Creating Mandalas

Mandala 2013. I have a new mandala project for 2013. I will create one mandala a month, reflecting my own neighborhood walk near Decatur, Georgia. A couple of times each week, I walk around the block where my house is. I circumambulate a moving mandala around my home. I am collecting things that catch my eye as I walk. The collection for each month will be used to create a mandala on a 14" x 14" piece of plywood. I am using leftover bits of house paint to prime the pieces of wood. I had holes drilled in the wood so I can attach things with wire, string,or who knows what. I pick up whatever catches my eye: natural, man made. Trash. Nothing gooey. I also allow myself to include a photo of something transitory in bloom or color. Like my cherry tree just bloomed in magenta. That had to be included in the February mandala. So far I haven't picked up any cigarette butts. Some kind of "yuck" factor that stops me. I have picked up pieces of wood, paper, shiny snack package bits, broken toilet pieces, pine cones, empty squashed beer and soda cans. I enjoy the paper that is made when the weekly newspaper gets wet in the rain, and people drive their cars over it coming and going from their drive ways. The resulting paper has interesting tire tread patterns stamped into it. At the end of the year, I will assemble all of these singular mandalas to create one large circle of 12 mandalas: a mandala of the year, or "Mandala 2013." I will invite people to come see it and walk my year by circling these mandalas arranged in a circle.