Lorraine Capparell

Painting

There are many links between my two practices of making art and meditation. One is discipline. I meditate every day. I also produce artwork every day. Each act is a practice. Practice, by definition, means repeated action.

Another commonality between art and meditation for me is concentration. Paying attention is of prime importance on the meditation pillow: keeping my mind on my breath, bringing my focus back to the now. And with painting and sculpture, concentration is integral. My mind and body fully attend to the process. Hours can pass in a flash when I paint.

Inspiration means opening to the divine in both art and meditation. Many times, ideas and impulses that arise spontaneously in meditation feed my art. And Buddhist architecture and art is an inspiration for my sculpture and painting. After traveling to Sri Lanka and seeing the powerful Buddha images there, I began to practice in earnest. My first sculpture after returning was “Buddha’s Feet,” inspired by a sculpture fragment that I saw in a Burmese temple. Story, that of the life of the Buddha, has inspired much of my painting and sculpture as well and has led me to follow the Eightfold Path, which includes meditation.

Dreams are a source of imagery for my sculpture and paintings. Sometimes I see the completed piece in a dream. Other times, a dream can direct me to stop or start a process. Spiritual inspirations come in dreams and can spur my concentration in meditation.

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Lorraine Capparell is a storyteller, enticing those who view her work to take a leap into an imaginative world of discovery. An accomplished artist, recognized for her work as a painter, sculptor and photographer since 1975, she divides her time between creating visionary sculptural pieces, and richly colorful paintings and watercolors that communicate her unique focus on life.

Capparell is a native of Rochester, New York, and received her bachelor of science from Cornell University. She moved to California in the early ‘70s. She has traveled widely in Asia, studying Buddhist and Hindu sculpture, painting and temple architecture.

Her work has been in group and solo exhibitions worldwide and in the collections. Lorraine Capparell creates art daily, working with themes that reflect daily life and incorporate secrets and surprises that invoke the viewer to discover and think of the world in a new way.


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