Up: [[Expressive Art Ideas - Larger Processes]] Created: 2026-04-05 Updated: 2026-04-12 I’ve been resistant to making mandalas in spite of the fact that [[Jung was into Mandalas]] and I’m a fan of all things Jungian. The main reason for my resistance, I thought, was because mandalas have become a social media and art teachers’ bandwagon. There are mandala colouring books galore, and online courses where you make the instructor’s preplanned mandalas. I didn’t know much about mandalas, but I knew enough to know that copying or colouring in someone else’s design might be meditative, but it wasn’t going to be either psychologically or spiritually meaningful, and those are the two reasons I make art. Three weeks ago, I was participating in a free online art symposium and decided to try out an hour-long class by a woman named Julie Gibbons. Julie is a woman in her 50s who has been teaching mandala art since 2013. Three years ago, she started an online membership program called [Mandala Magic School](https://mandalamagicschool.com), combining the symbolic art of the mandala with the process of art journaling. Today, I spent a few hundred dollars (something I don’t usually do) to join Julie’s school for the next year. Because in Julie I have found a kindred spirit and an accomplished teacher. Julie is well-versed in depth psychology, evident not only in what she says as she is teaching and in her writing, but also in the extensive Jungian collection visible on her bookshelves. She is a symbolic artist, and a talented one, but compare and despair doesn’t happen because Julie is so good at encouraging development of our own symbolic language, and a focus on meaning including the meaning that comes from perceived mistakes. We share an interest in *developing art-making skills as a means of serving the process rather than creating art for art’s sakes*. Finally, Julie is Scottish. She has a degree in Communication Studies with a specialization in the symbolic art of the Picts of Scotland. My heritage is also Scottish. Listening to Julie’s accent, her sign-offs with a friendly “Cheerio!”, feels like a homecoming and I’m keen to learn more about symbolism significant to Scotland. **Note**: Julie doesn’t in any way go by the moniker ‘Mandala Julie’ and I typically wouldn’t think in those terms. But that was the title when this note was a draft and it seems to have stuck.