Anyone who has visited The Vista Zen Center has seen Linda’s art hanging on the wall and if lucky have run into the artist herself. Unfortunately, Linda, whose Dhrama name is Seido, lives near Boise Idaho and only visits us during Sesshins. She became interested in Zen several years ago while doing research for a book and began sitting with a local group in Boise. One member of the group, Kathleen Rose was a student of Jakes and Seido met Jake on one of his trips to the Boise area. I asked Seido to give me a brief biography with the intention of pulling out relevant pieces of information to write this introduction. However, I found her personal history to be so fascinating and well written that I have decided to print it as an appendix at the end of this interview. I strongly suggest that you read it after the interview as it will provide some additional insight into this creative soul. So, on with the interview.

Manoj: I know that you’ve been doing art/craft projects for a while. How would you say that your art has changed since you started your Zen practice?
Seido: I spent years embellishing or translating others’ art/craft ideas. As an example, dolls. I have always loved making dolls, especially soft dolls (cloth), and designing clothing for dolls. But in the past, most of those dolls were designed by other people, with a few details or embellishments that were mine. I made them to please others. They didn’t express “me”, but what someone else thought they were or wanted to be. The dolls were simply “cute” or “pretty” or “traditional girls’ dolls”. I often thought about doing “character” dolls, but never did . After all, everyone wanted pretty dolls.

Manoj: How would you say that your art has changed since you started your Zen practice?

Seido: Before Zen, I really didn’t attempt to make anything I did say much about me or my thoughts or feelings. They were just good workmanship and my taste in colors and detail. Sometimes even that was chosen by the recipient.

Since I started my Zen practice, more and more of my art is completely my expression of the me of the moment. The first book I made, Jake’s, was made very early in my practice but it shows signs of the change in my work. The opening doors really are significant. But it uses others’ art extensively to express my thoughts. I still use pieces produced by others in some pieces, less often, and only as components of my work.

Manoj: Could you explain what you mean when you say that your art is an expression of you in the moment?

Seido: When a project dances before my mind it represents me at that time. The piece usually remains as I first envisioned it, with some refinements that reflect how I changed from the time of conception until completion. As I look at the past three years the things I’ve made definitely show stages of Practice, each one displaying a new puzzle or a new kind of understanding.
Manoj: Could you pick one of your recent pieces that illustrates this?

Seido: Oh, yes. The Prisoner/Princess is the latest and the best so far. She may be less impressive than some of the other pieces I have done, but she is definitely an expression of “me” at the time of her conception.
Prisoner/Princess

I had been working on a koan, “the first wall”. I had had dreams about it. I wrote poetry about it. I wrote a very short story about it. Still it didn’t seem “finished.“ Then the Princess swirled into my mind.

The Princess suggests many of the questions I had been brought to ask myself. Like me, and so many others, she is walled into her “crystal” tower, looking outward, at what? Is what she sees only in her mind? Does she have any knowledge of reality? Or does she see only what she expects to see? Is she even aware of the “crystal tower”?

At first glance, the Princess appears to be a doll, but in truth she is a rough approximation of a doll. She is not the “Princess” she appears to be, but is an illusion of regal beauty. I, on the other hand, am truly a person. I am the person others see. But I am sometimes not the person I think I am. Unlike the unfortunate Princess who is forever caged within her Crystal Tower, I am not condemned to stare helplessly at my unreal world. My creation; unfinished, unrefined, unknowing, is in some ways an exaggeration of the creator. Crazy, maybe. But not dishonest. Definitely me in some ways. And now it is “finished.”

Manoj, So, “the prisoner/princess” was a reaction to a formal koan given to you by Jake Sensei?

Seido: Yes. Even after I had the answer, I just couldn’t drop it, until I did the prisoner/princess. Somehow she is the final step. For me she illustrates the koan.

Manoj. I know that Loori in his book The Zen of Creativity, talks about “art koans” as questions that come up during the creative process or from the art object itself. Have any of your recent projects presented themselves as koans in this sense?

Charlie’s Walk

Seido: (Giggle.) Charlie’s Walk. This piece began its life as soon as I read the old Chinese story about a Zen Student called Tung-shan Lin-chieh (Charlie) leaving his Teacher. As he did he asked the Teacher, “How should I describe your dharma if someone asks me about it after you have passed away?” He was told, “Just say, ‘Just that, that!’ “ (In another version he is told, “I am there. There!“ ) Charlie didn’t understand what his Teacher meant. As he walked on his pilgrimage, he waded across a stream. Mid-stream, seeing his reflection, he experienced profound enlightenment. I can identify with Charlie, at least at the beginning of his pilgrimage.
Charlie’s Walk progressed in the same way as most of my pieces: Something I see, hear, or read sparks an idea, usually vague and without definite form. I’m an observer while it circulates in my head and sometimes in my dreams’ “warping” into a shape. After days or weeks, when an image has formed in my head and finally stops changing, it is time for me to put it on paper, with enough detail so that I can remember how it should look. That’s when I decide what medium I think will express the feeling and idea best. I like to work in many different mediums, sometimes putting several together, sometimes using only one or two for a piece. There are so many beautiful things to use to express an idea and I want to feel free to use any of them. I’m just not interested in perfecting my technique, in any one medium. For Charlie’s Walk I wanted the mood to be the important part of the work, so I wanted a “formal”, yet almost sketchy look. Fabric cuts mounted on fabric in panels seemed to give the look I wanted. At this point the “painting” asserted its nature. Charlie wanted to walk from right to left. I even got my sister, a traditional artist (oils) to try to get him to move left to right. No way! Neither of us understand, but I just have to let him walk as he will. I will walk with him, while each of us looks at our own reflection, trying to understand his teacher’s dharma.
It doesn’t matter what mediums I use, or what story I’m telling. The search is always to understand the central questions: “Why and what?” Why am I here? Why am as I am? Why does this subject touch me? Why do I think this, or that? What am I? What do I really want? What is in my reflection? What happens next?
My art is painting with unusual “pigments” and like “painting” is another way of thinking and of meditating. Each piece is the product of my own mind and so tells both the viewer and me something about the real “me”. So art, like the Practice, is the study of my self.

Manoj; People at the Vista Zen Center have marveled at the various wall-hangings that have been on display there. Could you comment on how these have been related to your Zen practice?

Seido: I still find it hard to believe that people really like what I do but so happy that they do.

Manoj: Let me stop you there for a moment. I think that most of us who engage in the creation of art, have insecurities about how our work will be viewed. I remember once challenging a statement you made to the effect that you didn’t think you were a “real” artist. Could you say something about how you have worked with the issues that come up when you start putting your creations out there for a wider audience and people start to see you as an artist?

Seido: Oh, yes, I remember that conversation! Almost everyone has been very kind to me, but there are always a few who offer their “honest” opinions. The approach I use is to remind myself of a few facts. First, my art is my attempt to understand something. It isn‘t commercial so it‘s primary purpose is not to please. I do hope those who see it will like it, but I can live with their dislike for a piece. I just hope each piece will say something to those who see it.
The second fact is that it is impossible to please everyone.
And, if that doesn’t put things in the proper perspective, I have a great memory to fall back on. I received a card from some body I met in California. On the card he called me a “life artist”. I hold his opinions in high esteem, so…..I am an artist. End of discussion!
Sometimes, when a viewer doesn’t realize he is talking to the artist, and he gets very critical of the work, it is so easy to get discouraged or hurt. I am learning to remind myself that not only is he entitled to his opinion, but we are back to that core Koan, “Who am I?” Who is being criticized ? A little time thinking on these questions usually takes the sting from the critique.

I suppose the issue that most often arises is whether my wall hangings are “art” or “craft”. I used to be insulted when my work was referred to as “craft” but when you get right down to it, does it matter? Some master craftsmen are commonly called “great artists”.
I think of the wall hangings as art. I paint with yarn and fabric on mesh rather than on canvas with oil or acrylic pigments, or I collage the work of others to make something unique, something that is mine. It’s still painting. But, again, does it really matter? After all, the point is to come to a greater understanding than before doing the “painting”.

Manoj: OK, back to the original question about how some of your wall hangings are related to your Zen practice.

Seido: Each wall hanging, like most of my work since I started Zen practice, deepens my understanding of some aspect of the Practice and of myself. Inside Linda, and the rakusu began with a koan, raised questions as I worked on the ideas, and left me with koans.

INSIDE LINDA

”Inside Linda” began to come to life after I asked myself, “Who am I, really?” The wall hanging developed, page after page, as I looked for the answer to that question. Why a Japanese kimono? Maybe because I have been fascinated by Japanese women since I was a girl. Why? Why the subjects of each page? These are subjects important to me. Why? And in the end, when you have peeled away layer after layer, there is nothing left but opinion: mine, culture’s, and those of people who know me. I am left still trying to decipher my opinions about each subject, and wondering why I feel so “tangible” when I am absolutely certain that I am not. And the endless koan for me: How many of the words did I choose, and how many of the words chose me? How many illustrations did I choose, how many chose me? I still don’t know.

THE RAKUSU

”The Rakusu” is special. I was preparing for jukai (Ceremony initiating one as a lay Buddhist) and recovering from foot surgery complications. I had studied the jukai booklet and a few other articles about jukai, but I still had to tie everything together in my own head. The koan that began the rakusu was this: How do all the pieces fit together? And what does jukai have to do with each piece and all of them together? When I began designing the rakusu, as one element of Buddhism after another found its place in the whole, each design element found its place on the rakusu. As my hands worked one stitch after another, I wondered: ”What do the words really mean? What do they mean to my life?” That koan stays with me still and always will.
So, each project presents questions, answers, more questions.

Manoj: Thanks so much Seido. I’m sure that your words and your art works will continue to serve as points of inspiration for lots of Zen students. I can’t wait to see your next creation.

APPENDIX: SEIDO’S BIOGRAPHY

The summer I was six, I got my first “out of family” job. A neighbor woman hired me to wash canning jars. I was paid five cents for each tin washtub I did. That summer I also started my own businesses, for the first time. There were two; one successful. The other nearly got my rear end tanned.
When I graduated for high school, I went to work for the FBI in Washington DC. A year later I joined the Army. (They offered three square meals a day, a dry roof over your head, and other benefits.) As I was hungry, that was too good to resist. My first job in the Army was Mail Clerk, then Company Clerk/Training NCO, and Acting First Sergeant while the real one recuperated from a heart attack. Next, I was personal secretary to the Chief of Finance of Southern Europe. Then I was sent to Officer Candidate School. I was given a commission after sixteen weeks and sent off to be Executive Officer in the largest WAC detachment in the Army. I inherited that detachment a year and a half later (became Company Commander). At this station I also worked with the MP’s Criminal Investigation unit every time they did anything with a woman or a child, picking up victims, interviews, etc. Next I was sent to lead a company in Munich, Germany (a cake walk). Six months of that and it was off to Nurenberg, Germany to replace the School’s Officer and spent the next nine months responsible for all the real property of all the American schools in southwest Germany (25). That was when I got a look at the person I was becoming, and decided it was time to go. Six years playing the Army game was making a hard, demanding, self-centered she-wolf.
I applied for admission to the Little Sisters of the Good Shepherd, a religious order which cared for girls and young women whose only alternative was women’s prison or girl’s reformatory. While there I baby-sat the girls when a “real” sister needed an hour or two off, and I taught crafts and American Literature while I went to college. I knew I didn’t belong there during the first year, but it took another eighteen or so months to convince the Sisters of that.
After the convent, I went back to Idaho, got a job, then a better one with the Post Office, and went on a blind date with the man I married six months later. That was almost forty one years, and a son, ago. During those forty one years I was primarily a wife and mother. When the boy was a teen-ager and did exactly what he wanted regardless, I decided to go back into the labor market. I got a job making onion rings in an onion ring factory. During the following years, I worked as a cook and activities director, a deli manager, a store clerk, a security guard, owner-manager of my own janitorial company for seven years, and a computer assembler.
When Hewlett Packard paid me to leave their little family, I retired, for almost a whole year. Then I started a food mix manufacturing business which I ran for eight years, until my health forced me to sell it and to retire, again.
Retirement lasted about nine months, then I took a seasonal job as a cutting girl in a fabric store, then security guard. Now I’m retired again, this time, I think permanently.

After I sold the food business, I found myself at loose ends. A publisher had invited me to submit another manuscript to them, even though they hadn’t wanted the one I had sent to them. I decided now was a good time. So I began digging through the library stacks, looking for a pseudo military organization on which to base a group of characters in my manuscript. Naturally, I read up on ninjas which took me to samurai which took me to Zen which took me to the web. Eventually I found one practitioner in Idaho who came from a group in Salt Lake City. I contacted him which took me to Kathleen Rose in Boise. I met her, started sitting with that group in Boise, and had a negative experience with the original contact (out of Salt Lake City). Kathleen offered to put me into with contact with Jake. I e-mailed him, then met him when he came to Boise, and the rest is known history.

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