TRA: Can you just talk a little bit about that origin experience that you had with altars, within your own family growing up in Texas? So that was when I felt the presence of spirit at the altar it awakened a childhood memory of when I first really encountered not a religion but the actual experience of religion. It was practiced through what they call mantra yoga, where you learn to chant and meditate. Over time they embraced me and I was initiated. I learned it was a Vedanta temple - Vedanta is a very advanced Hindu practice. I was introduced to this temple in Hollywood, and I would go outside the garden and just sit. Another informal introduction was when I came back from Hawaii, about age 22 or so. I didn’t know what Buddhism was at that time, but that’s what we did - maybe once or twice a month for quite a while. We would go to the Buddhist temple on Saturday night to dance. One of my high school girlfriends was Japanese. I grew up with Japanese, Mexican American and African American kids. Matthew Thomas: So my first introduction to Buddhism wasn’t formal. Can you talk about or recall when you were first exposed to Buddhism in California? Taylor Renee Aldridge: I want to begin by talking about your spiritual practice, as your spiritual and your artistic practice are intertwined in many ways. office via Facebook video chat (his only form of communication), as he was in his home studio in rural Thailand.
#The 4 elements of nature drawings professional#
As a practitioner myself in the faith, I have found solace in my professional collaboration and fellowship with Thomas, but I have also found restored faith in my own practice by witnessing Thomas’ enduring faith, positivity, kindness and healing even in the wake of so much grief. For a Black Buddhist, this acceptance on the journey to enlightenment becomes especially difficult, in the wake of continued anti-Black violence. In the Buddhist tradition, one takes refuge in the fact that suffering is inevitable. What could a modern Christian pastor look like? Inside the sacred ritual of burning incense Lifting the 50-year curse Sun Ra cast on L.A. One aspect using visual perception to awaken oneself. There areĪs many ways to reach source as there are people.Įach person has a connection to divine nature. In his recent exhibition “Enlightenment,” at the California African American Museum, Thomas sought to expand on the term to offer his own definition in relation to visual art:Įnlightenment is a sincere effort to bring elements ofĪrt as messengers of our potential divinity. The Buddhist tradition defines enlightenment as a metaphysical experience where one contends with self-realization and accepts the reality of the world around them.
He spends much of the day meditating which informs a wide range of primarily two-dimensional paintings. In Thailand, he has continued to deepen his commitment to his spirituality, living a life of solitude (with his wife). For several decades, he worked as an artist and educator in Los Angeles before retiring and moving to rural Thailand in 2011. Thomas, 79, is known in Los Angeles for his distinct color palette, where he often incorporated clay and mud into paint pigment for his paintings. And he utilizes these elements in his artmaking to encourage viewers to be most present with themselves and others. Thomas captures the beauty of informal expression through visual signifiers - line, shape, color and texture. Eastern religious practices and Black American abstraction impulses are both practices that provide a sense of freedom and agility of faith through visual art forms and varied experiences of enlightenment. Thomas and his oeuvre have made evident the visual and spiritual intersections that persist between Black Americans and Asian communities that both uphold certain spiritual practices and philosophies, which enable survival in an oppressive world.Īs a practitioner of Eastern religions and of the vibrant history of Black migration from the American South to Southern California, Thomas is well versed in the importance of ritual and history. The work of geometric abstractionist Matthew Thomas is in some ways a product of these encounters that happened during the expansion of the West. Read the whole issue here.)ĭue to international and national emigration in America, which took place in the 19th and 20th centuries, Black cultural traditions and East Asian spiritual philosophies and customs have continued to overlap, intersect and converge in California. This story is part of Image issue 12, “Commitment (The Woo Woo Issue),” where we explore why Los Angeles is the land of true believers.
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