Last week, some tibetan monks were in residence in the Art & Music building next door. They were on campus for a theatrical performance and art presentation. I didn’t get to see the performance (opting to spend time with the new guy). But I did get to see the photo exhibit of tibet and the creation of a sand painting. The sand painting was amazing. It started on Monday with an opening ceremony which included chanting and music. Then they began work on the Mandala. After a careful layout, they began to lay in the sand. They would put some of the colored sand into long cones that had a serrated top edge. Then by rubbing a stick along the top edge they would get a trickle of sand to come out the tip. So grain by grain they built out from the center. It took them from Monday at 1pm until Thursday at 11am to complete it. They would work from 9-5 pretty much. At noon on Thursday they began the closing ceremony. After that they swept it up and put it in the creek behind the building. Don’t worry I took some pictures.

All that got me thinking, as maybe it was supposed to, about the impermanence of things. Many people remarked that the should keep the mandala or preserve it somehow. But the end of the work was decided at it’s beginning, that is part of it’s beauty. That made me feel better about my own work actually. I would get dissuaded sometimes working on a show. Because you spend 6-8 weeks working on something a that ultimately a couple hundred people see. And all that is left over are some photos and artifacts that have mostly sentimental value. However members of the art department use the same skills i do(painting, carpentry etc..) to create works that have more respect and a longer lasting value. But after this week I was able to accept it better. That theatre is not made to last forever, it’s made to last in a memory. As theatrical designer named Desmond Heely once said: “Theatre is like a poem written on water, it’s beauty lasts but a moment.”