2015 Auction Project: Part 1

Prayer Wheel at Medicine Buddha in Soquel, CA.

It's that time of year again! Time for creating a piece of collaborative art! This year I am again working with students at Tara Redwood School, though my son is no longer there. It has been a cherished annual project for many years now and I wasn't quite ready to give it up. This year I will be building a prayer wheel with the kids. It hasn't been an easy project to find how-to's on. Someone gave me a book with a few technical details on the proper mantras and prayers and which way to wind the prayers on the inside and exactly what mandalas to place inside...but it's a wide-open design project, aside from those few details. Ours is a good-sized table-top version, the drum part will be about 12" tall, and the over-all dimensions about 20" - but I'm getting ahead of myself here.

My plan is to have two students per row, six high (we've got 11 students, plus the teacher).  I will transfer their designs to copper foil and adhere them to the cylinder, which is an 8" cement forming tube (very heavy duty cardboard). I'm planning on using a lazy susan bearing set for the spinning action which I ordered from Amazon. The base is going to be an upside-down wooden bowl - found at Goodwill - that will have the children's designs on it. I plan on being the painter once they sketch the designs onto the bowl.

I think the secret to making a great, quality auction piece with a group of children is to know what part of the project to let the kids do and which part I should do. This year the part the kids are doing is mostly the drawing/design part. I will take their designs and implement them on the final piece, and of course I'll be doing the assembly. That way you get the spirit of the kid's work and tidiness of an experienced artist or maker.

Stay tuned for my own how-to on building a prayer wheel! Our auction is at the end of February, so it's going to be a high-speed project for me.