Labyrinth As Art

I walk the Picasso Labyrinth, winding through smooth spirals, sharp angles, and switchbacks before entering the round paths that circle to the center. As I journey, I feel the patterns of the path in my body, their unpredictable nature acting upon me. Like the abstract and cubist art of Pablo Picasso, this labyrinth surprises me, shifting my perspective and altering my perception.

From an early age, I loved to draw, freely creating images of people, scenery, animals, and more. I drew from my imagination, my experiences, or my surroundings. Like those of many children, my drawings were unrefined, yet somehow expressed the essence of the subject matter. Then, when I was 11 years old, my mom’s friend brought over a large-format art book about Pablo Picasso. Its pages were filled with prints of Picasso’s paintings from his early realism to his later cubist and abstract works. I remember being delighted by the skewed perspective of his abstract art. I went on to incorporate this type of perspective in some of my own art. I also explored other modern artists, such as Georgia O’Keeffe, whose larger-than-life flowers inspired me to draw and paint large. Picasso and O’Keeffe are the two artists who most influenced my own artistic development. Not only that, but both changed my perspective in important ways and caused me to perceive the world around me differently.

When I began designing my own labyrinths several years ago, I didn’t know it would evolve into a full-blown artistic endeavor. My intent was to share the meditative, prayerful, and transformative experiences of labyrinths in new and exciting ways by creating unique configurations that reflect aspects of Nature and sacred geometry. I soon realized that the larger-than-life images I incorporate into my labyrinths (e.g., butterflies, birds, flowers, and more) are like murals on a canvas of grass, soil, sand, snow, or cement.

During the past pandemic year-and-a-half, I have branched out even more, many of my designs becoming increasingly abstract or non-objective. Although all of my designs are a far cry from traditional labyrinths, I feel that they offer new ways to explore both the mystery within and our quantum interconnectedness with the world around us. Furthermore, I view my labyrinths as being more than two-dimensional drawings on the ground and perceive the journey through each of them as a multi-dimensional experience.

As I walk through a labyrinth, I am on an inner and outer journey as a perceived individual, but I also interact and connect with the unique configuration of the path and with my surroundings. As I travel through space and time, I navigate interior and exterior dimensions of self, labyrinth, and world and am one with the system, with all that is. Matter and energy being one and the same, the labyrinth design assumes aspects of three-dimensional shape and form. In this way, I am walking the labyrinth into being, co-creating a reality largely unseen, but never-the-less perceived.

For all that is,