Andolan

Andolan

आंदोलन

24" x 24"

Acrylic on Canvas

(completed mid-August, 2020)

Andolan (आंदोलन) is campaign, organization, movement, protest; it came from our chakra series at Kundalini yoga.

I was really buoyant as we worked on our third chakra, the Manipura (मणिपूर). The Manipura (literally, city of jewels in Sanskrit) chakra is the center of desire (इच्छा शक्ति), of personal power, of dynamism. The Manipura taps into our elemental fire, and meditation on the Manipura can have the power to save, change, destroy the world.

The idea of movement, power, organization is very on the nose this campaign season. I found myself navel-gazing (haha, chakra pun!) on the idea of identity, complexity, democracy.

And on the idea of idealism, perfection, the chaos of democracy. Some background: a few weeks ago, in an attempt to scold my child, I accidentally bonked my head quite hard on a stained glass butterfly and sustained a minor concussion. Yes, I know karma is on her side, and yes, it is hilarious that I was floored by a glass butterfly.

I kept painting this piece ignorant that my vision was blurry af. After a visit to the oncologist, (and corrective lenses) I stared at this piece. I was horrified by the blurred lines, judgmental of the asymmetrical layering. And then, I was amused. Then pleased. And curious. I found myself trying to recreate the chaos of my flawed perspective. In meditation, I sat with my need for "perfection", my unrelenting desire to meet my internal quality control, my arbitrary lines of serious work. I kept going, and mixing, and playing.

This piece evolved in color, in layer, in texture, in play. It became about the charm of imperfection and complexity, about self-love, and humor, and support. It evolved into pure joy.