New Year Mandala Project – A Facebook group is formed each year by Na Omi J Shintani, to celebrate and kick off the new year. Participants are invited to create a mandala each day for 12 days, and join in a community of art making and sharing. 750 people from all over the country and world have joined the project yearly over 5 years span. The goal of the project is to encourage art making daily for 12 days. The 12 mandalas become each artist’s calendar for the year, representing the 12 months. Exhibitions and salons have spun off from the Facebook group.
My New Year Mandalas 2025
Beginning anew—reclaim, reuse, refuse, highlighting cracks where light breaks through. Threads of spirit money, burned into the sky, carry whispers of freedom as the seasons arise.
Summer strays with flora and fauna in tow, a dance of life where wild things grow. O’inari soars with origami wings, a guardian of blessings and sacred things.
Health in abundance, a circle complete, protect what is fragile, tread softly, discreetly. Tanuki mischief, ginkgo’s golden hue, each leaf a promise, each moment anew.
My mandalas are not constructed in the traditional sense, but in how they hold balance, transformation, and meaning. They carry personal history, folklore, and the tension between fragility and resilience. Here are a few of my favorites—
#3: The Cushion, the Mended Cup, and the Acorns
This piece is about repair and devotion. This small cushion once held a singing bell. Over time, the colors faded and my mom replaced it with a new one—but she still kept this one. That’s how she was—she could never bring herself to throw anything away. I’m happy I could repurpose it- she would be happy that I found use for it. So, in place of the singing bell, sits my broken but mended cup, repaired through kintsugi—the Japanese art of using lacquer and powdered gold to repair pottery. I didn’t have lacquer and powdered gold, so, I used crazy glue and gold paint, I guess this would be “faux kintsugi”. Instead of hiding the cracks, kintsugi highlights them, embracing imperfection and transformation.
Surrounding the cushion are five Milagros stitched onto the fabric. In Mexican tradition, these tiny metal charms represent prayers, gratitude, or protection. Inside the cup, acorns nest—symbols of growth and resilience. Altogether, this piece reflects how we carry history—the things we can’t bear to lose, the things we mend, and the small ways devotion is woven into our everyday lives.
#7: The Caged Tiger, the Cherry Blossom, and the Birds
This assemblage plays with contrast—power and fragility, strength and impermanence. Inside the box, a tiger sits behind bars, caged but still full of potential. In front of it, a cherry blossom—a symbol of fleeting beauty and the passing of time.
In #7, you see the tiger and the cherry blossom— but in closer examination, there’s more. Covering the box is a screen-printed image of my mother’s reimagined passport and my birth certificate. Passports dictate movement, access, and identity, while birth certificates mark a beginning—a claim to existence. By collaging them onto the box, I turn these documents into something more personal—an artifact of lineage, migration, and inherited stories.
This piece is a kind of mandala—a space where opposing forces meet. The tiger, caged but powerful. The blossom, delicate but enduring. The birds, offering something beyond captivity. And beneath it all, the layers of personal and historical memory—stories of movement, confinement, and resilience.
#8: The Paper Fox, the Folding Ruler, and the Offering
This piece features a fox—O-inari, a sacred figure in Japanese folklore—crafted from paper, balancing on an old folding ruler. Foxes are shape-shifters, tricksters, messengers between worlds. Their presence is both playful and sacred, unpredictable yet deeply rooted in tradition.
Beside it, a small offering of rice—a nod to Inari, the Shinto kami of rice, fertility, and prosperity. Offerings like this are left at shrines as gestures of gratitude and reverence.
At first glance, the fox appears to be precariously balanced on the ruler, caught between movement and structure. But she isn’t in danger of falling—she has wings. And like the fox itself, she exists beyond fixed definitions, neither male nor female, moving fluidly between worlds.