Category: Writings

Mandala Lotus / Future

“Like the truth of a pure lotus flower blooming from muddy water“

Creating these 48 Mandala Lotus Dresses, here at this elder stage of my life, is hope, awareness and prayer. Creation is a source of pure inspiration taking form as the human life force.Inspiration arises from within, when you feel the truth burning within you. I follow that inspiration.The consciousness of the Mandala Lotus was born out of an effort to preserve pure light as inspiration in this chaotic world, a place like muddy water.To create a pure lotus flower out of muddy water, we need to keep our own hearts pure, offering effort and perseverance in endless hours and moments, to that presence of purity and tranquillity.

Yes, what we need to know above all is the law of effort. If we forget this necessity, we must pay the price of physical and mental degeneration: our consciousness loses its power to follow inspiration. And creation may be selflessness. With constant patience, eliminating one’s own thoughts, eliminating one’s ego, connecting with inspiration without being distracted by the muddy spirit of the world.

Like Mount Fuji which stands tall and unaffected by the chaos of this world. Even if the earth is polluted, the summit of Mt. Fuji towers above, ever pure. Our life force is naturally maintained by the cosmic order. The fundamental reality of life, the sublime joy of human existence, no matter how miserable, bitter, or dirty the world may be. If beautiful, shining lotus flowers exist in this world, may we not also live like them? That awareness should change this world.

A lotus flower is life-centred, shining beyond everything. The lotus flower is not affected by muddy water. It is a symbol of joy that shines through the mud. A person’s true joy and happiness must arise after they overcome hardships and break through muddy waters, like a lotus flower blooming.For me, the effort to break through the muddy waters of this world is the perseverance to use fabric and thread to carve an eternity out of this world’s moments. It is a time of patience that transforms each stitch into eternity.

I empty myself. Only the presence of cloth, thread, and one needle weave eternal time. I am not there. In this world of greed, dirt, and deadly laziness, every movement of my hand dreams of a future lotus flower. One day when the 48 lotus dresses bloom, it will surely become a great mandala. The time will come when its absoluteness will pierce the darkness of this world, and with patience and effort, connecting each moment with inspiration, there will dawn an era in which newborn truths shall bloom. Like Mt. Fuji, which stands tall, unaffected by the poisons of this world.I believe in this hope, and this is why I weave the intention of the mandala into eternity, moment by moment, with every movement of my hand.

Related Post :

The Dress as a Sculpture

In my work, a piece of fabric is transformed into a dress through an intense and unbroken engagement with each wave of change in the fabric’s own swell and movement.

The starting point is a flat piece of fabric. Sewing a raised broderie into this flat surface introduces a new three-dimensional note, creating waves of movement and new shapes and swell as the fabric responds.

I make a single cut into the new swell in the fabric. The fabric responds again and

I follow the fabric’s waves of movement intuitively. From action to response, the story of this dress is being written, moment to moment, as each change and response happens.

My hands have to see and grasp the story that the fabric is telling. The fabric takes on a life of its own, with new mandalas flowering in it, one after another.

More complex shapes are created by cross cuts, twists in the fabric, new broderies.

After a long time, my hands become still. The dress is complete: a piece of fabric has become a living mandala.

I work so that different dimensions can flower one by one on the same piece of fabric, just as the petals of a lotus flower open one after another.

Like the cell and the body, we can zoom in to see the micro-mandalas sewn into the detail of the dress, and we can stand back to see the macro-mandala of the whole dress.

Fukuko Ando

Related Post :

Mandala Lotus Born

I had an intuition in 2020 of the dresses that I should make during the rest of my lifetime. When I was little, I read the story of Chūjō-hime (747–775) and it made a great impression on me. I have always remembered how I longed for the process by which the thread was drawn out from the stem of the lotus, and when it touched the many, coloured flowers, the thread itself changed colour, as in a dream, and the mandala was completed.Chūjō-hime is credited with weaving the Lotus Thread, Taima Mandala, a mandala depicting the cosmography of the Pure Land. It is said that she managed this miracle in a single night. Some versions of the story say that she was aided in the task by an apparition of the Great Spirit in response to her prayers. Other beliefs hold that she was herself an incarnation of Kannon, the Bodhisattva of Compassion.

At the beginning of creation, lotus flowers bloom from the swamps of the universe.
A world of silence where many lotus mandalas bloom and pray.
At the centre of the universe, the Creator God prepares a new world.
A world of eternal silence, where lotus petals smile like a gentle Goddess.
Infinite prayers overlap across time and space.

As long as I have my life, how many mandala prayers can I weave?
Mandala Lotus prayers as disciples who prepare the time for the birth of the next Buddha. If I can make 48, can I dream of unlocking the path to the new world of Bodhisattva Maitreya, our next Buddha 5,670 million years in the future who, it is said, will appear and rescue humanity?

Related Post :

The spiritualisation of Matter

Matter becomes Spirit

The spiritualisation of Matter

Allow spirit to act through Matter

This is not to use Matter in an attempt to understand, to explain, to take over.

It is rather to surrender oneself, allowing Spirit to penetrate Matter

Love is found between the surrender of self and the surrender to Spirit.

Hands, now imbued with this Love, touch Matter

Matter fuses with this Love

The spiritualisation of Matter

Fukuko Ando / 2013

“I have created dresses,

but what I wish to show you is the miracle of life.

A miracle is the realization and the materialization of that which seems impossible.

A tear turning into a diamond is not a miracle.

The existence of Life from moment to moment, celebrated in each instant.

This is miracle.”

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12 Robes

Fukuko Ando

1) L’Archange METATRON

DO – RE – MI – SI – LA

Floating in empty space, millions of light-years separation us from each other. Galaxie are the cells of the Universe.

2) Le Code MAYA – X – l’argent

OMEGA : over ten million stars

3) Le Code MAYA – Y – l’or

ALPHA : a tiny region of the Milky Way

4,5,6 ) Le GRAAL – nouvelle Tri-Unité –

three Grail dresses are ONE
The quest for a sacred object as life’s goal, even risking one’s very life,
demonstrates that one’s purpose may be more important than one’s own existence.

BEFORE A BETTER WORLD

7) La Fleur du TEMPS

New Birth
The sound of time arises in the Universe, above and beyond time.

8) Le feu de l’ESPRIT

The flame of spirit burns, but does not consume itself.

9) Le feu du CIEL

Water from the heavens, water from above, bringing boundless love,
endlessly flowing.

10) Le VERBE Créateur – Y

After the pouring of water from above, long silence.
And the Créative WORD is the birth of eternal light – the New DNA

11) Le VERBE Créateur – X

After the pouring of water from above, long silence.
And the Créative WORD is the birth of eternal light  – the New DNA

12) L’ANDROGYNE PRIMORDIAL

Union and Dissolution : the time of the androgyne.
Light : ONE essential vibration, having come from the Heavens and from the Earth, the miracle of Oneness resonating above and below.

AlPHA and OMEGA

Related Post :

THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING

On a subtle level, a dress can be said to express the 4 fundamental forces/ interactions of nature and their different relative intensities, very much as the structure of the humain being does. These 4 forces organize and structure all interactions on the dimensional, temporal and spatial levels, according to the Theory of Everything.

“On a subtle level, the dress can be said to express the 4 fundamental forces/ interactions of nature and their different relative intensities, very much as the structure of the humain being does. These 4 forces organize and structure all interactions on the dimensional, temporal and spatial levels, according to the Theory of Everything.“

Fukuko Ando

< VIBRATION >

The dress has its own inherent vibration. As we follow that vibration, the dress literally takes on its shape, color, characteristics. The dress becomes its vibration as part of Everything. This vibration finds its way to the cells and the very atoms within the body. The body and the dress vibrate together, inwardly as well as outwardly.

< RESONANCE >

Everything that exists in nature has resonance, creating connection and communication. Life finds its unity in direct connection with Everything through the medium of resonance.The dress resonates in the flesh, in the memory and in the mind. This unification between the body and the dress generates a new resonance.

< CONSCIOUSNESS >

Being aware, from moment to moment, of the hart’s breath, the energy, particles and waves which give rise to the ceaseless transformation of all forms.

< MULTIDIMENSIONAL PERFECTION OF THE BODY >

The body is changing each and every moment, yet it is stable in time and space. These aspects of body overlap in an act synchronous manner. Seen from a multidimensional perspective, the dress becomes infinitely small and infinitely large, microcosm and macrocosm, as does the subtle composition of the body; from celle to atom or DNA.
The unified dress is a dress of vibration, sharp, color, organization, free from all fixedness in the body. It is a complete UNIFICATION of the present moment.

Pleiades – Seven Sisters

Seven Sisters
Seven Souls
Seven Souls live in you
The first dwells at the tips of your toes
While the second to the sixth swirl round you,
Up to your crown
The seventh abides still higher
All seven pulsate with life

Truth – Exists. CELAENO
Love-Grows. STEROPE
Harmony-Moves. TAYGETA
Awareness-Creates. ELECTRA
Peace-Rests. MAYA
Happiness -Transcends all. MEROPE
Plenitude-Eternal Joy AlCYONE

Seven Sisters
Seven Souls
We are different
We are ONE

Pleiades : Seven Sisters

Fukuko Ando / 2015

SAYOKO Texte Robe Phénix 2001

In the 21st century
What can you share?
Everything has come to end and has been reborn.
Renaissance.
I can say with much gratitude and happiness.
Now,
Only who you are in true.
A Phenix,
I would like to see you reborn.
An open heart, a released body, a freely flying phenix.
Love,
New love is growing in you
With deeper understanding and stronger senses.
You accept everything with a smile on your face.
21st century,
I am happy it we can share a much deeper and broader love.

FUKUKO ANDO

I arrived in Paris in 1991. Two revelations in my life led to my beginning to create my unique pieces in my own way:

the dresses created by Madeleine Vionnet and the Winged Victory of Samothrace.

In 1992, I read “Vionnet”, a book by Betty Kirke. Vionnet worked with a half-size wood mannequin to create her dresses.

She used to say, “What I created was not Fashion. It is harmony: an ensemble of shapes and colours that would never change nor age. I wanted only things that would last, not just for a month or a year, but forever.” 

And, “There are no seams in the human body, anymore than there are in a piece of fruit.” These words, and the image of her dresses, revealed to me the truth about creating. She also said, “I have created dresses in my own way. All by myself, I brought about a revolution.”

She opened my eyes to the truth that real creation is complete liberation.

Complete liberation…

The Winged Victory of Samothrace in the Louvre.

When I saw this statue for the first time, I felt an energy that was incredibly strong, sacred, the statue seemed immortal and alive. Grace becomes incarnate through the wind, which is the symbol of complete liberation. I felt the same complete freedom was expressed in the Winged Victory of Samothrace and in Vionnet’s dresses.

I began to create my dresses in my own way, as Vionnet had done, and my own unique method developed: creating a Dress with a full-size mannequin in front of a mirror and with the intention that my creation would give the same experience as the Winged Victory of Samothrace: complete liberation.

In 1994, I had my first exhibition in Paris. I would like to record the statement I made at that time.

Fashion is experiencing a period of transformation, and at this time of change I wish to seek out what new reason there may be for the existence of the Dress. I CREATE DRESSES FOLLOWING MY OWN WAY. The technical aspects of my own way of creating a Dress developed as I worked over the course of a year. I always respect the fabric; the fabric is living. I never oppose it. I always obey the fabric’s own fall and line.

As a result, the Dress I create follows the form of the human body. The fabric is folded, twisted, stretched: a Dress is completed. It takes life through the human body. The Dress is not inert. It is alive.

Every living thing evolves, just as a human being does. Fashion has left childhood and adolescence behind, and stands at a threshold: it must move on towards maturity. The time has come to change the reason behind the existence of the Dress. I feel the new Dress will be the Dress of maturity. A new Dress will be born out of maturity. It will encompass the whole process of the history of Fashion. This is what I wish to explore and experience by following my own way when I create a Dress. BEGINNING / ENDING I have looked back to the origins of the Dress. The Dress that I am exhibiting now expresses my research into the evolution of Fashion from its beginnings. I hope on another occasion in the future to present the conclusions to which my research leads me. Thank you. PARIS, March 1994 Fukuko Ando

FINALLY

In 1994, I felt that the Dress I would create for the future would be a new step in the evolution of Fashion. Now in 2014, I feel that my Dress is actually a step beyond Fashion itself. My own way of creating a Dress has led me to this conclusion.