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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us June 9, 2005 Spiritual visions turned to art By Cindy Blankenship For the Daily Tidings Grace Mantle’s work often begins in dreams. Submitted photo Grace Mantle, contributing artist to this weekend’s A Midsummer’s Dream and Music Festival, is a classically trained artist who combines her technique with spiritual visions to create paintings that she believes to have healing qualities. Her work may be best known around Ashland for her contributions to the Beloved Community (see Artist Sketch Sidebar) and her volunteer work as lunchtime resident artist at Walker Elementary. “I’m always thinking about leaving them with good memories and feelings about creativity so they will treat art as a normal part of life,” Mantle says of her work with Walker students. “There’s a saying from Africa: If you can walk, you can dance; if you can talk, you can sing. I believe if you’re alive, you can make art!” Her Web site, GraceMantleStudios.com, exhibits her Visionary Art, which includes “Let There be Peace in our Hearts,” a work that she painted in an effort to help heal emotional wounds from the events of Sept. 11, 2001. “When I’m doing a painting I have to feel everything completely. This is why the 911 painting and Mother Maui are the hardest I’ve done, emotionally,” says Mantle. Mother Maui was a “personal painting journey,” the highlight of her career. The journey took place in a magical place called Kipahulu Gap (off the Hana Highway), one of Hawaii’s most pristine forests, in which she lived during the last three weeks of the seven months she lived on Maui. Once a week she hiked the two miles down to a private community school where she was given fruits and vegetables for teaching art and reiki. “There I was alone in one of the remote places on earth in a tiny cabin with no power, but next to a creek and garden, and with only one neighbor nearby, another recluse artist,” recalls Mantle. “I was more tuned in than ever to my creative process and to the natural world around me, undisturbed and totally in natural rhythm. I would wake up with sun, eat my morning meal from the trees while I gave witness to the natural beauty around me, and then go to work…” Artist's Sketch Name : S. Grace Mantle Hails From : Applegate and Ashland. Age : 32. Training : University in Oregon, studies in Europe, apprenticeship with sculptor and artist, the late Bruce Hoheb. Claim to Fame : Work with James Twyman and the Beloved Community: her portraits are in the film “Indigo,” her Emissary Mandala was used as a visual backdrop and logo for the 2003 Psychic Children Conference, and her painting “Begin” toured with James Twyman’s Emissary of Love. Inspiration : “The spirit within me as I awaken.” As with all of her paintings, inspiration came in dreams, both at night and during work breaks; the painting laid out before her step by step, Mantle says. “I could hear messages in the wind and the trees watched over me.” The challenge of Mother Maui was in the discovering that it was easier for her to “accept tragedy than joy and abundance,” says Mantle, adding, “What a surprise — And I’m changing that!” The Ashland artist recently began painting Soul Portrait Mandalas, “modern medicine shields for the young Spiritual Warriors and Peacemakers of today” to “help the Rainbow, Crystal, and Indigo Children (and their parents) remember who they are.” Mantle also paints community murals, such as the tropical paradise scene at Luminescence, a raw foods restaurant in town. Her focused study of art began at her mother’s easel in Applegate, where she grew up homeschooled on the family farm. She went on to graduate cum laude with a bachelor’s degree from the Fine Art University of Oregon, and she attended Parson’s School of Design Arts Program in France and studied independently in England and Greece. She also studied for eight years with the late marble sculptor and master craftsman Bruce Hoheb of New York City and Ashland. Along with Hoheb, her greatest influences have been her mother and “biggest supporter,” Joni Mantle, and her best friend and Reiki master, Miaya. Mantle’s favorite artists include Alex Grey, Ryan Froud, Michelangelo and Catholic nun Mary Southard — all painters. What does she love most about art? “It’s a meditation for me; art brings me into my essence.” DailyTidings.com Home Page Archives | Revels | Classifieds | Real Estate Guide | Weather | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2005 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Deep Muscle Stimulator Ceramic Piggy Banks FREE Entertainment Guide Women's & Men's Slippers Accelerate Weightloss Products Backpacks Generic Viagra Vegas Travel Guide Search Engine Optimization Sportsbook Absinthe Supply Student Loans Hotel & Airline Reservations African Safari Hammocks Helzberg Diamonds Online Casinos Community Bonus Casino King of Spirits ink cartridges Mortgage Calculator Security Systems Mailing Lists Click Here Advertisement .:Advertisements:. Site Search: RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams