10,000 Labyrinths is a lifelong practice, using a compass, ruler, pencil, watercolor paper, and alcohol-based ink. This is a meditation practice that began at my table. Each morning in the winter of 2021, I took up a method of creating art that I started in 2007. I’ve always been fascinated with both lines and circles, as well as refraction and reflection. I imagine the universe endlessly layered with cracked, compact mirrors. WIthin each mirror is a different time, place, situation; infinite variations on the theme of existence. My visual meditations reflect that imagining. It is said that if one does a thing 10,000 times, it makes them a master at whatever that thing is. This is my thing. Perfection is the goal, but never the result. Something goes crooked, ink bleeds beyond the pencil line, the circle is slightly off. This is what makes 10,000 Labyrinths a visual meditation practice. So much of making these visual meditations is visceral, which is why I use watercolor paper, even though the ink degrades faster. I find the decaying fascinating. Which colors fade first? Which shapes become obscured? And isn’t that so for existence? Endless layers in varying degrees of imperfections. The pencil and the markers feel good against the grain of the paper. I am turned on by how brilliantly lines intersect, on purpose or not. My goal is to create 10,000 visual meditations, using the same tools and materials to create each one. Over the last 14 months, I’ve created 86. 10,000 is clearly ambitious, but reminding myself, as I sweep ink around the curve of a crooked circle or just a bit over the perfect intersection of lines, that this is a practice. It is a practice because the point is to do it and do it and do it.
Nikki Patin 