I’m offering a $500 grant for a solar mandala artwork. If I get a few high quality proposals, I may offer two grants.
I’m making grants available to encourage high-quality efforts.
To apply for the grant, send me a rough sketch and an explanation of what you want to do, and examples of your previous work.
What is a Mandala?
“In Sanskrit, the word “mandala” मण्डल essentially means “circle” or “disc” and it ultimately comes from a Proto-Indo-European root that means “to turn.” However, “mandala” is also the name for each book in the Rig Veda, and it has also come to mean a “a path of orbit,” and the “halo around the sun or moon.” You may recognize the word mandala as an elaborate circular design, because over time, various sects of Hindus and Buddhists developed the idea of a mandala as a tool for depicting a reality — an entire universe, a cosmos, a microcosm, or the conceptualization of a god. Mandalas became a religious art form, and have been used for centuries as tools for meditation and the depiction of esoteric ideas. Carl Jung became fascinated with mandalas, and experimented with them in psychology, drawing individual mandalas and having patients draw them to explore and harmonize their inner and outer worlds.
An intentional, sacred fire creates its own mandala. When man builds a fire, he creates a self-contained circular world of light that draws attention in toward its center.”
— From Fire in the Dark
In the West, we often see mandalas merely as decorative patterns, but true mandalas are complex symbols used for meditation and conceptualization.
For a more in-depth explanation, watch this video:
This contest is for visual artists.
The finished work of art could be a 2 dimensional drawing, a painting, digital art, a 3D rendering, or even a photograph of a sculptural work or assemblage.
The finished work of art could be completely symbolic, or figurative, or both.
The key is that the work of art should represent the concept of solar idealism in some way, either as explained in this essay, or in the book Fire in the Dark.
The work of art could be a mandala for one of the main god archetypes (The Father, The Striker, or the Lord of the Earth), or all three.
The work of art should provoke thought, self-transformation, and meditation.
You don’t have to have a social media profile to enter, but if you want me to link to it, make sure you send me something I can link to.
While there is a solar feminine counterpart to the masculine, this concept is specifically related to the male and masculine experience of what it means to be solar.
Jack Donovan and Brutal Company retain the right to use images of the works online and in printed media, but artists retain the rights to sell their own original works of art — possibly even as NFTs.
Grant recipients agree to allow me to use images of their work to sell merchandise at my discretion.
UPDATE – As of June 1, 2021, a grant has been awarded and a work is in the process of being created.
PH2T3R Creator and Primary Editor.
Author of The Way of Men, Becoming a Barbarian, A More Complete Beast, and Fire in the Dark.
