The Mandala of Paradise

The 2009 Auspicious Stitches collaborative project was an appliqué mandala inspired by mandalas in the RMA collection. Members of the group embroidered their personal ideas of paradise along with some of the common elements of mandalas. Once all the pieces were completed, the group worked together to appliqué all of the pieces onto a background to create a large silk hanging. The piece, titled Paradise is a Mandala is currently on view in RMA's spiral lobby.

 

Participants in the Auspicious Stitches workshop were asked to respond to the question "What is Paradise to You?" This is what they wrote:

 

Aoife Pacheco

I think you can't easily see paradise, you have to get up close and feel it to really know it's there; so I decided to make my lotus petal monochromatic. I depicted the ocean, the clouds and the air to show paradise as an element freely transforming between its various manifestations.

 

Bernice Gordon

I go to nature to be soothed and healed and to have my senses put in order.  -John Burroughs

Joining Auspicious Stitches has turned out to be an intriguing experience for me. I was attracted to the class upon the first visit to my museum a few months ago. The visit revealed the museum itself as a beautiful, tranquil, accessible, and enriching culture resource. The fact that I had a sewing program delighted me because although I have done needle work sporadically over most of my life, the demands of my time over the recent years had distanced me from it, especially doing embroidery.

After participating in my first class, I knew I wanted to continue. I subsequently joined the museum and have been in attendance every Monday but one since. Getting there and finding the time to work on my Vision of Paradise for the group's Mandala project has given me pause to reflect on the quality of my life which is currently filled with economic and family related challenges.

In some ways making the time for my Monday museum visits and the times I attend to my embroidery represent a new priority in life: a time commitment to my desire, if not a need, to engage in a creative outlet.

Unlike the above quote, as a city dweller with a busy life, I am unable to be outside as often as I would, and less so actually in nature. This makes my time working on my piece, which is a celebration of nature and color, the closest thing I can do to offset this reality.

Embroidery requires complete focus, thus the concentration I have to give to it creates an appreciated stillness in me, so, in effect my piece has become a beckoning oasis: my slice of paradise.

 

Gay Partington Terry

I came late to Auspicious Stitches, only two months before the Paradise Mandala was finished. I was new and my stitches were not auspicious, so I felt unworthy to work on the project. I practiced on a smaller mandala, then another. The experienced (and auspicious) stitchers guided me.

While we stitched, we talked. We talked about men, yes, but don't think that's all we talked about. There are secret woman's things that have always been discussed in groups of stitchers, and cooks, and gatherers...and Paradise.

 

Gloria Bletter

My lotus petal is the white one with all the animals on it.  And, you will notice a big multicolor snake and all the other animals are folk themes they are not realistic animals.  But, the reason I chose that theme was because I see paradise as mostly filled with animals - not too many humans to do their bad stuff, to do bad stuff - and I love animals of all kinds even insects.  I mean, I don't love insects but I wont kill them or anything.

My idea of paradise is similar to a pre-eviction Garden of Eden, filled with animals co-existing peacefully with each other, and most importantly, very few humans. The belief that humans are at the center of the world has messed up our earth. Animals are the innocent victims of human over-population and over-use of resources, and so the earth is now failing as a host of bio-diversity. 

Unless we accept that all kinds of animals, including those which annoy [insects] or are predators of humans or other animals, have a premier place on this earth, humans will fall as well. My attempt was to represent a variety of species as some human cultures have depicted them, dancing and full of color.

 

Goldie York

The mandala represents the perfect circle and the circle is one of the most prevalent forms in the animal kingdom both in the sea and in the sky. the sea star, or star fish, which is my representation is a living example of the mandala model.

 

Karen Levy

My idea of Paradise is being in a constant state of joy and  love . Above any earthly worry. Permanent good health.  Peace and contentment within  myself and everyone else. But most of all surrounded by Natures beauty. Waterfalls and rainbows. Sunshine and mountains.

 

Kay Radcliffe 

Paradise is the cessation of troubling aspects of life on earth.  Love would dominate, erasing wars, hatreds, and  violence. Time and death would cease; the physical body transformed so that health is constant; and money would not be needed. 

 

Laura Fandino

A bright sunny day

A tree in foliage

A bird tweeting away

Isn't that paradise?

 

Mercedes Batista, July 2009

Some Notions on Paradise

Paradise, conceptually is a counter-image of the miseries of human existence. It is supposed to be a timeless positive harmonious existence, a place of contentment where there is only peace, prosperity, and happiness. Paradise describes the world before it was tainted by evil. Paradise sometimes is equated with utopia, an ideal community or society representing an unrealistic ideal that is impossible to achieve in this earth.

Paradise refers also to an afterlife plane of existence in various religions and spiritual philosophies. It is often described as the holiest possible place, accessible by people according to various standards of divinity, goodness, piety, faith etc.

Paradisiacal notions are cross-cultural, often full with pastoral imagery, an abode of the virtuous dead. In Christian and Islamic concepts, the typical believer's view of Paradise depends largely on their religious traditions. Some religious conceptualize Paradise or Heavens as pertaining to some type of peaceful life after death related to the immortality of the soul. Again Heaven or Paradise is generally construed as a place of eternal happiness a state of aliveness. For some native cultures this other world is a land of plenty, an eternal hunting ground where the heroic and righteous go after death.

 

Rukhshan Hague

"In my petal, I wanted to represent the path to paradise. Life is part of that journey. The pearl is the beginning of our time here on earth. The lotus blossoms into another flower and another. Each represents its own stage of spiritual growth. The mirrors represent passing on: a time of reflection before transitioning to paradise, which is reached by bridge. The stitching becomes outlines in paradise to give a feeling of lightness Silver thread and beads add to the quality of light. In contrast, dense stitching is used to represent life. I chose to show life as beautiful, but compact and finite. The circles represent heaven. They have no beginning or end. They are infinite."

 

Ruth Rothstein

It is natural to imagine Paradise as a place where all exist in peace and harmony, free from poverty and illness. But there should be trees and  flowers. And a calm, turquoise, warm sea to play in.

 

Sharon Slowick

Paradise is anything that opens my heart and makes me feel JOY. That is what I feel when I spend time in my garden. It teaches me things beyond my imagination.