TELL THE TRUTH

Fifth Dali Lama, New Menri Style, Lhasa, Portal Palace, Tibet, 18C Tangka, sized pigment, cotton

This weekend, I participated in the Women's March in Asheville, North Carolina and carried this sign I made with gold and silver Helvetica stickers over an old Art History study poster of a tangka from the Fifth Dali Lama.  In the Eighteenth Century, very few Tibetans learned to read and write, including monks. The images on this tangka served as a pictorial lesson that the observer could remember by association with the painted icons.  With communication through emoji's and the sharing of pictures through cell phones, there is less reliance on printed script, but, like tangkas, our Instagram feeds are like little picture books with lots of information. 

Being a mom, I highly value teaching honesty to our kids. Like in Woody Allen's Oedipus Wrecks, I wish that the president's mom would fill the sky above the White House and remind him to tell the Truth.

"New York Stories (1989) A Vision in the Sky." Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 20 November, 2012. Web. 22 January, 2018.