My recent interest in a form of Tantric painting inspired me to borrow the Lingam[1] motif as a way to create a single body of work with an infinite number of possible variations. Its oval form, a Hindu symbol of fecundity, is a creative as well as a meditative vehicle. With a Western, secular eye to formalism however, its simple geometric shape is also both a mirror and a void, a reflection of the world and a window into the unknown.

In Hindu culture, Tantric paintings of the Lingam are also infinite in their variety of expression. Unlike Western art however, they are not created and signed by an “artist.” They are humble objects made anonymously, often on used paper, and tacked up on the walls of homes as a focus for meditation. My own works on paper of the Lingam assume a similar modesty. They are small and made daily as a way of starting my day.