Where it all began

 Just to give you a bit of background, so you know where I am coming from. When I completed a Visual Arts, Bachelor of Education Degree back in 1994, I moved to London with no idea what I would do. Within 3 months all my savings disappeared and I found myself relief teaching in various schools around London. This led to an opportunity to apply for a Head of an Art department position in South West London at St Thomas of Canterbury school. So at the tender age of 23 I found myself head of a department at a secondary school. I loved it as much as I loved the 14 weeks paid holidays you got every year. As soon as that end of term bell rang I would be running to the airport ready for my next adventure. Over 5 years I got to visit 30+ countries around the world, exploring different cultures, lifestyles, food, languages and various ways of living. I was hooked.

At the same time I was not only teaching painting and design to students, but was creating my own personal portfolio. When I resigned from that job 4 years later, I moved to India and pretty much spent the following 5 years in that part of the world running my own art workshops (more like art therapy) making sun dried tomatoes and meditating. And of course taking a 5 month trip to Tibet, then studying Thangka painting in Nepal. Little did I know then that all sacred Thangka paintings are based on Sacred Geometric proportions!

I enjoyed many great adventures around South East Asia during those years and formed a close bond with the philosophy of Buddhism. From India I moved to Israel, the native home of my ex-husband and there we learned the Tiffany technique of glass sculpture. We had the idea that when we moved to Australia the following year we would make glass sculptures and sell them at local markets.

 

Introduction to Sacred Geometry

When we arrived in Australia, it was probably the first time I had experienced real culture shock. It had been 12 years since I lived in Australia. We moved straight to Byron Bay and immersed ourselves in the culture there, known for its creative, alternative thinking, transient community and started showing our glass sculptures at local markets once a week. Unbeknown to us, the sculptures we were creating were based on sacred geometric forms.  

We were showing our designs one day at Byron Bay market and were approached by a Vedic Mathematician who asked us, ‘Do you know what you are doing?’ We replied, of course, ‘We are making 3D merkabas.’ Jain, who has subsequently become a close friend said, ‘Well, there is a little more to it than that.’ Pointing to one of our sculptures he said ‘ this is a great stellated dodecahedron and this one is a truncated octahedron’ We didn’t know what language he was speaking. My partner and I had no idea what he was talking about. This led me to ask him to teach us more about this subject and what it all meant.