The Making of the Reno Mandala

Photographer unknown.

On a restless night, I woke up thinking about my 8-ft. Reno mandala, commissioned in 2014 by Paul Baker Prindle, the director of University Galleries for the Department of Art at University of Nevada. It was around the time of Lunar New Year and Paul thought the Chinese, who flocked to Reno around that time, would appreciate seeing a good luck mandala as the inaugural show in the new UN Downtown Gallery. The Reno mandala is the only mandala I have created that I didn’t have any community ties with; I had to forge my own connection with the city and the particular downtown location where I was stationed.

I constructed a mandala made up of all kinds of things that I learned about Reno – rocks painted silver to honor its history as a silver mining town, poker chips, cards, horses, even a roulette wheel with whiskey glasses around it. I didn’t know the community, but I had red envelopes to honor the new year and took business cards from all the stores downtown. I also asked university students and gallery visitors, including those who came to the opening, to create a card for the mandala by either drawing or writing something that symbolizes “good luck,” preferably something red. Since it was Reno, there were many drawings of horseshoes. Paul and his partner Ben drew red underwear.

The university put me up for a week in the Circus Circus hotel, which along with Silver Legacy Hotel and Eldorado Hotel, were in the thick of the gambling and club scene. The hotels were connected so I was able to go from one club to the next and from one casino to the next without going outside, which I was happy about because in February the weather was quite chilly up there. After working in the gallery during the day, I went out several times to the clubs to drink and dance the night away (it was the year before a mini-stroke curtailed my drinking and dancing). I didn’t gamble but I met an older man who gave me $20 to play blackjack. I lost, of course, but had a nice chat with a guy sitting next to me who showed me how to beat the system. The casino gave free drinks so we had a good time.

Paul and Ben hosted a party for me in their home and also took me to a couple of clubs. They bought me drinks and sat in the back to watch me dance. At a salsa club, I was caught off-guard by the fog machine that completely obscured my feet. I got so confused my dance partner left me on the dance floor midstream. Seeing that I wasn’t happy there, my hosts then took me to another club that had a DJ and six gigantic speakers. It was a loud rowdy place. Paul and his partner stayed in one room, and I slipped away to check out the adjacent room. After yet another gin and tonic, I found myself with a bunch of young guys and gals grooving to the music of Queen. They gave me a foam pool noodle and I soon joined the action, pounding each other and shouting “We will we will rock you!” at the top of our lungs. So many funny moments as I let loose the “wild child” in me. I discovered some surprising things about myself that week.

Photo by Paul Baker Prindle