Padma
Posted by J. Quigley in China, Hedda Morrison, Hedda Morrison, Life, Lotus Flower, Peace, Photography, poems, Thich Nhat Hanh, Zen on May 30, 2013
Lotus pond, China
Author: Hedda Morrison (German, 1908-1991)
Date: ca. 1933-46
Hedda Morrison studied photography in her native Germany, and from 1933 to 1938 managed Hartung’s Photo Shop in Beijing. From 1938 until she and her husband left China in 1946, Morrison worked as a freelance photographer, selling individual prints or thematic albums of her work and creating photographs for other people’s books on China.
Above is a photo of a man sitting idly with two children in the winter sun. It reveals more information than it seems:
“The empty wicker basket suggests that this old man and children are probably from a village outside Peking and have come into the city to trade. On the wall behind the children is a graffiti scrawl written in chalk which represents a play upon the opening words of the Thousand Character Classic (Qianziwen), which refers to the creation of the universe.”
The children in the baskets resemble the growth of the lotus flower, it’s roots in the earth rising through the water and nourished by the air…beautiful PADMA! – j. quigley
PADMAPANIFlowers in the sky.Flowers on Earth.Lotuses bloom as Buddha’s eyelids.Lotuses bloom in man’s heart.Holding gracefully a lotus in his hand,the bodhisattva brings forth a universe of art.In the meadows of the sky, stars have sprung up.The smiling, fresh moon is already up.The jade-colored trunk of a coconut treereaches across the late-night sky.My mind, traveling in utmost emptiness,catches suchness on its way home.1976
by Thich Nhat Hanh (1929 -
…from Call Me by My True Names: The Collected Poems of Thich Nhat Hanh by Thich Nhat Hanh
![Thich Nhat Hanh, Thich Nhat Hanh poetry, Buddhist, Buddhist poetry, Zen / Chan poetry, [TRADITION SUB2] poetry, poetry](http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/H/HanhThichNha/images/HanhThich_sm.jpg)
Time to Create
Posted by J. Quigley in 20th Century, Culture, feminism, Mary Oliver, Poetry, quotes on March 27, 2013
Mary Oliver
“The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.”
To write to your heart’s content….paint till you drop…play music obsessively…whichever you even have the tiniest spark to do, just start. We can surprise ourselves and find out things about ourselves we never realized we could do, just because we started! - JQ
“You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves. [...]
The world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.”
Never Give Up
Posted by J. Quigley in Japanese Proverbs, Life, Perseverance on February 9, 2013
Nana korobi ya oki (七転び八起き) is a Japanese proverb that means, “seven times down, eight times up.”
nana (七) = 7
korobi (転び) = fall down
ya (八) = 8
oki (起き) = get up
It is a saying about perseverance and not giving up no matter how many times you are knocked down. I’ve seen this proverb associated with the Japanese…
Hiroyuki Hamada: Sculptor
Posted by J. Quigley in 21st Century, 21st Century, art, Form, japanese art, sculpture, Zen on January 25, 2013
I always get excited when I find an artist whose work I want to follow. Hiroyuki is one of them. Richard Gailbraith wrote an article: Japan:Creative – Introduction, on CEMENTUM in August 2012, in which he included a statement of Hiroyuki’s work. I cannot say it better then him, that Hiroyuki’s work “oozed sci-fi whilst retaining an intrinsic ‘Japaneseness’ about it. It connotes to me Zen gardens and the post apocalypse at the same time.” Jeff Hamada, from Booooooom, ’randomly came across Hiroyuki Hamada’s work, following a link from Newstoday.’ He shares the same name but in terms of immediate family they are completely unrelated. After seeing his amazing work he thought it would be fun to contact Hiroyuki and see if he would allow him to interview him, I mean how could he say no to family?
Waters of Life
Posted by J. Quigley in 20th Century, 21st Century, art, China, Dalai Lama, great thinkers, Life, Peace, quotes on January 2, 2013
Utagawa Kuniyoshi スクナビコナ
“We can reject everything else: religion, ideology, all received wisdom. But we cannot escape the necessity of love and compassion…This, then, is my true religion, my simple faith. In this sense, there is no need for temple or church, for mosque or synagogue, no need for complicated philosophy, doctrine or dogma. Our own heart, our own mind, is the temple. The doctrine is compassion. Love for others and respect for their rights and dignity, no matter who or what they are: ultimately these are all we need. So long as we practice these in our daily lives, then no matter if we are learned or unlearned, whether we believe in Buddha or God, or follow some other religion or none at all, as long as we have compassion for others and conduct ourselves with restraint out of a sense of responsibility, there is no doubt we will be happy.”
Jean Michel Basquiat
Posted by J. Quigley in 20th Century, American Expressionism, American Expressionism, art, paintings on November 13, 2012
“I start a picture and I finish it. I don’t think about art while I work. I try to think about life.”
- Jean Michel Basquiat
Happy Birthday Mark Rothko!
Posted by J. Quigley in 20th Century, abstract expressionism, art, paintings, People on September 30, 2012
Happy Birthday Mark Rothko!
September 25, 1903“I’m not an abstractionist. I’m not interested in the relationship of color or form or anything else. I’m interested only in expressing basic human emotions: tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on.”
Bottom: No. 61 (Rust and Blue), 1953, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Source: robertwash
