Page 17 - the Noise December 2016

athy Klein’s danmalas speak their flower power without much prodding. Her work merges artistic concepts of transitory nature much like Buddhist sand mandalas,
danmala on social media are mostly from the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, France, India, Australia and the UK. Danmalas are really popular in the Netherlands too, as they have a huge culture of growing flowers there.”
a nursery that I can work with. He and my daughter Seffa both can be immense help. When I am in the process and light is fading or wind is coming and need a few more of each thing, they may go out into the garden and bring me back three of this and two of that to help me to finish.”
earth works reminiscent of Andy Goldsworthy and folk art found in festivals throughout India. All these years I thought Danmala stood for a collaborative effort between Klein and her partner Dan who is an avid gardener and artist in his own right. Yet it turns out danmala comes from dān: the giver, and mālā: garland of flowers — meaning the giving of flowers in Vedic Sanskrit.
Klein has favorites when it comes to what flowers grow in her garden, “In early springtime we have hellebores, wisteria and an empress tree blooming on our land. I don’t usually incorporate these into my danmalas, but am enthralled to see that spring is coming with warmer weather. Dianthus blooms shortly after and has interesting tiny petals. The best season in Cornville is summer; everything blooms like crazy — covered in bees and butterflies. My favorites to work with then are dahlias because each petal is a multi-toned brush stroke and has a very iridescent quality to them. Alstroemeria comes in
all sorts of gorgeous colors. Each flower has at least a few different hues and there are four different petal shapes so I
can use them to make really complex patterns. They are really hardy and stand up to heat and dryness. Gazanias are brilliant, totally psychedelic and striped. I try to work with them but the petals curl and fold pretty quickly so it has to be fast. I grow tons of them because each flower is like a super powerful, tiny mandala. Sunflowers are so full of strong energy; each one really is like a sun! I grow them in every color possible and they volunteer everywhere on our property now.”
“Mostly it is a solitary endeavor. When we did the LG OLED HD TV commercial, my family was involved in a large and completely integral way. We had a whole week of prep and three full (almost around the clock) days of shooting. That whole week Dan went to the Los Angeles Flower Mart at 2-3am to choose, order and pick-up the thousands of blooms we used. All of us, plus a huge team of assistants worked on all the giant danmalas featured in the commercial.”
“They are an act of gratitude and devotion. I use nature
as my palette. The resultant form is this circle of love recognizable as a mandala. Most flowers already have radial symmetry, and while I am in the process of creating a danmala, the flower petals seem to naturally arrange themselves into a shape effortlessly,” says Klein.
“It is very difficult to make my usual detailed flower
petal danmalas anywhere that is subject to wind, sun, or dryness because they will wilt or blow away very quickly. By their nature they don’t last long anyways, even in the best conditions. When I’ve made them publicly, I need to use mostly whole flowers. We did this at a beautiful Sikh wedding of some friends near Santa Barbara and humidity is good there, which really helps. For the LG commercial we had to make six large four-foot mandalas and one huge 14-foot mandala that we actually had to make twice in two different locations. In this case we did use a lot of whole flowers but also large petals like lilies and dahlias. Also, the buildings were kept very cold while we worked and the danmalas were constantly being spritzed by production assistants with bottles of Evian water....so fancy!”
“People ask me why I don’t try to preserve the danmalas, but this has never occurred to me. I love seeing the flowers at the height of their beauty, full of life and energy and preserving them through a photograph to capture that moment’s vibrancy. A dried or preserved flower would be possible to do, but I am not really interested in entropy and decay. We know its always happening around us, but I prefer to focus on the highest moment in that flower’s life cycle.”
Klein came to build her first danmala during autumn harvest in Cornville.
“We have about 30 Echinacea in the ground and its so exciting to see them come back after winter. they have
very deep heavily saturated colors. I grew love-in-mist from seed many years ago and it is so incredible how much they spread every year. They are these otherworldly periwinkle fairy flowers with feathery foliage. Roses, jasmine, gardenia, lavender are so incredible for their scent but I rarely use
them in the danmalas. Penstemons in all colors, bright red indian paintbrush, and the clear yellow petals and grey blue leaves of desert marigold are my favorite plants to see along the highways and we grow these all at home and I often use them in the danmalas. I also love the blues of delphinium, agapanthus and these crazy irises we have. In the fall I
can always count on tons of chrysanthemums blooming; they are strong, vibrant and long lasting.”
“I was sincerely asking spirit to guide me on how to sustain myself completely in all areas of my life and within a week it just came to me to make them. That entire week in October 2010, I was harvesting the last of our eggplant, peppers and tomatoes and sorting them by color into separate boxes, and one morning I got up very early before dawn and started making the giant eggplant one. I wanted to photograph it before the sun came over the canyon to best capture all the amazing purple hues. Later that day I made the giant pepper danmala and just kept going.”
Klein’s work is available around Northern Arizona as well as internationally. She produces quality calendars, cards, prints and is developing a line of housewares and fabric in the U.K.
Every year they donate a percentage of their calendar profits to organizations that help bees and plant trees. This year they are working with Spikenard Farm, a honeybee sanctuary.
She has made thousands over the past six years.
Klein and her partner Dan live in Cornville in a fantastic earth ship, complete with permaculture gardens and a walk- in, active bee-hive/meditation room made of magic and plexiglass.
“They seem to be without borders, people unanimously respond to them as mediation tools or images to help them center. Everyday I hear from people around the planet that
the danmalas bring them peace, serenity, oneness with nature, healing, joy, heart centeredness, etc. People that follow
“Dan is indirectly involved, he is a genius gardener and
has designed and created our beautiful world full of edible and blooming plants in Cornville. Sometimes he will source flowers and plants for me though. He brings things home from
www.danmala.com
natasha@thenoise.us