the compost mandala

the compost mandala is an ongoing collaborative art project using finished compost as the medium. It is inspired by Buddhist sand mandalas (except this version has way less discipline!:). my original vision of the compost mandala was to help give people an intimate experience with compost by giving them a chance to make art with it. i want people to see how beautiful compost is. i want people to know that when they touch compost, they are in contact with trillions of microorganisms. compost is literally alive. compost is living biological soil made up of a gigantic interrelated community of beings that we can't see with the naked eye, but it's absolutely real. with this art project, i had the idea to contrast the rich black coco colors of aged compost with a painted gold background. most of the compost paintings below were created by "me" (by my hands). some were created by other hands and hearts (mainly as a part of festival installations).