Spring 2009 - Arizona Yoga Association

Artist Portrait: Bradford Goeppner
Om and other Adventures in Paint
Interview by Stefanie Neuburger
After many years of living
and breathing life in the
arts, mostly through
painting and work in the
decorative painting world
Brad had clearly come to
a point of feeling tired and
worn down from head to
toe. Happily or as he likes to say, thankfully his own
curiosity with eastern thought led him to his first yoga
class. The first 42 years of Brad’s life had proven to be
hard on his body. It was certainly the physical aches
that brought him to his first yoga
mat. Those first Iyengar classes, with
the long, slow, and meticulous poses
proved to be the perfect introduction
to yoga. Brad would later learn how
ungrounded he was and that settling
into the present would take many years
on the mat.
7 or 8 years of practice later, Brad took
up Anusara yoga and so began the
deeper commitment to himself and
to his life as an artist. At this point he
started to see that yoga was far bigger
than the practice of asana. “Yoga moved into all my
nooks and crannies and really freed up the restrictive
notions I had about what art is for me. The Om image
came first, because it simply was visually interesting.
Right away, like I had always felt about doing art in the
past. The Om symbol seemed to have a life of its own,
with no end to its potential as a creative and spiritual
symbol.”
14 Spring 2009 • ARIZONA YOGA
After completing the
Desert Song Yoga Teacher
Training program in
2007, Brad suffered his
first “yoga hangover.
The intensity of that
experience opened my
eyes to the depth of
personal work I still had
in front of me. The yoga never gave up on me nor did
I walk away from yoga. I found it stays with you as life
moves along. I kept it with me just like I have always
returned to my paintings over the years, both support
my spirit for life. It has been a blessing to be with art and
yoga and the family of people that now grace my life for
having come to on this journey.”
Although he has a new series of large paintings underway
that is a direct result of my studies in YTT, the Om work
is still a prominent part of his focus as an artist. The yoga
hangover has turned into an excitement for the work that
still lies ahead. One of his big dreams is a huge Om on an
exterior of a building here in Phoenix
or for that matter anywhere around
the country. His way of teaching is
sharing the peace and love of yoga
through his paintings.
Bradford Goeppner works in all setting
and interior sizes. Some of his mural
work can be seen in several yoga
studios around Phoenix (Desert Song
Yoga, AZ Yoga & Yoga Village). You
can reach him by email at bradfaux@
aol.com or call 602-750-6620.