Paul Maloney, Bean Artist

I’m not much into exotic art. But take something exotic and add a local element, and I’m there. In fact, I was the only one there yesterday –in the Great Hall at the State Capitol where Paul Maloney has just started a bean mural.

Inspired by the sand Mandala’s of Buddhist Monks,  Maloney creates temporary murals from North Dakota farm products–beans and some grains. He’s creating a field scene with a rising sun and a woman spreading seeds…well, here, here’s the sketch:

The biggest problem with creating this thing? It’s not getting permission to camp out on the floor of the State Capitol. The State Treasury Secretary and  North Dakota Right to Life sponsored the project–which means they secured permission and insurance.

“North Dakota is probably the only state where I could get away with doing something like this in the state capitol,” says Maloney who lives just across the river in Mandan, ND.

Rather, the biggest problem in creating the mural is finding blue.  Maloney says he needs blue flint corn for the sky, and you can’t find any right now in North Dakota. So, he’ll have to adjust his pallette to make it work.

He expects to be done with the mural on Wednesday and will sweep it away on April 9th.

Then he’s got the problem of disposal. Buddhist Monks put the sand from their Mandala’s into a river. It’s an important part of the ritual. When Maloney did a similar project 4 years ago, he checked with some Monks and they said it would be okay if he donated the beans to a charity to be used for soup.

Moving water–kind of the same thing they thought.

Detail