Wheel of the World
One Woman's Creative Journey for Global Peace
By Vijali Hamilton
About the Artist
Vijali Hamilton
Vijali Hamilton is an artist, performer, musician, and author but, more than that, she has redefined what it means to be an artist. Rather than creating alone in a studio, she has taken her work literally out into the world, circling the globe with her World Wheel Project. She uses the environment and the globe itself as her canvas to convey the underlying interconnectedness of all living things, thus promoting healing and peace. Engaging each community with which she comes into contact, Vijali collaborates in a performance piece that addresses particular current issues and dilemmas in their culture. She teaches carving and painting and encourages people to assist in the creation of environmental stone sculptures and murals representing the spirit of their locale and forming a space for performance events. Vijali always leaves each community with something of lasting value. In an Indian village she founded a communal gathering center for Baul mystics; in the Amazon of Ecuador, a school for Shuar tribe children to preserve their language and culture; in Senegal, she worked building wells with women on dire water issues arising from global warming; in the largest sex trafficking location in the Eastern world, Kolkata India, Vijali created a mural with the children of prostitutes teaching them painting, and returning to her birthplace of Los Angeles she worked with youth who were homeless. These are a few activities representative of similar projects in the 21 countries she has worked in to date. In all these instances, a profound healing took place through the magic of collaboration, art, and spiritual communion. Vijali actively continues working into the future with hope for global understanding between individuals, cultures, religions and countries to embrace peace in the lives of our Earth Family.
For over thirty-five years, Vijali Hamilton has worked and taught around the world as an artist/peacemaker. She collaborates with diversified communities, utilizing her skills as a sculptor, filmmaker, poet, musician, and author. Vijali started her World Wheel Project in 1986 to explore the role that community-based art can play in building a world at peace. Vijali is both visionary artist and meditation teacher. Over one thousand of her artworks are held in museums, public places, and private collections. She gives seminars and retreats on meditation and the creative process, internationally and at her World Wheel Center outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Vijali was for ten years a monastic member of the Vedanta Society in Santa Barbara. She holds a Masters in Fine Arts from Goddard College and is a fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science. In 1986 she founded her first World Wheel project, a seven-year spiritual and artistic pilgrimage in which she circled the globe at the 34th latitude creating monumental stone sculptures and community-based ceremonial performances in twelve countries. It addressed social and spiritual needs of each community, including gender equality and appreciation of other cultures as relatives in our Global Family. Some of the countries visited were Israel/Palestine, India, Tibet, China, Russian Siberia and Japan. In 1999 Vijali began the second World Wheel, Global Peace Through the Arts journey. The first sites visited were the Andes, the Amazon of Ecuador, Senegal, Australia and the Republic of Georgia. She also established a World Wheel Project for the Homeless Youth in Los Angeles. The journey continues. Vijali’s books include: World Wheel, One Woman’s Quest for Peace; Of Earth and Fire [poetry and art]; Liberty: Enlightening the World [poetry and art]; Listening to Stone: Awakening to the Spiritual in the Natural World [poetry and art]. She has also produced the feature film, Wheel of the World, One Woman’s Creative Journey for Global Peace and Spirit of Standing Rock.
Website: www.worldwheel.org
YouTube: Vijali’s World Wheel CHANNEL