Laura Santi Sacred Art

Laura Santi

Laura studied at The Movement Center, a spiritual community dedicated to meditation, yoga, and Buddhist tantric healing practices. She received direct transmission training in thangka painting from Sri Swami Chetanananda Saraswati, the abbot of the Movement Center, as well as receiving teachings from Lama Tsering Wandgu Rimpoche, a lineage holder of the Longchen Nyingthig, Shije, and Chod traditions. She currently paints thankgas and Hindu deities, writes and illustrates coloring books based on her art and past career as an acupuncturist, and sells archival quality prints of her work on Etsy.com/shop/LauraSantiSacredArt and ArtPal.com.

She studied thanka painting briefly with Greg Smith, faculty, of Shambhala, Susan St. Clair Bennett, learning thangka conservation techniques, and Sudarshan Suwal of Kathmandu, voted best thangka artist in Nepal three times, but in technique she is largely self taught.

Laura loves all styles and centuries of Thangka painting, and Hindu art as created through time, and draws from them all in her work, mixing schools and ages of techniques to create new, compelling artworks for the current era. She is a traditional thangka painter in that the iconography remains true to the historical traditions that created it. Her main interest is to make beautiful compelling images reminiscent of pre-17th century artworks that will touch the hearts of the people of our time.

My Medium

Laura uses gouache - water color pigments that are not ground as finely and so give a chalky, antique look. She mixes these with ground minerals, and prepared mineral paints made of natural rock materials such as Lapis or Ochre, and adds the finishing touch of 22K gold embellishments.

Avalokitesvara

Bodhisattva of Compassion

Prajnaparamita

The concept of the goddess Prajnaparamita originally began as a reverence for sacred writings about paths to wisdom, handed down and preserved, in a time when books and writings and education were scarce and hard to come by. Over time these sutra writings, called the “Perfection of wisdom”, or “Prajnaparamita”, were distilled into two great works, the Diamond Sutras and the Heart Sutras. These texts were the subject of worship in Mahayana Buddhism, in much the same way that devotional figures were. Under the influence of Tantric Buddhism they became deified as the Goddess of Wisdom. Prajnaparamita is also called the mother of all three times - the past, present, and future. She is radiantly beautiful and sweet.

VajraVarahi

The feet of the goddess in her Phowa form, firmly planted in her mandala

Para

Mandala illustration originally conceived of and drawn by Indologist Dr Alexis Sanderson

Kāmeśvarī Goddess of Desire illustration from book "A Garland of Forgotten Goddesses"

Chammo LamLha, Goddess of the Road

The Matrikas, illustration from "A Garland of Forgotton Goddesses"

painting LalitaTripurasundari...

the Deities of Yoga: Matsyendrantha and Konkadomba,

Lakshmi, the Indian Goddess of Wealth and Abundance