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Meditative Mandalas (Chakras too!)

posted by Jean Kim at 2:30 pm.

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I love cafés. The first time I ever fell in love with cafés was probably on my high school trip to France where we lunched at outdoor cafés nearly everyday. I can’t get enough of being able to just sit for hours and people watch, draw, peck away at my laptop, or just enjoy a snack (or all of the above).

The icing on the cake, though, is probably when a local artist displays his or her work at the café - which is exactly what was going on at Aroma Café a couple nights ago. The bright and cheery interior of Aroma was further beautified by the mesmerizing colors and circular designs of Evelyne Tardy. Hers was a series of mandalas. Mandala is the Sanskrit word for “circle,” and it can also mean “whole,” “center,” or “self.”

See for yourself:

Tardy says she started creating mandalas spontaneously in 1993. About seven years later, she began to create them purposefully with specific symbols and colors to promote positive feelings and healing attributes. This series (up at Aroma) contains her interpretations of the seven chakras.

Personally, I have a bit of an aversion to bright colors. We just don’t get along. I’m more a fan of muted colors, darker ones too - but something about the circular patterns of these mandalas attracted me. And if you sit and gaze at one, they really do sort of mesmerize and calm you down.

I got to sit down her Tardy and talk to her about her series, and ask her some questions from the Proust questionnaire (my favorite!)

Evelyne Tardy

Age: 36 in August

Hometown: Chicago

Schools/degrees: B.S. in Fine Arts from Columbia College in Chicago, and M.S. in Art Education and Art Therapy from Illinois State University

How long have you been an artist/creating art? Probably since I was seven.

Tell me about these pieces. Well, I guess a brief summary would be they’re all mandalas, which is my true passion of art. It really inspires me. I mean, I’ve done lots of different types of art. I make stained glass, I do jewelry, um, fine art – I used to do figure painting a lot. I still do sometimes, but I find that mandalas combine my spirituality with my artistic skills and vision and that’s what motivates me.

It’s actually funny – I was here the other night and I’m just beginning to research the spirituality of yoga and the aum sign, and I thought, “This is perfect!” So, is this your first collection? This is actually my first series of mandalas.

Do you have a favorite medium? Acrylic. These are all acrylic paints. I do use oil sometimes, I haven’t for mandalas yet though. I might move into oils in a little bit and I want to start creating mandalas in stained glass too.

Yeah, that’d be great. So, how do you…well, I always wonder how artists go about choosing what medium they’ll use. The reason why I think I’m working with acrylics lately is because it does dry faster. I feel like…um, I like the matte finish. I’m concentrating a lot on the color…somewhat with the brush stroke…I guess just the fast-drying aspect of it. Oil painting can give you some brilliant colors too. The time aspect of it right now, and the practicality of it because when you use oil paints you have a lot more toxic materials out and I have two cats and so on. And in my tiny little apartment with those huge canvases…

How long does it take for oil paints to dry? I know it depends on color… It depends on color and the weather, sometimes a week? I do teach oil painting in my classroom and sometimes oil paintings dry over the weekend, and sometimes it takes a week or two. So it depends on how much turpentine and so forth.

This is a question I’m trying to personally answer for myself, and I always have asked it to other artists to help myself out. So, what do you think makes certain pieces or artists “good,” or worth your while to study, or see, etc…? That is a very good question, one that I always try to teach my students too. Um, I guess it depends on what you think art is and what the purpose of art is because there are so many theories out there. To me, when you look at something and it settles right with you, then that makes it worthwhile – if it speaks to you. And that’s a very broad answer, but art can take so many different forms. It can be conceptual or maybe an artist is a realist, so it’s going to depend on how realistically they depicted the image, does it look like a photograph? Or is it more emotional-based? In my art, my mandalas, it’s more about creating the kaleidoscope image so that it makes people go, “Ooh! That’s cool!” But there’s also meaning behind it too, there’s the symbolism and the color combinations. Two of my favorite artists are Georgia O’Keefe and Mark Rothko, both for their use of shapes and color, especially Mark Rothko because all he did was use color. A lot of people argue that it’s not art and why is he famous, but I love it, I love it. There’s definitely a psychological and emotional aspect to it.

What do you personally get out of creating your art and/or teaching art? Well, arts my life. And I think it can teach you so much about yourself and others and different cultures, community. Personally, I don’t think I can live without it. I’ve learned so much about myself through it and, personally, I don’t want to lead a life where I’m not helping others so teaching is important to me because I get to work with kids, I get to work with community, I get to help them grow, and arts is another strong avenue where I can help them learn about themselves. And I think my paintings, my mandalas, I’ve learned a lot about myself through them. And I also think that convey that feeling as well, or just more about yourself. Like, if you’re attracted to a certain image, then why? Like with the chakras, if you have a certain illness or something’s out of balance then you can bring that color into your life, whether it’s through painting or the clothes you wear…or something like that.

Any mentors? Dr. Fischer, a professor at ISU, she helped me grow a lot. She is a good teacher. I owe a lot to her for where I am today. My family, my students. That’s all that’s coming to mind right now.

What do you do other than create your art? You mentioned you were a teacher? Yeah, I teach at Iroquois West High School in Gilman, IL.

Could you comment on the CU as an art community? In terms of the visual arts, I don’t see any cons, really. That’s why I love living here so much because coming from Chicago where you’re constantly surrounded by wonderful artists. It was an initial shock for me to move to a smaller town (Bloomington-Normal, IL) and the culture scene there was nice, and then I got the job which is why I moved to Champaign, which is the reason why I love it. I think it’s a strong cultural community and the visual arts are supported, as well as the performing arts. I never feel like there’s a dull moment. So, I think it’s very strong here.

Now for the fun part! Some Proust questionnaire questions…

Favorite quality in a man? Humbleness. A woman? The same.

Your chief characteristic? Patience

Your idea of happiness and misery? There’s a seed of it in both, I think letting go of the ego can result in happiness.

Greatest fear? Of losing my goal towards happiness.

Trait you deplore about yourself and others? Deceit. I always try to remain a truthful person in all circumstances, so if I were ever in a situation where I wasn’t truthful, then I’d deplore that about myself.

Greatest love of your life? Romantic, are we talking about? Well, it’s a very open-ended question. Well, art!

Greatest achievement? Becoming a teacher. When did that happen? Well, my first public teaching job? 4 years ago. I taught pre-school for 4 years after I got my fine arts degree.

Your most treasured possession? My family.

Where would you like to live? Right here.

Future plans? One other series I have in mind is what I call my Italy series. It’s completely different from my mendalas. I went to Italy last summer and was very inspired by it. It’s going to be realistic, mostly.

So, are we talking landscapes here? Some landscapes, a few portraits.

Tardy is working on website and plans for it to be up mid-fall.

Like what you see? Contact Evelyne Tardy for more information or to purchase her work at evelynetardy@yahoo.com

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