At first, they don’t seem identical. They look like individual Buddhas — each with a distinct mood or energy. But look longer at Heath artist Juliet Seaver’s Buddha paintings, and you’ll see that underneath each of the two dozen or so images is the same line drawing, taken from a 5,000-year-old Tibetan woodblock.
Seaver found the original image in a book about 40 years ago.
“I just liked the peace and energy of it,” she says.
Seaver, retired now at 77 from a career in acupressure massage and yoga, had long been drawn to Tibetan Buddhism. She transferred the image to a silkscreen, made a few prints on cloth and on rice paper and painted them.
“And then I put it away,” she says.
Seaver compresses the next 40 years into a couple of sentences that include raising three sons, the death of her husband, Charles, in 1994, and grandchildren who “all of a sudden” became teenagers.
“And then I got Lyme,” Seaver says.
This was in 2008. Seaver didn’t yet know that she had the tick-borne disease, but she was experiencing its symptoms. She felt extraordinarily listless and worn out, as if she were coming down with a bad flu.
“I was lying down on a beautiful August, sunny day, feeling really upset,” Seaver says.
A self-described optimist, it was unlike Seaver to feel so sapped of energy and purpose. As she lay on the couch, an eye pillow over her eyes, Seaver says she suddenly received a very clear message: “Go up to the closet where that silkscreen is, get it down, literally dust it off and make multiple copies. This is for you to put out into the world. The message is that beneath all the emotions, the storylines, the drama, is our Buddha nature.”
Enlivened by the project, which she ultimately titled “Buddha Nature,” Seaver says she barely had time to have Lyme Disease. She made 50 prints of the Buddha image — using different colored inks — and began to paint them. And while she did get a positive diagnosis of Lyme, and the antibiotics to treat it, Seaver feels it was painting the Buddhas that healed her.
“It’s interesting to think that the energy of enthusiasm and attention to something outside of yourself may be the thing that heals,” I say.
“I think so,” Seaver replies emphatically. “I 100 percent agree with that.”
The earliest Buddhas she made were very neat, Seaver says. She stayed more within the lines. But as she kept going, “I just kept getting more and more expansive, thinking, ‘Wow, I’m just going to go for it.’”
Seaver’s artistic treatments of the Buddha became freer and more imaginative, often correlating with things that were happening in her life. One Buddha, which she’d started painting in calm coral tones, took a sharp turn when Seaver heard the news that a good friend’s breast cancer had returned. “Healing Energy Buddha,” as she titled the final painting, radiates a bold energy through its combination of dark and almost electrically bright tones.
“Angel Buddha,” done in a softer palette of light blue and pale yellows, looks a little like an outdoor fresco, some of which has been wearing away over time. Seaver says that when she learned of the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, CT in December of 2012, she made prints of the Angel Buddha and mailed them, care of the school, to each family who had lost a child.
“I don’t know if they ever got them,” Seaver says. “But it just made me feel better.”
Seaver displayed the Buddhas at Elmer’s Store in Ashfield earlier this year, and is bringing them to the Burnett Galley at the Jones Library in Amherst for all of July. An artist’s reception will be held Thursday, July 9, from 5 to 8 p.m.
“I feel some kind of purpose or urgency about sharing this project,” Seaver says. “Here we are in the midst of a difficult time, I think, for everybody — for people who got their way (in the election) and for people who didn’t. I think we’re all talking politics now, having to wish for the best outcome for all of us.”
Seaver adds, “The happier and the wiser our president can be, the happier we all are.”
“But can we affect that?” I ask. “Or does he have to do that.”
My falling intonation answers my own question. But Seaver smiles.
“I think we’re seeing that we can,” she counters. “I’m really very optimistic. It’s my nature to look at, ‘How might this work out for the best?’”
Seaver says she believes that situations can evolve. Just that morning, she heard on the news that President Trump had reversed his stance on so-called “dreamers” — undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children, allowing them, for now, to remain in the country. And she points to grassroots uprisings such as The Women’s March and an increased interest in politics generally as positive trends.
“It makes me happy to bring this project out, because I feel it is really important,” Seaver says. “In ourselves, we have recourse. We can make a sanctuary inside ourselves. It seems to me that if you come out of a peaceful place in yourself to change the world, that’s a better energy.”
“You used the word ‘enthusiasm,’ earlier,” Seaver adds. “I really like that. When I lived in Greece, I learned that the root of ‘enthusiasm’ is ‘in God.’
The Greek root “En” means “in,” Seaver explains. And “Theo,” as in the word “theology” means “God.”
“You’re in God’s energy,” Seaver says.
Look into the faces of her Buddhas and you’ll agree.
Seaver’s exhibit, “Buddha Nature,” will be on display July 3 through 31 at the Burnett Gallery, Jones Library, 43 Amity Street, Amherst. Artist reception Thursday, July 6, 5 to 8 p.m. Contact: www.joneslibrary.org; 413-259-3090. See more of Seaver’s work at: www.buddha.art.net
Trish Crapo is a writer and photographer who lives in Leyden. She is always looking for poets, writers and artists to interview for her columns. She can be reached at tcrapo@mac.com.