Karen Redding‘s photography embraces the human landscape of diversity, while also highlighting core values of people everywhere: a need for connection, a quest for safety and sense of belonging, and an innate desire to be seen and accepted. Her works will hang on the Art Wall in Forbes Hall throughout April and May, and a reception is scheduled for Sunday April 9 after services.
About the Artist
Karen K. Redding had her first photography show in 2008, and entered the field of photography as both a mental health professional and mindfulness meditation practitioner and teacher in the American Buddhist Vipassana tradition.
Travels Through Humanity is the name of her growing body of photographic work, taken in remote places from around the world. It has received attention in several art exhibits in Southern California. Her recent publication, Ten Ways to Awaken the Wise Heart: A Photographic Journey, is a 120-page hard-bound book of illuminating fine art photographs, taken from around the world with thought-provoking prose that stirs the inner world of one’s own heart.
The book is an adaptation from a Buddhist teaching that depicts the 10 Perfections of the Heart. These 10 illustrated qualities of generosity, safety, letting go, wisdom, courage, patience, honesty, resolve, kindness, and balance offer a compelling invitation to experience the world anew, to seek and find with the author a universal love that is core to the human spirit. The Foreword was written by Jack Kornfield and Trudy Goodman, two of the leading mindfulness and dharma teachers in the West. They endorse the book by saying:
“It is the work of a true artist to give us fresh eyes to see the world anew, to melt open our hearts with visionary tenderness and to remind us of our spiritual power. With a truthful eye and a caring heart, Karen brings us along on her journey of decades of world exploration. Her illuminated images and luminous reflections invite you into the finest of human possibility.”
—Jack Kornfield and Trudy Goodman
Photographs from the book and more will be on exhibit at UU Santa Monica in April and May.
The reception for Redding’s exhibit will be held in Forbes Hall after worship service on Sunday, April 9, 2023, 11:30 am–1:30 pm. The reception is free and open to the public, and the artist will donate a percentage of her profits to support our congregation. To view the exhibit after the reception, please call Esther Chase at (310) 829-5436 x100. For all other inquiries, contact UUSM Art Director Beverly Alison.
