Bodhisattva in Chicago

My sketches at the Art Institute ended with this one, that I love. A bodhisattva from China.
I too love this story found in the Yoga of Spiritual Devotion, by Prem Prakash:

During the heyday of Buddhism in China, many women became enlightened. Unfortunately, the social structure of the society was such that these women could not take their rightful place as spiritual teachers. Many of them have become known as "tea ladies." During that time there were pilgrimage routes on which the monks would travel, visiting various temples, monasteries and teachers. Along the footpaths the tea ladies set up small stalls at which they served tea, food, and sometimes unexpected grace to the traveling pilgrims.

There are many stories describing incidents where monks stopped for refreshments at these tea stalls and arrogantly addressed the proprietress. After some time, the tea lady would subtly introduce a profound exchange that, if the monk was sensitive, would reveal the enlightened state of the woman before him. Stories relate how some monks were brought to enlightenment by these humble, nameless bodhisattvas.

Ardhanarishvara

The combination of tight and loose sketches led to this one, of a statue of Shiva as Ardhanarishvara. She called to me from across the room, drawing me to her to draw her. I hadn't seen this manifestation of Shiva before.

I learned that Ardhanarishvara represents union, oneness, wholeness. The female principle, Shakti, as inseparable from the male principle, Shiva.

Ardhanarishvara is also represented as a golden egg. The RigVeda states that the universe was created from a giant golden egg that split into two halves, one creating the sky and the other, the earth. Interesting.

from The Solitude of the Soul

I sketched at the Art Institute, in the afternoon, on my final day in Chicago. This was my first and I was nervous as I'd hardly drawn for a year. It's a detail of a sculpture called "The Solitude of the Soul", created by Lorado Taft in 1901.

About the sculpture, Taft said, "The thought is the eternally present fact that however closely we may be thrown together by circumstances . . . we are unknown to each other."