BHC Gallery • The Healing Power of Art

My name is Kasandra O'Bertos and I live on a beautiful acreage near Tisdale, SK.
 
I had a rather interesting life full of twists and turns, lots of travel, and was forever engaged in various artistic endeavours. From fashion design, to quilting, to fabric pictures, and oil and acrylic paintings, I slowly slid into exploring more esoteric belief systems and alternative healing modalities while recognizing how life improves when a person realizes how mind, body and spirit work together.
 
I am a grandmother of four grandchildren who were pampered with my love for “creative cooking” and all kinds of artistic endeavours.
 
I wrote a successful cookbook “Horsing Around In The Kitchen” flavoured with little artistic drawings, while running an equally successful vacation ranch with my husband for European clients. We were featured on National and International television and I had a few live cooking shows also.
 
During the Covid crisis I started to give free art lessons to the neighbourhood children who found themselves very isolated from classmates and friends, were home schooled and often very bored. We started to paint mandalas with wondrous results and amazing psychological effects. The more I delved into the ancient history of this art form, the more fascinated and intrigued I became.
 
The Swiss Psychologist Dr. Carl Jung recognized and used the calming and psychological effects mandalas have on troubled hyperactive minds, facilitating meditation and sleep.
 
One of my young art students is a 12 year-old girl, Leah Hulsebosch, who became completely captivated by the powers of mandalas, as astonishing and miraculous as they are. She is an amazingly talented young lady who paints such outstanding, intricate mandalas that you completely forget they are painted by someone so young. So, I invited her to show her paintings along with my work in this show.
 
A mandala painting is not a picture you hang in your hallway and forget about. It is a “useable” painting, a tool to keep close to you, to gaze at it regularly while washing dishes, watching TV, in your bedroom before sleep, etc. A dot mandala represents “unity in diversity.” The basic meaning behind mandalas is that self-understanding can occur only if there is a deep connection to the universe and vice versa. Find a mandala that resonates with you and it will work its magic. Slowly, mentally enter the mandala, moving toward the centre “seed of life,” the place of no dimension. Take deep breaths, calming your mind, concentrate on the ebb and flow of colour and form, and relax your eyes so the image goes out of focus for 5-15 minutes.
 
The suspicious mind will respond in a very positive way.