The Legacy of an Artist
Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kiss the ground. -Rumi
Ardis Macaulay
July 26th, 1948 - March 28th, 2024
Ardis had been deeply involved with the arts since childhood and was fortunate to have had parents who supported her interest. As a young adult she attend courses at The Junior School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In college, she worked as an art teaching assistant and graduated in 1969 from St Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota with a Fine Arts major, in addition earning certification to teach art in grades K-12. Ardis spent over 20 years as an art teacher working first with Montessori preschoolers and Junior High students and then, in Ohio, High School students. Later Ardis returned to school to earn a master’s degree in Art Therapy from Wright State University and supported youth psychiatric programs, research, and workshops centered around therapeutically designed care.
“Psychology has always been another love of mine. In 1973 I discovered the spiritually inclined Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, and the artwork he and his patients created. Eager to learn more about Jung’s mandala research and his expanded version of mandala making to include asymmetry, I decided to explore his mandala drawing techniques myself. It did not disappoint. I was amazed by the sense of inner knowing that emerged from this endeavor. Working within the circle format soon became my passion. In the 1970s I developed my own personal style of working, which began with a technique of clearing the mind. My trance drawings began with random looking scribbles within the circle, and soon images began to emerge. The inner landscapes and inner dialogues that unfolded gave me deeper insights into my own psyche. I was hooked on the power of the circle”.
Over the course of Ardis’s adult life, curiosity about the mandala’s symbolic origins grew. It led her to explore the ancient artwork created in sacred indigenous locations across North and Central America, as well as to travel to sacred sites in Asia, Africa, and Europe. These trips enhanced her understanding, and inspired her to design additional multimedia mandala workshops which integrate various cross-cultural traditions with hands-on experiences. Over the years, Ardis facilitated hands-on presentations to numerous groups at art, educational, medical, psychological, and religious institutions throughout the contiguous United States, Hawaii, and Costa Rica.
Ardis’s artworks have been exhibited in galleries across the United States and are in private collections in the US, Mexico, and Costa Rica. Her drawings, paintings and sequenced image ‘bookworks’ have been featured in two art books by artist Nita Leland: The Creative Artist of 1989 and The New Creative Artist of 2006. Images of her work can also be found in two books by artist Margaret Peot: Inkblot of 2011 and The Successful Artist’s Career Guide of 2012. More recent examples of her art and poetry are included in Ripples, the Yellow Springs Senior’s Literary Magazine issues of 2019-2024. More recently she had images of her artwork juried and published in the 2024 and 2025 issues of We’Moon- the international lunar calendar, and her poem Renewal published in the February 2, 2024 edition of the Yellow Springs News.
