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Mandala Offerings: Earth Art

The small collective, Category 5 takes its name taken from the highest intensity level on the scale that measures the power and potential destructive force of hurricanes and cyclones. The year-long project showcased on this page was created and lived by Qollasuyu (Southeastern region) members Geryl Robinson, Anne Cushwa, and Rio Robbins in the wake of Hurricane Katrina,

The storm struck their homes in New Orleans, while they were traveling in South America, completing a pilgrimage in Peru. After they returned to the United States, they and other members of the New Orleans ayllu found themselves displaced from their beloved community -- their livelihoods as artists, healers, and educators gone, their homes uninhabitable.

Category 5 was formed to create earth art offerings to celebrate the beauty and power of Pachamama, with the intention of making visible underlying patterns and forces that create the fabric of our experience. Through the beauty of art and ceremony, they re-create community -- and the healing influences of their work continue to resonate across the country.

All photos in this section are provided courtesy of Cat5. They also wish to express gratitude to all who have offered them assistance and ongoing support. To see more of their beautiful creations and a glimpse of a few of the adults and children who have participated in their teachings and ceremonies, you are invited to visit their website at www.category5arts.org.

A Message From Cat 5:

The word mandala comes from the Sanskrit for “circle.” Category 5 mandalas are geometric designs made as testimonies to temporal life and as offerings to the earth. The artists and healers of Category 5 spent over a year creating earth art in order to connect our personal experiences to greater forces we cannot control.

We worked in formal and informal communities making art and creating ceremony as a means for personal and planetary transformation. We made site-specific, public art with hundreds of people around the country in parks, museums, festivals, schools, conferences and campuses. Our work together culminated when we returned to New Orleans, 31 states and 18 months later, in January 2007.

Category 5's primary work was engaging the public in the creation of beautiful mandalas celebrating impermanence. Our process began with choosing the site and making preliminary sketches based on Tibetan mandalas, indigenous Peruvian offering techniques, and a wide array of symbols and geometric designs. We laid out the basic shapes using cornmeal and filled in the area with local materials chosen for their visual appeal, local importance, or symbolic significance. When we built a mandala at Middlebury College in Vermont we collected fall leaves and birch bark; for the mandala in New Orleans we used red beans and coffee. Working collectively we prepared the materials and guided participants in completing the mandala, encouraging them to imbue each piece of the mandala with intention and we answered questions about our work and about New Orleans. Then we left the mandala to blow away, be eaten, melt in the rain or decompose.

Building mandalas was often communal. We encouraged the participants to be very heartfelt in their work. This created in a momentary intimacy between all the contributors. The mandalas felt auspicious to the people who built them, to the people who found them, and to us. We were granted intimate access to the communities in which we worked. As exiled artists, unsure of how to return to our home or our lives, this was profound. As the project grew it became about community and citizenship. It was about belonging.

MANDALA DETAILS:
Details about each mandala are included here, including locations, dates, and primary ingredients used to create the earth-honoring artwork.


	*Pucusana* 8.31.05 - Pucusana, Peru, just south of Lima Diameter: 8 feet. Materials: Three colors of Potatoes, Blue Corn, Red Corn, Stones, Coca Leaves, Tobacco, Agua Florida (Florida Water)

	*Lima* 8.25.05 - Miraflores, Peru, a suburb of Lima Diameter: 7 feet. Materials: Miraflores Beach Stones, White Beans, Psychedelic-colored Marshmallows: Purchased in Barranco, Peru

	*North Crescents* 10.19.05 - Jackson Square Park, New Orleans, LA One of four mandalas, diameter: 6 feet Materials: Corn Meal, Red Cabbage: Purchased Spanish Moss: Gathered at Jean Lafitte National Park Peacock Feathers, Pear: Donated Banana Flowers, Banana Leaves: Gathered from Robbins’ Garden, New Orleans

	*Festivus Mandala* 12.10.05 New Orleans, LA, Magazine Street This mandala was a partnership with the organization kid smARTs post-hurricane public art initiative. Participants: Category 5 artists, plus approximately 100 shoppers and vendors at the Crescent City Farmer’s Market’s annual Holiday Festivus Diameter: 12 feet. Materials: Crushed Soft Pastels, Water

	*Middlebury* 10.12.05 - Middlebury College, Middlebury VT. Diameter: 15 feet. Materials: Ash, Pine Needles, Wild Apples, Birch Bark, Pine Cones, Yellow Leaves Maple Leaves, red, black, yellow. Kix Cereal (Middlebury Dining Hall) Yams, Beets, Red Cabbage, Oyster Crackers, Organic Animal Crackers, Pumpkin Peeps Candy, Clam Shells
	*Middlebury* Photo #2

	*Crabapple Tree Mandala* 10.11.05 - Goshen, Vermont Diameter: 8 feet Materials: Crabapple Tree, Wild Apples, Pine Needles, Pine Cones, Milkweed Pods, Leaves, Dried Aster, Corn Meal, Tobacco, Birch Bark, Fern Leaves

	*Poured Mandala* 8.3.06 - East Race River, South Bend, IN An experiment in creating a mandala for the water. We assembled the materials in 2 pitchers, as we would build a mandala. Anne reported experiencing “mandala feeling.” Materials: Corn meal, Tobacco, red and green Grapes, Flower Petals from Cushwa yard, pink Rose petals.

	*Ogden Museum of Southern Art,* Atrium New Orleans, LA Diameter: 9 feet Materials: Ash from ceremonial fires, Bougainvillea Flowers, Trumpet Flowers, Ginger leaves, Variegated Ginger leaves, Spanish Moss, Red Berries, Red Hibiscus flowers, Pine needles, shells from Lake Pontchartrain, Kumquats: Gathered in New Orleans, LA Corn Meal, Confectioners Sugar, Red Beans, Rice, Coffee: purchased New Orleans, LA; Participants: Category 5 Artists, invited local artists, Museum-goers. This mandala was a partnership with kid smARTs post-hurricane public art initative.

	*Solstice Mandala* 12.20.05 - Goshen, VT Diameter: 15 feet Materials: Snow, Candles
	*Solstice Mandala #2*

	*Vision* Detail: Labyrinth December 2005, Houston, TX In Houston, during the year after the hurricane there was a school called New Orleans West (NOW), which consisted entirely of evacuated students and teachers. Category 5 worked for two weeks in that school making art with the children. We painted a labyrinth on their playground. This image is from the opening ceremony for the labyrinth; the children took the shells home with them. This was Category 5's only permanent work; we thought the children had experienced enough impermanence.

	*Spiral Symbol* We worked especially with the seventh graders, who created beautiful personal power symbols from the basic shapes around the labyrinth. The power symbols traveled to Brooklyn NY to be part of Rotunda Gallery's in-school exhibition Re:Place. You can visit www.category5arts.org/C5projectlog.html for a full view of the labyrinth.

	Flotilla Boat Release 6.4.06 - Pratt Beach, Chicago, IL Materials: Butcher Paper boats, Beet juice paint, Cocoa powder, Cornmeal, Tomatoes, Llama fur, Llama fat, Beets, Beet Seeds, Rice, Oats, Ash, colored Sugar, Cake Decorating Gems, Astromaria, fresh Sage, Chamomile, Rosemary, candy.

We created this with our Chicago community to support a ceremony that was conducted simultaneously in Austria by don Oscar Miro-Quesada. The intention was to help heal the wound created by the colonization of the Americas. We imagined a fleet of boats launched with love, built a mandala based on traditional American medicine wheel, created a flotilla of paper boats, filled them with offerings from the new world and the old world, and launched them into Lake Michigan.

For more images from the CAT5 project, please visit www.category5arts.org