Showing posts with label Sikkim. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sikkim. Show all posts

Monday, 21 April 2014

Free College Night: Himalayan Buddhism

Ashley Wells, Seth Auberon, Wisdom Quarterly; Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena
Buddhist prayer flags flutter in the Himalayas (Bhakti Omwoods/facebook.com)


College Night is an evening at the Museum just for college students. 

Meet the curators, attend tours, and listen to gallery talks with exclusive behind-the-scenes information about favorite paintings and sculptures. 

Learn about the 20-foot-tall Tibetan Buddhist silk thangka in the special exhibition In the Land of Snow: Buddhist Art of the Himalayas.

Lamayuru gompa, Ladakh (DT)
et inspired by the photography exhibition Face It: The Photographic Portrait, and then channel that inspiration as by drawing in the galleries and enjoying music, food, and drinks with fellow art lovers in the Museum’s sculpture garden.

Students receive 25% off all food for sale in the Garden Café. Visit the Norton Simon College Night page for more information.
  • Friday, April 25, 2014, 7-9:00 pm
  • Open House, FREE with valid college I.D.
  • Registration recommended but not required

Thursday, 10 April 2014

Land of Snow: Buddhist art of the Himalayas

Dhr. Seven and CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Norton Simon Museum of Art
The world-famous Norton Simon Museum of [Buddhist] Art, Pasadena, California
The road to the top of the world, be it K2 or Everest, is the path-of-practice (RTI/WQ)
   
In the Land of Snow: Buddhist Art of the Himalayas
Buddhist Goddess, 1450 Nepal (NS)
This is the Norton Simon's first large-scale exhibition of Himalayan Buddhist art.

It will bring together exceptional Indian [Ladakhi, Sikkim, HP], Nepalese, and Tibetan Buddhist sculptures along with significant thangka (wall hanging "flat field") paintings from throughout the Himalayan region from the Museum's permanent collection and generous loans.

Himalayas (MickeySuman/flickr)
One monumental thangka, which measures over 20 feet in height, depicts the "Buddha of the Future," Maitreya, flanked by the 8th [NOTE: We are currently at the 14th] Dalai Lama, Jamphel Gyatso, and his tutor, Yongtsin Yeshe Gyaltsen. This is only the second time this extraordinary painting has been on view at the Museum.

The exhibit runs from March 28-August 25, 2014, but three related events begin tomorrow (see below).

Himalayan Maitreya, the Buddha-to-come, Diskit, Ladakh, India (PaPa_KiLo/flickr.com)

 
1. MANDALA MAKING (Family Art Night)
Bhavacakra (thangka-mandala)
Date: Friday, April 11, 2014, 6:30 pm-7:30 pm

Mandalas are cosmic diagrams that help us understand how the universe is organized. Create a mandala of your world with yourself at the center, surrounded by the people and things that are important to you. Meets in Entrance Gallery (FREE with admission), designed for families with children ages 4–10. No reservations needed
Maitreya thangka, Tibet 1793 (NS)
Join a Norton Simon Museum educator for a one-hour tour of the exhibition "In the Land of Snow: Buddhist Art of the Himalayas." Meets in Entrance Gallery (FREE with admission). 

3. LECTURE: Enter the Mandala: Cosmic Centers and Mental Maps in Himalayan Buddhism, Saturday, April 19, 2014
Jeff Durham (Asian Art Museum of San Francisco) Mandalas are geometric maps of Vajrayana Buddhist visionary worlds. Appearing in both painting and sculpture, mandalas typically consist of nested squares and circles. These geometric forms define the center of the cosmos... 3:00-5:00 pm

Monday, 18 November 2013

Cleaning the Himalayas: Green Odyssey (film)

A chronicle of a spiritual journey and eco-compassion trek across the Himalayas to a glacial region devastated by global warming. U.N. honoree Gyalwang Drukpa leads the journey to trigger a green revolution. Opens Nov. 11/15, Laemmle's Music Hall 3 in Beverly Hills.
"Pad Yatra: A Green Odyssey" (trailer) directed by Wendy J.N. Lee, produced by Michelle Yeoh, narrated by Daryl Hannah. Premeires at the Awareness Fest 2013, Los Angeles
 
Pad Yatra: A Green Odyssey takes an environmentally-friendly adventure with 700 people trekking across the Himalayas with a call to save the planet's "third pole," a glacial region devastated by the climate chaos associated with global warming. Battling the most treacherous terrain on the planet, these trekkers spread their message of ecological compassion through a human's most basic means -- by walking on foot, cleaning from village to village, showing by example. Surviving harrowing injuries, illness, and starvation, they emerge with nearly half a ton of plastic litter strapped to their backs, triggering a historic "green revolution" across the rooftop of the world in Buddhist India's Himalayas.