My name is Chase S. Bowman. I'm an "artist" living in Columbus, Ohio. This is a project where I will be drawing one Buddha a day for one year.
The project is simple: I will draw The Buddha one time each day. The drawing can take no longer than 10-30 minutes, although I'm not a stickler for this rule. All mistakes, missteps, poor drawing choices, and screw-ups must be left in and presented to the public. That's about it.
Why am I doing this? Well, I've had a hard couple of years, to be honest. Not like living-in-a-war-zone hard, but hard for me. I won't go into it, but I've lost a lot of confidence in myself. As a result, I pretty much stopped drawing. And I love drawing. It's my reason for living. I'm not the best or brightest, but I do love it. This is my way of forcing myself to draw every single day, no matter what. It's also a way of forcing myself to accept and love the mistakes and silly things I do. I am incredibly hard on myself for being a fallible human, and I'm tired of being frozen in place for fear of not being perfect. Before, I would freak out if I even messed up a little bit. I'm going to try to love those little mistakes a little more.
Why the Buddha? There's a simple and complex answer to this. The simple answer is: I took an Asian religions class with Dr. Jeff Ruff at Marshall University a while back. It was fascinating to me, so outside of my knowledge base. Basically, I took the class to understand Asian art a little better, because I find it wonderful and beautiful. I love how the Buddha is depicted: he's so peaceful and serene, and I want to be a little more like that. With this project, I get at least 10-20 minutes a day to relax, calm down, and "meditate" for lack of a better word. This is a continuation of a project I did for Dr. Ruff's class called "One Month of the Buddha", where I drew the Buddha every day for a month. Here are the collected images:
The complex answer to why the Buddha is this: It really didn't have to be the Buddha. It could have been Jesus or Ganesha, or Bea Arthur really. It's not so much religious as it is trying to think about how, in any religion, there's a core concept that's viewed a million different ways by a million different people. I enjoy that beautiful tapestry of vision, and maybe this is my little way of trying to celebrate it. I think if we always try to look at something straight on, we miss the neat little nooks and crannies that may not be visible on first glimpse. Basically, I'm really just a little fatigued at listening to everyone argue about everything under the sun. I think it not only perverts the beauty of religion, but it makes a lot of people turn away from even tolerating it. And I don't want that. Hippy dippy? Maybe....but I don't care.
I hope this will be something interesting. Please enjoy the Buddhas!
--Chase S. Bowman
