2000-
This project developed from a variety of influences stretching back nearly 30 years: my Asian art studies in graduate school; my ongoing study of Buddhism; and my enjoyment of animal painting stimulated by the Lakota and Dakota Animal Wisdom Stories project. In preparation for the project I made a trip to India where I searched for stories and did photography and sketching of the Indian environment. The stories found were part of the Buddhist scriptural tradition called Jataka Tales. They give young members of Buddhist monastic communities moralistic lessons through recounting previous lives of the Buddha in animal form. I rewrote the stories, putting them in a voice for contemporary Americans.
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gallery of 24 sample images
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the artwork of Mark W. McGinnis
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