Triratna News

Drumroll please for the latest edition of Urthona Buddhist Arts Magazine

On Mon, 17 April, 2017 - 09:10
Aryanisha's picture
Aryanisha

Make sure you get your hands on the latest edition of Urthona Buddhist Arts Magazine, to be released in May. Issue 33, The Friendship Issue, is set to be a real delight - with treats from Sahajatara, Maitreyabandhu, Ratnagarbha, Amitajyoti and more.

Editor Ratnagarbha writes “Friendship is being talked about again. But do we really know what it is? And what really has it got to do with the arts – for haven’t artists, after all, always been eccentric loners who bordered on egomania, and most of what they express about friendship merely an idle dream? In this issue we will be dwelling not on failures but on some shining examples of artistic friendship throughout the ages. For a start there is our wonderful cover image. Tobias and the Angel is a story from the apocryphal book of Tobit, for centuries an image of friendship with the divine. What emerges is a sense that friendship can be seen as a vital dimension of artistic endeavour and of creativity in general.”

Ratnagarbha gives us a glimpse of the gems heading our way, and what a line up!

“Highlights include:

‘The grey is silver untransformed’: Haunting art photograph by new rising star, Brighton based Buddhist photographer Sahajatara.

‘Why is it not wonderful?’ Maitreyabandhu on his poetic mentorship with poet Mimi Khalvati.

Ed Piercy on friendships between children on screen. He also touches on the touchy area of male friendship in the Wild West!

‘Being and form’: an in-depth interview with talented Buddhist artist, Amitajyoti, who is half way through a major commission of a diptych for the Birmingham Buddhist Centre.

‘A friendship forged in hell’: Ratnagarbha on the friendship between Dante and the poet Virgil.

‘Zen and the poet’s mind’: writer Fleda Brown and Zen priest Sokuzan in conversation about creativity.”

Visit the website to subscribe to current and back issues, wherever you are in the world, and explore a wonderful crop of essays online.

Follow Urthona’s page on The Buddhist Centre and editor Ratnagarbha’s Facebook page.

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Responses

Vijaya1's picture

Sadhu! Great to see this publishing effort live on. I can remember helping Ratnagarbha (then Ambrose) get the very first Urthona into print in 1992, under my staircase in Montpelier, Bristol - using an Atari computer and some very early desktop publishing software.

Funny. I had been recalling the ‘Tobias and the Angel’ painting lately - the Verrocchio version - having printed it on the cover of the now infamous ‘Men Women and Angels’ booklet (or was it on ‘The Religion of Art’?) back in 1980, in the basement at Sukhavati, for Windhorse Press. Padmaraja had written a commentary for the image. I was trying to recall what he had to say! Surely someone out there has a copy?

Aryanisha's picture

Wow thats a really lovely connection! Im pleased its still going and am going to make sure I actually do buy a copy! Sometimes you just need to get off a computer screen and actually look at something in print! And what even IS an Atari computer??!!! (I was born 1990…..) I wouldn’t have the foggiest on where to start your hunt of the commentary…. You might be able to locate one at Adhisthana?

Vijaya1's picture

Thanks Charlotte. Atari computers (not the games consoles) were one of the first graphical and sound oriented desktops, before Apple took over that scene. They were snapped up by musicians and game players. They were first also to feature a whole 1 megabyte of RAM. People snorted and said who could ever use that much memory!

Ratnagarbha's picture

Thank you both for your support - the magazine will be printed next week, and isn’t it nice that we have at least one printed magazine left in Triratna, although I think there may be one out in India as well in Hindi. By the way Vijaya, in our 21st birthday issue of 2013 in the editorial I reminisced about those early days in Bristol, I could send you one over if you like. And I think you actually did the layout for the second issue presumably on that same Atari computer! 

Ratnagarbha's picture

PS I have a vague memory of the booklet you mention with Tobias and the Angel on the cover. This was years before WM&A was published - I would say it could have been an issue of Mitrata, which was a series of dharma teaching booklets, or it may have been an issue of The Religion of Art as you suggest.

Aryanisha's picture

Fab! I can update the post when it comes out - I’ll go hunt down a copy and take a photo of me with it :)

Vijaya1's picture

oh yes, you’re probably right, unless I just got time timings mixed up - i.e. seeing a later issue that I confused with something I’d printed earlier. Someone out there may be able to settle this with the actual hard copy!

Vijaya1's picture

Delayed response (wasn’t sure how to find these postings again).
Thanks for this Ratnagarbha. Yes I’ve a vague recollection of some further layout work and would be pleased to see the 21st birthday issue. Much appreciated. Let me know if you cannot locate my address. Happy to cover the issue/costs.