Meditation book. With the Thought of (Peace, Joy, Love, Compassion)

Watercolor on 300 lb Arches CP paper
12" x 12" pages, 14 pages
Accordion fold

Meditation book. With the Thought of (Peace, Joy, Love, Compassion)

Cloth, printing, resin, sewing
12" x 12" pages, 14 pages
Accordion fold

Reflections of Paris

Response Book
Faculty and students of CSUCI at
Paris American Academy
Summer 2008
Mixed media

5" x 7" each, 17 pages

Artist:  Beverly Decker & Natalie Becker

First piece BD, second NB, third BD, fourth NB, fifth BD, sixth NB, seventh BD

Title:  Petrified #1  - 1. To convert into stone or a stony substance.  2.  To make rigid, stiffen, or benumb; deaden; make inert.  3.  To stupefy or paralyze with astonishment, horror, or other strong emotion.  4.  To become petrified. 

This piece is collaboration between Natalie Becker, a New York artist living in Manhattan, and myself, Beverly Decker.  We started this piece after the events of 9/11/01. We were corresponding by email and decided to do response paintings with each other as a way of processing the horrific event that Natalie had personally witnessed. 

This work was started by myself and then mailed to Natalie.  She sent back some of the rubble from the World Trade Center as the medium for her response.  I in turn responded to her piece and so on.  Ending with the rays of light.  I caste all seven pieces in resin, petrified.

Medium:  Mixed Media (digital, photography, watercolor, drawing, resin, rubble)

Mixed Media: Watercolor, drawing, photography, digital, dremel, 300 lb. CP Arches, resin.

6” x 8” each, 21 pieces.

Images of compassion taken from Newspapers:  an Afghanistan father holding his dead child, a father caring a child from the World Trade Center, a Afghanistan women praying, an American women praying ….

Mixed Media (photography, dremel, drawing, watercolor, resin) 300 lb. CP Arches.

6” x 7” each, 41 pieces

Images of compassion taken from Newspapers:  an Afghanistan father holding his dead child, a father caring a child from the World Trade Center, a Afghanistan women praying, an American women praying ….

Mixed Media (photography, dremel, drawing, watercolor, resin) 300 lb. CP Arches.

6” x 7” each, 41 pieces

Watercolor, 300 lb. CP Arches

8” x 7.5” each, 12 pieces

Watercolor, 300 lb. CP Arches

8” x 7.5” each, 12 pieces

Mixed Media: Watercolor, drawing, photography, digital, dremel, 300 lb. CP Arches, resin.

11” x 15” each, 8 pieces.

Watercolor, clay board, canvas.

8” x 10” each, 10 pages

Nest

Abstract studies of nests. 

Watercolor, dremel, thread, 300 lb. CP Arches.

11” x 7”, 20 pages

Left to Right, Self Portrait

Watercolor, clay board, canvas.

8” x 10” each, 10 pages

Small drawings of people, surfers, campers, animals in the community of San Miguel, Mexico.

Watercolor, ink, wood box, 300 lb. CP Arches.

2” x 3” each, 100 pieces

Thread cover make while reciting the Buddhist prayer, “With the thought of peace let me contemplate the world…. Then love, then compassion, then joy…”

With the thought of peace let me contemplate the world.  And may this peace extend to its four horizons.  And then with the thought of peace increasing beyond measure, let me encompass the whole universe up to its confines.

With the thought of compassion let me contemplate the world.  And may this peace extend to its four horizons.  And then with the thought of peace increasing beyond measure, let me encompass the whole universe up to its confines.

With the thought of joy let me contemplate the world.  And may this peace extend to its four horizons.  And then with the thought of peace increasing beyond measure, let me encompass the whole universe up to its confines.

With the thought of love let me contemplate the world.  And may this peace extend to its four horizons.  And then with the thought of peace increasing beyond measure, let me encompass the whole universe up to its confines.

 Sew, cut, and tie.  Interior of book has different mantras written with a dremel and illustrated with abstract watercolor paintings. 

300 lb. CP Arches, resin, dremel, watercolor, thread, clothe, stitches, wax, wet suit material.

Altered text, gold paint, wax, box, and resin.

7” x 10”

With the thought of peace let me contemplate the world.  And may this peace extend to its four horizons.  And then with the thought of peace increasing beyond measure, let me encompass the whole universe up to its confines.

Mixed Media, digital, cloth, resin.

Commuter Peace

Photographs that I took with my digital camera while commuting to my three teaching jobs inspired this piece.  I am concerned about peace in the world and realize that my use of gasoline contributes to the problem. 

Media: Acrylic

36 pieces, 5"x7" each

Contemporary Bodhisattvas

‘With the thought of peace let me contemplate the world.  And may this peace extend to its four horizons.  And then with the thought of peace increasing beyond measure, let me encompass the whole universe up to its confines.’

‘With the thought of love let me contemplate the world.  And may this love extend to its four horizons.  And then with the thought of love increasing beyond measure, let me encompass the whole universe up to its confines.’

‘With the thought of joy let me contemplate the world.  And may this joy extend to its four horizons.  And then with the thought of joy increasing beyond measure, let me encompass the whole universe up to its confines.’

‘With the thought of compassion let me contemplate the world.  And may this compassion extend to its four horizons.  And then with the thought of compassion increasing beyond measure, let me encompass the whole universe up to its confines.’

Media: Watercolor on clay board

With the thought of peace let me contemplate the world.

Images (reading from the top left, left to right): 

Kathe Kollwitz, Pir Vilayat Inayat khan, Ansel Kiefer, Carl Jung, Piet Mondrian, Helen Caldicott, Wassily Kandinsky, Dali Lama, Joseph Campbell, Gandi

Media:  Watercolor on canvas

With the thought of peace let me contemplate the world.

Images (reading from the top left, left to right): 

Shahabuddin Less, Shirin Ebadi, Jahannes Itten, Mother Teresa, Rauschenberg, Corita Kent, Nelson Mandela, Bill Moyer, Thick Nhat Hanh, Martin Luther King

Media:  Watercolor on canvas

Peace. Three black bookshelves with art. Description below.

With the thought of peace let me contemplate the world.’

Displayed with two of the three series of portraits and some of the 3D pieces. 

Images (reading from the top left, left to right): 

Shahabuddin Less, Shirin Ebadi, Jahannes Itten, Mother Teresa, Rauschenberg, Corita Kent, Nelson Mandela, Bill Moyer, Thick Nhat Hanh, Martin Luther King

Kathe Kollwitz, Pir Vilayat Inayat khan, Ansel Kiefer, Carl Jung, Piet Mondrian, Helen Caldicott, Wassily Kandinsky, Dali Lama, Joseph Campbell, Gandi

Media:  Watercolor on canvas

Preserved and fractured images from newspapers documenting the Peace Movement 2003, drawn on and encircled with the words ‘peace and compassion’.  More then 10,000,000 people, on five continents demonstrated against the war in Iraq. 

Mixed Media (photography, drawing, dremel, watercolor, resin) 300 lb. Arches.

Three black bookshelves. Close up photograph.

8” x 11” each, 74 pieces

With the Thought of Compassion

Petrified War Secrets.

2005

Digital photographs and resin