Last month, at the AMR open studios tour, I debuted my new art series, The Catskills Mandala. Inspired by many aspects of Catskills living – foraging, hiking, farming and working – it has been eight months in development. I spent the winter painting birds, trees, leaves, soil, rocks, seedlings, nuts, and mushrooms in watercolor and then wondering how to arrange them on the page. Sounds boring, I hear you say, but Catskills winters are long and it’s all we think about all year (especially during our two-month-long summers). What are we going to do over winter besides work? Only the boldest of us dare to even drive after nightfall in the darkest months.

Visitors to the studio in July saw all the prep work and the development that went into the project. Before I got to the idea of a mandala, I had arranged all the different images in different kinds of grids and waves before I settled on a circular arrangement. The mandala pictured above was the first successful practice run and one larger version that is 18 x 20 (pictured bottom).

Mandalas appear in every culture across the world, and the world of my ancestors, The Celts, who also loved their knots and spirals, but these ancient mandalas were tight and organized. My Catskills mandalas are loose and disorganized – a bit like me. They contain everything I have foraged, eaten, drunk, grown, and been bitten by, together with lines of text added. In new ones, I will introduce critters, and equipment like tractors, and perhaps even some people. All the mandalas are bordered with my rendering of hemlock branches so they can fit in a square frame.

The practice has been meditative, calming and focusing for me since I settled on the mandala shape and it has been a constant form of reliable stress relief. Each one takes at least a week to complete once the design has been decided.

Classes will be coming in late autumn. If you would like to sign up, follow my Instagram account for updates, or post a request in the comments section.

Upstate Dispatch Studio, Upstairs at the Commons Building, 785 Main Street, 2nd Floor, Margaretville, NY 12455.