Art as spiritual practice

By Bonnie Wells
Staff Writer

Published on September 26, 2008

Next week at Smith College the Jannotta Gallery opens an exhibit of contemporary Buddhist art by New Salem artist Joan Bredin-Price. "The Dhyani Buddhas," a series of 10 large and intricate paintings, depict the male and female counterparts of five celestial beings known in Tibetan Buddhism as guides to spiritual transformation.

For Bredin-Price, creating the series was also a spiritual journey.

"Tibetan Buddhism is very scholarly," she said. "Because I'm an artist, I can understand better with pictures. I have been going through the images and aligning with them that way."

In 2003 Bredin-Price exhibited her "Twenty-One Taras," a collection of paintings that accompany the verses of a traditional Tibetan Buddhist prayer of the same name. The show opened at Smith College before moving to Tibet House in New York City during the spring of that year.

"Tara teaches with love," she said. "I felt healed by being with an entity or energy that was very accepting."

Her most recent project was a tad more rugged. Three years ago, she set out to portray and meditate on The Dhyani Buddhas, who represent the "five wisdoms" or antidotes to the "five poisons" or obstacles to spiritual progress. But it turns out that before you can apply an antidote, you need to experience the "poison." So as she tackled each painting, the associated poison reared its head in her life.

She started with Ratnasambhava, the Dhyani Buddha who is the essence of generosity, the antidote for pride.

"When I started this one, every money issue and attitude I had about being better than' or worse than' came up," Bredin-Price said, adding that both "better than" and "worse than" are equally obstructive to spiritual progress. "And I was thinking, "And there are eight more to go!"

But as each obstruction was raised to consciousness, so ultimately came the antidote. In the case of pride, "It was getting to the root of it that there's plenty for you," Bredin-Price said.

Along the way there were many surprises. When she started on Amoghasiddhi, the antidote to jealousy, she said she was just in the process of thinking she really didn't have any green-monster issues, when the phone rang. The call stirred up a perfect storm of And so it went, through the poisons of ignorance, greed/lust, and hatred/anger (when the name Karl Rove came up repeatedly, she said). On the off chance that there is a residue of poison left on the paintings, Bredin-Price is having them blessed by a Buddhist teacher before hanging them at the gallery, "So whatever gunk I left on them will be gone," she said.

What will be left are 10 large and beautiful portraits - 43- by 63-inches - in gouache on paper with collage elements. There's a family resemblance among the images. All are rendered in the same size, seated on a celestial throne in full-lotus position. But each dyad is painted in its associated color - white, blue, red, green or yellow - with the backgrounds, borders, accents and hand gestures reflecting the specific compass direction, element and symbols associated with the dyad.

Tacked up on the wall in Bredin-Price's home is a quote from Tibetan Buddhist teacher Tarthang Tulku that reads: "We have all inherited a treasury of vast knowledge, but we must find a pathway to it. Beauty is one path to this treasure."

As the artist told the Bulletin awhile back, "This is my gift to myself, but it's also my gift to you."

"The Dhyani Buddhas" opens with a reception Oct. 3, from 6 to 8:30 p.m., at the Jannotta Gallery gallery in the Brown Fine Arts Center at Smith College, and will be on view through Oct. 19. For more information on the artist and a gallery of her works, visit the Web site www.bredinprice.com.