“Collage is the medium I celebrate and immerse myself in, as an artist–for my work, and my life. Everything seems to want to try to synergize with something else. About fifteen years ago, I started cutting images and phrases from magazines, and produced my first individual collages into small blank cards. I called the cards the “it could be art” series. Embracing the title of artist found reluctance in me, but art itself has never abandoned me, no matter what resistance I have felt for it. Art is a part of every moment, whether we can see it or not. Art is the natural expression of a human be-ing.
I love to paint mandalas, using watercolor pencils or acrylic on canvas. Mandala is the Sanskrit word for “sacred circle”. I have been making mandalas as a meditative art practice for over twenty-five years.
One day when I was looking for a name for my artwork collection, I opened the book, Living Buddha, Living Christ by Thich Nhat Hanh, to the page that described the Sanskrit word parayana, meaning “The Other Shore” and I said yes, this is it. The Other Shore ‘…represents the realm of no-birth, no-death, and no suffering…We cannot talk about it, we cannot conceive it…The true teaching is that the other shore is this very shore…’ “
Website: elsahcort.com
[images © Elsah Cort]
