This mandala was done on a trip to the Hawaiian Islands while I stayed in the home of a wonderful Japanese woman.  Without thinking much about it I naturally started to create a motif from my experience with Japanese patterns learned about when I lived in the Islands as an adolescent. It was a fun project and kept me busy for most of the trip.  The inspiration of the simple, yet intricate motif inspired me to think about how much that culture permeated my consciousness when I was a teenager and how lovely and gracious I still consider this culture.