Buddha’s Boulevard, acrylic on canvas, 60 x 48 in, 2021.

Buddha’s Boulevard began as an illustration of a scene from the biography of the Buddha but grew to be a visual journal, a reflection on my life to that date.

Part of me is embarrassed to admit that this piece took me 10 years. There are a lot of layers here. I had envisioned elephants accompanying the Buddha down from the mountains, back to civilization and his people. What became instead are elephants, big cats, birds, even a snake, walking the path of enlightenment, inhabiting nirvana. My human self swims below, stuck in the mire of everyday, in human dramas. One of my personas peers out toward the enlightened animals; can we humans ever access such a state of being?