10 – 11:30am – ZenArtSpin – Fall Dharma Study

Fall Dharma Study

Oct 23-Nov 20 2021

Register at Bottom of the Page Below

ZenArtSpin: Exploring Zen aesthetics and themes in contemporary arts.

What might a contemporary Western Zen aesthetic be? What are some principles that hold true for both traditional and modern Zen art?  – Genko Kathy Blackman

In a sense life is art. – D.T. Suzuki

Join us on this five week journey of applying your Zen practice to understanding how art has intertwined with Zen through time and across cultures.

Together we’ll examine the Zen principles embodied in various arts, both in their traditional forms and in the ways they have emerged in modern Western art.  Participants can join in – creating their own art embodying Zen principles. You don’t have to be an artist to create art. Stimulating, hands-on, and fun.

A five week course of consecutive Saturdays 10-11:30am PST: Oct 23, Oct 30, Nov 6,  Nov 13, and Nov 20.  All on Zoom.

Oct 23: Introduction:  Background lecture and guest Tom DeGroot, a contemporary Seattle artist and Zen student.  Artists and class participants join in a panel discussion.

Oct 30: Drawing, painting, calligraphy.  A background lecture will be followed by artist and teacher Gail Labinski, who will discuss Frederick Franck’s book The Zen of Seeing: Seeing/Drawing as Meditation, and lead a participatory drawing workshop.

Nov 6:  The Art of Chado (the way of tea).   Sokan Chris Ezzell will explore the origins of wabicha (a style of the Japanese tea ceremony) and its relationship to Zen.  He’ll show examples of how principles of the tea ceremony are being expressed in contemporary tea-houses  in the West. Participants can join a panel of tea practitioners in discussion.

Nov 13:  Wabi-sabi.  Alex Echevarria, a ceramic artist and owner of the WabiSabi Studios, discusses the philosophy of wabi-sabi (embracing the imperfect, the impermanent, and the incomplete) and its Zen-ness.  He will illustrate  with examples from Japanese culture and in the contemporary West. Under Alex’s guidance, the class will experience wabi-sabi first hand.

Nov 20:  Music/sound.  Christian Meaas Svendsen will join us from the Rinzai Zen-Senter in Oslo, exploring first some traditional ways music/sound has figured in Zen practice, and then share examples of modern musicians influenced by Zen, including a performance of his own music.

In this final class, participants can share Zen-influenced art they have created during the five weeks

All classes will be on Zoom only.  Registration is required. Register at the links below. Costs are for the five week series. 

• Members $60 – Register Here

• Non-members $75 – Register Here

Suggested texts:

• The Zen of Seeing: Seeing/Drawing As Meditation, by Frederick Franck
• Wind in the Pines: Classic Writings of the Way of Tea as a Buddhist Path (complied and edited by Dennis Hirota)
• Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees. by Lawrence Weschler