Today marks the third and final day of the spiritual ceremony that Tibet’s Drepung Loseling Monastery is performing in the South Sound.

The monks, collectively known as the Mystical Arts of Tibet, have worked continuously creating a mandala (circular and cosmic) painting of colored sand at the University of Puget Sound.

On Thursday, the monks started the ceremony with chanting and mantas. They then poured millions of gallons of sand into place on the flat platform via a chakkpur, or metal funnel that trickles sand out when rubbed with a metal rod.

By 10:45 a.m., today at the Collins Memorial Library, two monks worked seemingly in unison as they put the final touches on the ancient, intricate design.

Around them, some 50 people watched and took pictures of their intricate, almost painstaking work. It’s the same design the monks created outside shortly after Sept. 11, 2001 at Ground Zero in New York.

The scene today was perfect. The library’s reading room was serene, as traditional chanting music played in the background. A shrine to the Dalai Lama, as well as books and other merchandise were seen throughout the library’s reading room.

It’s 11 a.m., now, and we’re a few minutes away from the mandala’s completion. It’s aesthetic beauty will be short-lived, however, as the monks will ceremoniously destroy the painting later today to symbolize impermanence, according to Tenzin Phentsok, a monk and the group’s spokesman.

Visitors to downtown Puyallup will notice a few new sculptural sights around
Pioneer Park starting this weekend.

Workers with Arts Downtown, the volunteer organization in charge of
Puyallup's outdoor art gallery, finished installing 11 new pieces throughout
the city's downtown Friday.

One of the most visible of the new pieces is called Butterfly Ball, a large purple installation visible on Meridian near the Pioneer Park Pavilion.

Arts Downtown's outdoor gallery now consists of 34 pieces owned by the organization and 29
rotating pieces on loan from artists around the country.

That's far more pieces than Arts Downtown had on display when it first
started the outdoor gallery 14 years ago, said Pat Bryant, who chairs the
organization. The group's first gallery had 15 pieces.

"I don't think anyone dreamed it would grow like this," Bryant said.
Still, this year organizers have been making changes to cope with funding
cuts and rising costs.

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