Title: Lime

Media: Colored pencil and oil pastel on black paper

Size: 19" x 19"

Framing: unframed

Price or Current disposition: $500.00

Date: 1987

Comments: This mandala began with the basic 9x9 vastupurusa mandala I have used in many of my mandalas but I began fleshing it out with layers of color and texture in oil pastel. At some point a sort of cowrie shell shape seemed to emerge as a central motif. In some traditional cultures a cowrie shell is a kind of primordial symbol of female sexuality and my own tendency to want to self censor any overt sexual imagery led me to develop the shape into a sliced lime. That too has some metaphorical overtones from a fruit in the garden of eden to the intoxication of margaritas.