Category 5 Project Log

8.18.05 - 11.26.07

11.26.07
Columbia College
Chicago, IL
Diameter: 25 feet

Materials: acrylic paint and muslin strips. The mandala was painted by children from several Chicago Public Schools. The design was suggested by one of the students. Originally intended as an outdoor project, the mandala was painted on muslin indoors after several weather delays. The muslin will hang in the Columbia College Center for Community Arts Partnerships for one year and then be released.

99 visions of peace part 2

10.6.06
Promontory Point
Lake Michigan
Chicago, IL

Materials: 99 origami balloons inflated with 99 visions of peace, wire, full moon fire

99 visions of peace part 1
10.5.06
anti-war demonstration
Jackson Park
Chicago, IL

materials: 99 origami balloons folded from used paper.

At the “World Cant Wait” rally to drive out the Bush regime, we asked 99 people to inflate our balloons with their own vision of world peace.

poured mandala

8.3.06
East Race River
South Bend, IN

materials: corn meal, tobacco, red and green grapes, flower petals from Cushwa yard, pink rose petals.

An experiment in creating a mandala for the water.  We assembled the materials in 2 pitchers, as we would build a mandala. Anne reported experiencing “mandala feeling.”

7.14.06
Lunt Beach,
Chicago IL

materials: ash ground with water to make paint, a grove of lake-front trees.

Writen in ash, I AM THAT around each of 18 trees.  When reading around the trees the letters formed a continuous I AM THAT I AM THAT I AM THAT I AM.  Standing in the center of the trees, the text lines up around you in a continuous I am that I am that I am….  “I am that I am” is how the burning bush describes itself to Moses in exodus 3:14.

summer solstice

6.21.06: dawn
Pratt Beach, Chicago IL

materials: origami birds, hemp twine, oranges

We folded the origami and tethered them to the oranges with hemp rope.  The hemp was sewn directing into the flesh of the orange.  For sunrise we arranged the oranges and birds on the shore of Lake Michigan into a mandala.   Bird comets launched into lake, the oranges reflecting the rising sun.  Shortly after, a rainbow emerges.

group offering experiment
Anne Statton's birthday party.
Chicago, IL
materials: lots of origami balloons, folded from joss paper, wire, fire.

The balloons are inflated with wishes, intentions, hopes and prayers for Anne’s year and strung like beads on the wire.  They burn from the bottom up transforming our love-filled balloons to either.

flotilla
6.4.06
Pratt beach, Chicago, IL

materials: butcher paper boats, beet juice paint, cocoa powder, cornmeal, tomatoes, lama fur, lama fat, beets, beet seeds, rice, oats, ash, colored sugar, cake decorating gems, astromaria, fresh sage, chamomile, rosemary, candy.

We created this with our Chicago community to support a ceremony conducted simultaneously in Austria by don Oscar Miro Quasada.  The intention was to help heal the wound created by the colonization of the Americas.  We imagined a fleet of boats launched with love, built a mandala based on traditional American medicine wheel,  created a flotilla of paper boats, filled them with offerings from the new world and the old world, and launched them into lake Michigan. 

Solstice Mandala

12.20.05
Goshen, VT
Diameter: 15 feet

Materials: Snow, Candles

Festivus Mandala

12.10.05
New Orleans, LA, Magazine Street
Diameter: 12 feet

Materials: crushed soft pastels, water         

Participants: Category 5 artists, approximately 100 shoppers and vendors at the Crescent City Farmer’s Market’s annual Holiday Festivus

This mandala was a partnership with kid smARTs post-hurricane public art initative.

Labyrinth
12.16.05
KIPP New Orleans West School
Houston, TX
Diameter: 35 feet

Materials: Asphalt paint, shells from Lake Ponchartrain

New Orleans West is a school of evacuated New Orleans students and teachers.  New Orleans-based kid smART sent us to Houston to work with the children on transformational art. We made art in every class and introduced the labyrinth.  Outside on the playground we painted a 35-foot labyrinth for the children, our only permanent work.  We worked especially with the seventh graders and they created beautiful personal power symbols from the basic shapes around the labyrinth.  The power symbols traveled to Brooklyn NY to be part of Rotunda Gallery's in-school exhibition Re:Place.

The Children's Personal Power Symbols

12.3.05
Ogden Museum of Southern Art, Atrium
New Orleans, LA
Diameter: 9 feet

Materials:
Ash from ceremonial fires, Bougainvillea Flowers, Trumpet Flowers, Ginger leaves, Variegated Ginger leaves, Spanish Moss, Red Berries, Red Hibiscus flowers, pine needles, shells from lake Pontchartrain, cumquats: Gathered New Orleans, LA
Corn Meal, Confectioners Sugar, Red Beans, Rice, Coffee: purchased New Orleans, LA

Participants: Category 5 Artists, invited local artists, Museum-goers.

This mandala was a partnership with kid smARTs post-hurricane public art initative.

10.19.05
Jackson Square Park: the heart of the French Quarter
New Orleans, LA

4 mandalas diameter:6 feet each

South, Wheel of Fortune 

Materials:
Ash: Gathered from New Moon Fire, 11/2/05, New Orleans
Fossils: Donated by Miss Catherine, Shells: Gathered at Lake Pontchartrain, New Orleans,Corn Meal, Red Beans, Yams,Bougainvillea Flowers: Gathered from street in New Orleans
Spiny Seed Casings, Bark: Gathered at Jean Lafitte National Park
Pine Needles: Collected from Lakeview, New Orleans

West, Radiating Sun-Star

Materials:
Sticks: Found in street garbage in New Orleans
Shells: Gathered at Lake Pontchartrain
Three Orange Gerber Daisies, Flowering Grass: Donated
Algae: Gathered at Jean Lafitte National Park
Corn Meal: Purchased

North, Crescents

Materials:
Corn Meal, Red Cabbage: Purchased
Spanish Moss: Gathered at Jean Lafitte National Park Peacock Feathers, Pear: Donated
Banana Flowers, Banana Leaves: Gathered from Robbins’ Garden, New Orleans

East, Fleur de Lis

materials:
Banana Leaves: Gathered from Robbins’ Garden, New Orleans
Confectioner’s Sugar, Gummi Worms, Red Beans, Red Potatoes, Rice: Purchased
Dried Bamboo: Found in street garbage, New Orleans
Pine Needles: Collected from Lakeview, New Orleans
Little Red Spiky Flowers: Robbins’ Garden, New Orleans

Materials:
Ash, Pine needles, Wild Apples, Birch Bark, Pine Cones, Yellow Leaves Maple Leaves, red, black, yellow. Kix Cereal(Middlebury Dining Hall) Yams, Beets, Red Cabbage, Oyster Crackers, Organic Animal Crackers, Pumpkin Peeps Candy, Clam Shells

Crabtree Mandala

10.11.05
Goshen, Vermont
Diameter: 8 feet

Materials
Crabapple Tree, Wild Apples, Pine Needles, Pine Cones, Milkweed Pods, Leaves, Dried Aster, Corn Meal, Tobacco, Birch Bark, Fern Leaves

9.23.05
International Shamanic Gathering
Shelby, MI
Diameter: 10 feet

Materials brought by participants of the gathering.  Mandala laid out by the children's gathering and built by Category 5 artists and confrence attendees.

Materials:
Local Grains and Beans Purchased in Ica Mercado, Coca Leaves, Tobacco, Florida Water

Materials:
Three colors of potatoes, Blue Corn, Red Corn, Stones, Coca Leaves, Tobacco, Florida Water

8.25.05
Miraflores, Peru Diameter: 7 feet

Materials:
Miraflores Beach Stones,
White Beans, Psychedelic Marshmallows: Purchased Barranco, Peru

Anne’s Birthday Mandala

8.21.05
Quenko, Peru
Diameter: 4 feet.

Materials: corn, oats, herbs and flowers from the Cusco mercado. 

This mandala was planned and built in silence.

8.19.05
Hostel Rupa Wasi, Aguas Calentes, Peru

Materials:
Ash and shell from previous burnt offering: despacho created by Don Benito
Rice, Gapes, Blue Corn: Purchased Mercado, Aguas Calientes, Peru
Flowers: Gathered at Hostel Rupa Wasi

Mandala #1
8.18.05
Garden at the base of Machu Picchu
Diameter: aprox. 5 feet.

Materials: flower petals, stones.