Our glass mandala class with meditation and qigong was a great success. Nancy Weisser and I taught this four-day class at Weisser Studios from February 16-19. We had students with little to no experience and very seasoned glass artists.
Each student selected a soul card, and then sessions began and ended with a meditation or qigong movement. After a slide presentation on the history of mandalas, for the glass, we started making triangle pattern bars and sliced them into 1/4 inch strips after firing; we pulled murrini cane from vitrograph kilns and then chopped it into 3/8 inch slices. Then everyone designed the backbone of the mandala with the pattern bar slices, creating eight pointed stars or other sacred geometry shapes, filling in with murrini.
Everyone made beautiful mandalas, and had a heartwarming discussion of the insights from the soul cards, the mandala, and the beauty and comfort of connecting with other like-minded souls.