school and teaching are keeping me busy and thus experiments in my studio have slowed considerably. I am also developing some new direction in my sketching and traveling on research so not everything I paint is in line with the Lotus Leaf project.
See the Lotus and Other Paintings page for a new oil painting of my wife, Nes, whom I painted, not just because she is so majestic, but also 'just to keep my hand in' Western representationalism. I was also experimenting with combining multiple images from my photo collection, my head and my environment into a single image, a kind of PhotoShop of the Mind. This ability, once further developed, will be used in more surrealistic experiments related to Buddhist iconography.
