Faith Stone

I have had a varied and interesting life. I was born the second child of nine, all of us about one year apart, Irish Catholic. My father was the director of two Zoos in the Boston area and my family lived on the grounds of the smaller, Stoneham zoo, now named after my Father – the Stone Zoo. In many ways it was an enchanted childhood growing up with the animals. All of us were particularly fond of the Indian elephant; Babe and she seemed to love us too. However, my father died in a car accident when the oldest child was 14 and youngest was 5, leaving my mother with 9 kids to raise on her own. I became an immediate second parent at 13.

My father’s death left me heart broken, confused and questioning my religious upbringing. I started looking for the deeper meaning of life and met my first teacher, Swami Rudrananda, Rudi at age 16. I moved into his ashram in Boston when I graduated from high school and have been living in an ashram ever since.

Along the way I have painted Buddhas and Bodhisattvas while working as a chef (edible art) and starting a natural foods restaurant. I’ve co-authored 3 vegetarian cookbooks, The Shoshoni Kitchen, Yoga Kitchen and The Kitchen Goddess all featuring our recipes from Shoshoni Yoga Retreat where I am the co-director. I’ve been a kindergarten through high school art teacher, yoga camp director, cookbook author, short novel author (Rudi and the green Apple), author of Drawing Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, musician and songwriter in a kirtan band (I play ukulele), mom (best job in the world), bookkeeper and fine art Printmaker. I love all things creative but I love painting Buddhas the most.

I first met thangka painting in New York City while sitting in the Oriental antique store of a meditation teacher named, Rudi. While I was drawing his portrait, he was talking about the beauty of Tibetan scroll painting, thangkas. He spoke with sadness about the destruction of Tibet by the Chinese Communists. This was back in the 70’s. As he spoke I felt a stirring, an awakening in my consciousness. I knew that somehow thangkas were very important to me and I felt a responsibility for helping to save this art form. I also felt a deep ache in my heart at the potential loss of such an amazing culture and people as reflected in their arts.

At the time I was a young art student. I loved art so much but I often struggled with what subject to paint. It was years later in Boulder, Colorado, that I saw an offering for a class in thangka painting at Naropa University. I knew that I had found my art. I felt as though I was born to paint Buddhas. It was a profound understanding.

I have a traditional art background as well as specializing in thangka painting. I majored in painting at Montserrat College of Art in Massachusetts. I’ve also studied figure painting with renowned figure painter, Irene McCray at Rocky Mountain College of Art, in Denver; I’ve studied Printmaking with master artist and printmaker, Hiroke Morinoue, in Hawaii. However, my primary focus has been thangka painting.

The road has been challenging. I’m a thangka painter but Western galleries have not been interested in women who paint thangkas or for that matter Buddhist art. Countless times I’ve walked into a gallery and as soon as the owner would see a Buddha or Tara they would say – too religious, not interested. It took tremendous tenacity and deep personal commitment to hold true to my path with very little support from Western culture. I have enjoyed much more acceptance with my Tibetan teachers and have painted personal thangkas for them as well as doing illustrations for a number of books.

In 2006, I saw an exhibit at University of Colorado Museum of Art in Boulder, Waves on the Turquoise Lake: Contemporary Tibetan Art. I was sincerely struck by the work of Karma Phuntsok. He uses traditional thigse proportions and figures but set in backgrounds of vivid swirling colors and dots, flowers and abstractions. It changed my life. Up to that point I would only follow the traditional method for painting thangkas. However, with the birth of my daughter, I was finding it increasingly difficult to devote the countless hours of pointillism and painting dots for shading the sky and other elements of the painting. When I saw that Tibetan painters were making the art form in a more contemporary manner, I realized this could work for me. It set me free. I chose to keep the Bodhisattva completely traditional in terms of the thigse but put the deity in modern settings and shifted to using more modern methods of painting including acrylics, spray paint and paint pens. I have also become friends with Karma Phuntsok and we regularly exchange photos of what we are working on. He continues to inspire me.

I now spend most of my time painting contemporary Buddhist and Hindu art. I believe the real joy of painting Buddhas is creating the space and environment for the deity to reside. The idea is that once the painting is completed, the deity moves in. The painting no longer belongs to the artist. It is the home of a Buddha. What an incredible and wonderful thing to do – help manifest Buddhas. That’s also why I wrote the “how to” book, Drawing Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, I want everyone to paint Buddhas, it’s the best!