Creating Mindfully, Links

  Well it is almost three years that I am blogging. Initially it was one entry a month….and it would take me almost a whole month to write it. I have always thought that my means of expression is only visual and that words have no room in this visual...

Sumi-e With Words

Back to my Sumi-e painting class. I find through teaching, out of necessity, I find ways of making the inquisitive Western minds relate and let go of the habitual ways of seeing and creating. This is the space where Eastern and Western concepts merge…… So...

Eastern Art, Western Mind

  I remember when I was a student learning Sumi-e. Having former education in Fine Arts; Western approach, aesthetics and of course the mentality, I was eager to understand, to figure out things and had many questions. My Japanese teacher’s (Tomoko Kodama)...

Seeing with the Senses

There is a cup, a simple cup on the table with a single flower in it. You are holding a brush in your hand, you are looking at the flower, you are to paint it. First thing comes to mind “flower” and like a filing cabinet, in your mind, you are trying to establish...

The Breathing Brush

Here I am in front of my students, teaching Sumi-e painting. They are attentively looking at me with their brush in their hands. I explain to them how to hold it, how to feel that brush as part of their body, how to feel the breath down into their belly ( dantian,...