Mantra Art

Meditative images made out of thousands of handwritten mantra that inspire the Sikh concept of Oneness. Accompanied by the author's insights regarding her own persional developement.

A presentation on the Tibetan Buddhist path to enlightenment, through the lens of an artist's eye and experience. The sacred arts play an essential, intrinsic role in Tibetan Buddhist practice. Here, one of the great practitioners and master artists of our time presents a guide to the Tibetan Buddhist path, from preliminary practices through enlightenment, from the artist's perspective. With profound wisdom, he shows how visual representations of the sacred in paintings, sculptures, mandalas, and stupas can be an essential support to practice throughout the path. This work, based on the author's landmark Tibetan text, The Path to Liberation, includes basic Buddhist teachings and practices, clearly pointing out the relevance of these for both the sacred artist and the practitioner, along with an overview of the history and iconography of Buddhist art.

The Chandogya Upanisad: The culture it reflects is remote and archaic, the texture of its ritualistic and contemplative symbolism thick and dense-virtually a closed book for us moderns. A sustained self-submitting attentiveness, however, discloses its language as resonating disturbingly modern notes, focusing our attention on many of our pathologies as well as our possibilities, pathologies and possibilities that have escaped the notice of us moderns. The spirit of quiet hermeneutics that characterizes this study illumines many an opaque spot in this text, solves many an interpretive puzzle, turns many of its 'archaic naivetes' into living and compelling profundities. We are made to realize that what some moderns call Gestell is far more primordial than they would envisage it to be, far more ominous and primitive, tragic and persistent. A radical transformation is required, an ontological transformation. Not mere 'a masterly exposition' of an ancient text is, therefore, this study, but 'an authentic springboard for fresh philosophical thinking fecundating (the) two shores of the human experience: East and West'. The first three (published) Vols. are on (i) Isa, Kena, Katha and Prasna Upanisads; (ii) Mundaka and Mandukya Upanisad with Gaudapada Karika; (iii) Taittiriya and Aitareya Upanisads.

Susan Makin has written a resource for art therapists working with patients or clients who find the concept of spontaneous artmaking daunting, and feel more comfortable with a structured framework. This book consists of a series of directives for group and individual activities, with guidance on each directive and ideas for further development.

Despite the mindset of present-day science, the very constitution of the human being contains capacities for unveiling causality, intention and purpose concealed in nature and the cosmos. Soaring from its foundations in the Hermetic arts, Mantras and Musical Solutions sustains a far-reaching course for unveiling and evolving matter through heightening perception and transforming intent. By extraordinary penetration into metabolic, rhythmic and supra-conscious motives within substance and psyche, Mantras and Musical Solutions aims to activate imagination as it meets matter in an ontological laboratory of higher purpose.

This unparalleled and wide-ranging book surveys the history of applied arts and industrial design from the eighteenth century to the present day, exploring the dynamic relationship between design and manufacturing, and the technological, social and commercial contexts in which this relationship has developed. In this extensively revised and expanded third edition, David Raizman addresses international questions more fully with the addition of six Global Inspiration sections that examine the contributions of non-Western traditions, rendering the very notion of a 'national' design debatable. The text also pays closer attention to issues of gender, race, and climate change, and their impact on design. With over 580 illustrations, mostly in colour, History of Modern Design is an inclusive, well-balanced introduction to a field of increasing scholarly and interdisciplinary research, and provides students in design with historical perspectives of their chosen fields of study.

Religion and Contemporary Art sets the theoretical frameworks and interpretive strategies for exploring the re-emergence of religion in the making, exhibiting, and discussion of contemporary art. Featuring essays from both established and emerging scholars, critics, and artists, the book reflects on what might be termed an "accord" between contemporary art and religion. It explores the common strategies contemporary artists employ in the interface between religion and contemporary art practice. It also includes case studies to provide more in-depth treatments of specific artists grappling with themes such as ritual, abstraction, mythology, the body, popular culture, science, liturgy, and social justice, among other themes. It is a must-read resource for working artists, critics, and scholars in this field, and an invitation to new voices "curious" about its promises and possibilities.