Our online gallery features artwork by Salia (Bernadette Baumgartner) with a short introduction by Punya. Salia said, “I can hardly stop painting, I am making those little square paintings, one after the other.”
Last summer I saw Salia very rarely, maybe just a few times at one of the evening meetings at Corfu Buddha Hall. When asked, all she said was: “I can hardly stop painting, I am making those little square paintings, one after the other. After that workshop with Shivananda I can hardly stop painting. That’s the reason you don’t see me too often. Too busy.”
During that workshop, I remember, we had a standing joke: everybody would at some point say: “I am going to make a Salia.” The same way as one would say: “I am going to paint a van Gogh.” What that meant was that instead of white grounding we would start with black, and then on top use acrylics in rich golden colours. This brought many of us amateur painters to new discoveries, and some of us lost the fear of big black surfaces.
After the relentless creativity of last summer, Salia is having a good winter’s rest, with walks on the lake in her beloved Switzerland. “I am retired now. I am allowed.” We allow her that, and excuse her for having to write this blurb on her behalf to accompany her beautiful artwork.
Salia (aka Bernadette Baumgartner) started to work as a potter when she was 27 years old. She has been exhibiting since 1988 in her native Switzerland, Germany and Croatia. At the same time she also started to run workshops. She lives in Switzerland and Greece, offering pottery and zenpattern courses. www.artha.ch
More of her creativity on Osho News
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