I just finished reading this book which neatly ties the forms of everything in the universe, sacred geometry, spirituality, and human behavior all neatly together in a circle.
"The mandala is an archetypal symbol of wholeness that is replicated on a cosmic scale, not only in manifestations of art, architecture, and religion, but throughout the natural universe. The concepts and primal patterns it represents are the base upon which all physical things are created. Thus, we are attracted to mandalas because they are at the core of who and what we are."
It raises lots of new questions and I plan to make more study time over the next few months.
One of the realizations that I came to was that, while I love all kinds of patterns, it's radials that I love the most. Radials are patterns that radiate outward from a central point in a symmetrical pattern. These include round stained-glass windows, kaleidoscope images, flowers, snowflakes, Islamic tile patterns, spider webs, cross-sections of plant stems, fruits and vegetables. For some lovely photos of snowflakes, check this out: Macro Images of Snowflakes
Since inkle weaving, my main creative pursuit, creates linear patterns, it doesn't give me too many opportunities to explore circular patterns. I have thought about various ways in which I could play with radials.
Did you know that the Spirograph is back and popular this year? Loved playing with this set when I was a young kid. Now that I'm an older kid, I'm going to do it again! Bought one yesterday!
I've also considered some fibery way of playing. Crochet mandalas? All the rage! If you used to call them "Granny Squares" get with the times. A Google search for "crochet mandalas" turns up so many results that it makes my head spin! Would you like to see? Check this out. Crochet Mandalas
A while back, I played with some software programs that can turn a photo into a kaleidoscopic image. Starting with photos of my woven designs, this activity gave me hours of amusement! I didn't find a program which allowed me to save my results at a very high resolution, however, so my hopes of saving and printing and sharing them were dashed. Maybe I need to look further. In the meantime, I hope that you enjoy looking at a few of them.
What a fun post - full of loveliness! I have a neat book called The Mandala Guidebook, by Kathryn Costa. Subtitle is "How to draw, paint and color expressive mandala art.) It's one of those books that both tickles your mind and touches something deep.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Deanna! I'll look for that one!
ReplyDeleteIf you haven't already, you might look at some tatted snowflakes for patterns similar to mandalas.
ReplyDeleteAren't snowflakes amazing? We have some tatted ones made by my husband's grandmother which he always hangs before Christmas. I'm looking at them differently this year than in years past.
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