[Update: The Shambhala Sun Foundation Auction is now closed and was a huge success! Thank you to everyone who donated, bid and shared.]
The Shambhala Sun Foundation auction is bursting with a full and diverse range of spectacular art. Some Buddhist, some secular. Some original, some in print form. Some tactile and some purely, magnificently visual. This image of Guanyin–the Buddhist deity of compassion–embodies “vajra pride – the powerful proclamation of self-existing enlightenment” in the eyes of Shambhala Sun art director Liza Matthews.
And when it comes to teachers, the auction contains art both by and about them. Thich Nhat Hanh is both artist and subject, the former as depicted in the “Breathe smile” calligraphy and the latter as the subject of this Don Farber photograph. The stylized rendering of the Dalai Lama by Gwenda Kaczor sets the tone for his 80th birthday in 2015, a celebration in itself!
Miya Ando belongs to a centuries-old lineage of swords Japanese sword smithing, and she brings that heritage into the her art. “Spectrum Light,” featured below, is made with dye on aluminum. The Shambhala Sun‘s Andrea Miller wrote in a profile of Ando, “In Ando’s panels, you can find clouds and light, but look again and you may see a field of nothingness. The emptiness, according to Ando, hints at the Buddhist concepts of no-self and non-duality, but her work is not didactic.”
Kimberly Poppe also works with perception. Her contemplative photographs look at familiar experiences with fresh eyes. Displayed on Mindy Moore’s Raku-fired platter is a stylized interpretation of a Japanese sun. The artists who contributed to the Shambhala Sun Foundation auction demonstrate spectacular inspiration and diversity. We encourage you to take a look.
